Miranda's POV
I was dragged into the center of the Raiden compound, the guards dragging me like a rag doll.
"Move," one of them muttered, his hand on my arm squeezing till I winced.
Past the iron gates, the courtyard stretched out before us, burning with fire pits and wolves in black leather, faces masked with cruelty and indifference. None of them looked away. Not a single one.
"This one's the Crimson girl?" a breathy voice whispered.
"Don't look much."
Guards shoved me into a ring of wolves. I tried to shove back, but there were too many around me, bodies closing in to form a snarling, threat-spreading wall. I could feel their eagerness.
I was the diversion.
"Undress her," one spat out, voice smooth with hunger.
My blood went cold.
Guards leaped on me. Fingers poked under the collar of my dress, pulling me forward.
"No—" I kicked, turned around, and fought like an animal, but their fingers were on me everywhere, hard and cruel. Blind with tears, I pulled at my clothes with shaking fists, horror coursing through me.
A scream ripped the air.
The world froze. And I raised my gaze to see Colton.
He strode through the crowd as death, leather earth boots, gold eyes boring holes through flesh and bone. Guards stepped back, letting hands go from me as if burned.
The crowd parted, heads bowed.
"You place hands on what is mine without permission," Colton snarled, voice low, icily lethal, "and I break your goddamn necks."
The guards dropped to their knees.
"Forgive us, Alpha," one stuttered, shaking.
Colton's eyes flew to me. His face was empty, but his fists were balled so hard I swear I heard the pop of his knuckles.
"Who ordered it?" he snarled, still cold, still scary.
No one answered.
He moved a step closer. "I asked," he snarled, "who the fuck ordered it?"
"Beta Lucan—" someone gagged.
Colton wheeled to the beta, who lay by the fire, his lip beginning to curl into a sneer.
"Bring him," Colton ordered.
Two enforcers held Lucan to the pavement before he could roll away. They shoved him to his knees in the circle.
"You think you're purchasing this pack to become in charge?" Colton asked, voice low, deadly.
Lucan growled. "I thought she was property. You said—"
The impact of Colton's fist against Lucan's nose echoed through the courtyard. Red sprayed out onto the pavement.
Lucan doubled over, coughing red into his palms.
"You don't think," growled Colton, his face above him. "You obey."
No one breathed.
Colton took a step back, gazing down at Lucan as he thrashed there, blood soaking the earth around him. His voice was cold and cutting.
"This is your warning, Lucan," Colton told him, his voice frostily smooth. "The next time you shove the line this far, I won't be so polite. I might not even pause at a punch. You won't be standing up. Do you understand?"
Lucan nodded, his white face, his wide eyes filled with fear.
"Good," Colton told him.
He stood frowning at the other wolves, who were standing back in quiet watch. They didn't budge. They were not willing to breathe too deeply and didn't know what would occur.
Waving the scene aside with a hand gesture at the chin, Colton instructed the enforcers, "Take him away.".
Lucan fell to his knees, trembling with shock from the strike, but he did not make a sound. His pride would mend if he were smart. Colton had warned him: cross him again, and Lucan would be staying.
The wolves parted like the sea, and Lucan was dragged off, head down.
Colton's hard and cold eyes flicked at me. I froze, staring into his cold eyes and unreadable face. He made me feel like I was with a maniac.
"You're safe," he said to me, taking a quick, sickly and flirtatious glance at me before raising his eyes to meet mine. "With me. Nobody gets to you without asking me first. Never."
I couldn't talk. My throat was a battlefield of relief, shame and fear.
Colton gestured to the guards. "Take her to the holding cells. Now."
They hustled me out, moving like machines.
The building towered above me: black rock buildings, screaming wind, and the wolves' insistent stare that hungered for me broken. I stumbled into a tiny concrete cell with nothing but a cot, a bucket, and a spiked window.
The door crashed shut behind me.
I leaned against the wall, shaking. My skin crawled where they touched me, and my garment was ripped at the shoulder.
I pulled my legs up to my chest and fell onto the cot. I was quiet and waited.
The door groaned open.
Colton stepped in, ducking under the low doorway. He strode three long steps across the room and settled to haunches before me.
"Look at me," he ordered.
I couldn't.
He placed two fingers on my chin, prying it up. His touch was unexpectedly soft, but it still hurt.
"You think this is hell," he said, studying my face like it held answers. "You don't even know what hell is yet."
"Why?" My voice cracked, hoarse and broken. "Why me?"
He exhaled a sound that wasn't quite a sigh. "Because your father's a coward who needed to buy my mercy."
I stared at him. "You're lying."
His mouth twisted into something cruel. "Am I?"
The world whirled by. My dad hadn't sold me. He'd sold me—to continue his own wretched existence.
Colton's hand dropped from my chin. He paced the tiny room, his footsteps wound tight.
"You were bought as a concubine," he bellowed boastfully. "A sex slave. That's what your contract says."
Those words stung more than any blade.
"I didn't turn it in," he continued, his voice cold and deadly. "I don't swallow everything that comes along like trash."
Tears ran down my face, smoldering and unuttered.
"But you're still mine," Colton continued. "And the Raiden Pack will do as I say or die."
I watched him stand at the doorway, and slowly looked back over his shoulder.
"You should sleep, Miranda," he said. His voice was almost soft. "You need your strength for tomorrow."
That made my heart race and I got even more scared. And he left.
With a loud crash, the door clanged shut.
I held myself and shuddered, fighting back tears. Why was this the way my life had to be? My father was the devil and now I met a breathing psychopath.
I knew from that moment that Colton was the deadliest I had met.
How do I ever get the hell away from him and all of this?