Juliana laughs. I think she’s about to tell Memnon that getting in is impossible, but then her throat works.

“You need to be invited as a guest to the midnight auction—we hold those on the new moon as well.” After she speaks, she spits at Memnon.

The spittle hits his shirt. “Do that again, and I cut off a finger.”

Juliana grimaces. “I hate you.”

She begins to turn toward where I’m resting when Memnon catches her face.

“This is between you and me,” Memnon says. “You will not look at Selene. You will not speak to her unless spoken to. Or else I get creative and I make you answer my questions.”

My heart beats faster as Juliana glares at him.

“Now, tell me about this auction,” Memnon says. “Is it connected to the murders?”

“No,” she says.

“Then what is it for?” he asks.

Juliana fights this answer in particular. Eventually it’s ripped from her. “We auction off bonds to supernaturals.”

Goddess.

That sounds like a living nightmare.

It could’ve easily been my fate as well.

“The girls I bond—not all of them go to my father and brother,” Juliana continues. “Most of them are sold, either privately or at these monthly auctions.”

For a second, I cannot draw in air. Then, then⁠—

I lean over and gag. There’s nothing left to purge from my stomach, but I cannot stop the visceral reaction.

It was horrifying enough when I knew Juliana was forcibly binding witches, but to realize these same women—women I went to school with, women I was friends with—were then being sold off to other supernaturals…

Memnon’s magic is unspooling out of him, and through our bond, I sense his rage deepening.

“Do the”—Memnon’s lip curls into a grimace—“buyers know these supernaturals are already bonded?”

Juliana’s gaze has drifted to Memnon’s magic, but now she brings her attention back to him.

“My clients believe their intended bonds are willing.”

“But they’re not,” Memnon says flatly.

“Some are.” Juliana has the gall to sound defensive. “Some are excited for their new lives.”

“No one is fucking excited to be trafficked, Juliana,” I say to her.

Juliana twitches, like she’s about to turn to me, but Memnon’s previous command stops her.

“How does the exchange happen?” Memnon says.

She glares at him. “The buyers pay the money, and we officiate a bond. Once it’s complete, my own bond dissolves away, and the new pair move on with their life.”

My mind catches on one detail—her bond dissolves away. Some of these binding spells, like the one she forced on me, are for life, while others must end the moment a new bond is created.

“Who sets the terms of this auctioned bond—you or the buyer?” Memnon asks.

I don’t want to know. This is all so sick.

Juliana hesitates again. “The buyer,” she eventually admits.

The terms of that forged bond could be anything, anything at all. Even the fabled deals with the devil are technically forged bonds, despite favoring one side over the other. Just like those bonds, these buyers could have some terrible stipulations, and it wouldn’t matter. Juliana could make her bonded victims agree to it while they were still under her control.

It’s not lost on me that not even the devil does forced bonds. That’s how dark this shit has gotten.

I must make some noise. I feel nauseous again. It’s too much. Too much pain, too much violence, too much sick, twisted perversion. I have many questions I still want answered, but I don’t think I can stomach them tonight.

Memnon glances over at me, his power still consuming him. His eyes look merciless as he takes me in.

“Juliana,” my mate says, “you will stay here kneeling, and you will not speak. If you displease me in any way, I will make you remove an appendage.”

The sorceress glares at him, but already, the magic has silenced her.

Memnon strides over to me, his blue magic shrouding him.

He kneels next to me and cups my cheek. I will take care of this. You are safe now, I vow it.

He presses his palm more firmly against my skin. “Sleep.”

Darkness swallows me up.

OceanofPDF.com

CHAPTER 38

The first thing I notice when I rouse is a sense of weightlessness, like a stone has been lifted off my chest.

I blink my eyes open and realize I’m cradled in Memnon’s arms, my head nestled against the crook of his neck. My body sways gently as he carries me.

Fearsome queen. Brave-hearted warrior, he murmurs down our bond, noticing that I’ve roused. You valiantly survived horrors tonight. I could not be prouder.

Horrors? I say groggily.

But then I turn my head just a little and take in a familiar room. There’s debris and smashed cardboard boxes and an overturned chair. Immediately, a shiver racks my body.

I fist a bit of Memnon’s shirt as I remember.

My gaze falls to the center of the room, where a massive pool of blood glistens around a dozen fleshy lumps that my eyes refuse to make sense of.

A hand cups my face, angling my head back to where it had been resting and shielding me from the sight.

She died slow, he reassures me.

I swallow thickly. Those lumps…those are Juliana. Or what’s left of her at least.

Revulsion claws up my throat. But it’s offset by that lightness in my chest. The bond Juliana forced on me…it’s gone. I can sense the hollowed-out space where it once was. With her death, it dissolved away.

Memnon did that.

I glance up at him as we exit the room and head down a sterile hallway, my heart suddenly overfull. The sorcerer’s eyes are still glowing, and his magic is still churning.

I won’t release my power until I know you’re safe, he admits.

He must be listening to my every thought.

I am.

“Stop that,” I whisper.

He gazes down at me. Not until I know you’re safe.

I’m too weak and weary to argue. My limbs throb and I’m still trembling faintly. My stomach feels like it won’t ever keep another meal down, and my mind is rebelling against all it’s witnessed this evening.

But my heart—gratitude is spilling from it. If not for Memnon, I’d likely still be in that room, enduring who knows what sorts of twisted tortures.

His arms tighten around me, and he brushes a kiss against my temple.

I will always come for you. I will always fight for you.

I press my lips together to keep my sad little sob in my throat. I’ve been whittled down to this soft, weepy thing. I would say I hate it, but right now in the security of Memnon’s arms, it feels safe to be vulnerable.

So I let him carry me, not thinking much of anything as we pass one slumped form, then another and another in the hallway. I think my eyes touch on half a dozen people lying motionless on the ground before I notice the lines of blood running from their noses, eyes, and ears.

I don’t need to stretch my senses or my magic out to know they’re all dead.

What happened to them? I ask.

They were in my way.

Reflexively, my hand tightens around the fistful of shirt I clutch. Memnon must have done this when he entered the building.

I take it all in as we round a corner and a gust of wind hits us. I glance over at what once must’ve been the front entrance of the building. Now the double doors and shattered glass shards lie on the ground in the entrance hall, more bodies scattered among them.

Red and blue flashing lights spill across the space, and the gaping opening is filled with a semitransparent ward, the magical wall indigo blue. Several spent bullets lie on the other side of it, and beyond them are police officers crouching behind the open doors of their cruisers, their guns drawn. I squint my eyes as I take in the parked police cars that line the street outside the building.