A Twisted Anthology: A Twisted Design Book

The Rogue's Initiation Part 5

The bidding for Evan was pretty slow. She only got to a thousand because of Queen Bellamy reminding people it was for the children. In the end, it seemed to go well. Evan pouted once she got off the stage and Alpha Lucien patted her shoulder.

Another female readied herself to go out. This one wasn’t a shapeshifter or a human. She was also taller, with long black hair and creamy brown skin.

“No glamour.” Alpha Lucien said.

“Yes, sir.” She sighed.

Suddenly, she was shorter than Talia with moth wings and light yellow skin. Her hair was still black, but it seemed to float over her shoulders instead of staying flat like it had before. She smelled a little like licorice.

“Next up, Shayleigh!”

The small woman entered the stage and flew to the center. Her wings were beautiful. They were soft gray with black spots. They looked like they were fuzzy, but it had to be that powder-like stuff that was on moth wings. She landed next to Queen Bellamy and bowed to the crowd.

“Shayleigh is four hundred and seventy-six years old. A pixie/autumn spirit mix. She likes flying, cooking, and fencing. For work, she runs the botanical gardens on the edge of town. She has no gender preference, and a special exception. No cat shifters.” Queen Bellamy announced.

There were some disappointed groans in the audience. I wondered why she had special exceptions, but it wasn’t really my business. I watched with interest as the bidding started at five hundred dollars and climbed quickly. In the end, she was won for six thousand one hundred dollars.

She seemed really proud of herself as she came off the stage. While the next female was being announced, I felt the offer to join the collective being reissued. I accepted it. I was officially a member of the Eaten Heart. Alpha Lucien patted me on the back.

“Welcome to the collective.” He whispered.

“Thank you.” I replied.

The woman who’d been on stage came off. She was grumbling about going for less than the pixie. It seemed Shayleigh was the price to beat.

“Next is our first male up for auction. Richard!”

Richard straightened his jacket and walked to the center of the stage. He turned to the crowd and gave a little wave. There were whistles and catcalls from the audience again. One guy was particularly loud.

“Richard says he doesn’t mind a male or female partner and would like to remind whoever he’s with that he is saving himself for his fated mate. Richard is nineteen years old. He likes camping, hunting, and foreign films. He is the future Gamma of Lune Rouge and my cousin. Let’s start bidding at five hundred.” Queen Bellamy told the crowd.

Bidding took off extremely fast. For a man who was guaranteed to not indulge with his date, he was highly desirable. Though, that was probably due to the fact that he was Queen Bellamy’s cousin and a ranked pack member.

“Sold for $7,225. Dilly, I can’t believe you would spend that much on your brother-in-law.” She laughed.

“Now he can’t cancel on us!” A voice shouted over the crowd.

Richard walked off stage shaking his head. “I can’t believe Dillon and Jean-Claude did that.”

“They didn’t want you put in an uncomfortable situation. Your mate wasn’t here. Maybe you’ll find her at the next regional mate conference. Or the national one, that’s coming up soon.” Alpha Lucien said hopefully.

The rest of the night went like that. Every third person was male. I heard the name ‘Roan’ and realized the motel manager’s grandson was one of the men on the auction block. He was exotic looking and handsome. Unlike some of the others, he flexed and flirted with the crowd. He made a decent amount. Not as much as Richard, but a lot more than Evan.

When Emmalyn Grove was announced, I was a little shocked to see a short redhead with glasses walk past us and onto the stage. She was thin with smaller curves, but a cute face. A blush tinged her cheeks red as she stood in front of the crowd.

“Emma! Don’t do this!” A man shouted.

“Leave me alone, Derrick.” She replied.

“If you can’t contain yourself, Mr. Travers, I’ll have you removed.” Queen Bellamy said. “Moving on. This is Emmalyn. She is a twenty-four-year-old earth witch with a seer specialty. She likes learning new spells, collecting herbs, and playing board games. She is currently one of the seers for the collective. We’ll start at five hundred.”

Bidding rose quickly on her as well. Anyone with connections to Queen Bellamy or a unique power set would get higher bids. Bids on Emmalyn were nearly as high as the bids on Richard. She seemed to get more embarrassed as the numbers went higher.

There was an innocence about her that I figured was enticing people to offer higher. When the bidding finished, she ended up at one hundred dollars less than what Richard got. There was a look of relief on her face when she was finally able to get off the stage.

“Good job, Ms. Grove.” Alpha Lucien said.

“I’m glad to help the kids in any way that I can. It was really the least I could do in return for being made one of the collective’s seers.”

“Get out of here before Derrick can corner you. The buyer will contact you to set up the date. We’ll talk to whoever it was before releasing your information. Don’t worry.” He told her.

“Thank you, Alpha Lucien.” She replied with a bow and scurried off.

“How long is Queen Bellamy going to act as referee for them? She can’t have something like this festering in her collective. We’re not like pack wolves. We can’t be contained.” I whispered to him.

“She’s going to handle it in the best way she can. The collective needs Emmalyn and Derrick. If one has to go, it would be him over her, though. Emmalyn is an important connection to the wife of the vampires’ Master of the territory. Derrick is just a warrior in the end.” He told me.

I shrugged. If that was the way she wanted to play it, then so be it. I wasn’t the Queen, maybe she knew something I didn’t.

Talia came up and stood by us. She watched Queen Bellamy proudly. I didn’t think vampires really liked us all that much. Not that I’d met many vampires in my life.

“Don’t worry if you don’t draw in the same amount of money as I will.” She told me with a smirk.

“A lot of the vampires in the area are here tonight strictly to bid on Talia. They want her to favor them and they know the more they spend on her pet projects, the more she’ll like them.” Alpha Lucien smiled.

“My phaeta takes good care of those pups, mon loup. She’s making sure they get the things she didn’t have a chance at. The things she was grateful for once she did. All she wants is to find them new families to love them like the Carrington family did for her. I’ll use every tactic I can to get her the funding for it. She wouldn’t accept a check from me, so I’ll be sold here and I’ll buy someone else.” Talia answered.

“You got your eye on someone?” He asked.

“There’s a handsome young shapeshifter who will be up later. He’s very much my type. There are also three women who I wouldn’t mind spending time with. I’ll bid so high, no one will try to challenge me.” She tittered.

“Now that we’ve covered the rules again for the vampires who just joined us, one of our very special people is up next. You may have heard of her. One of the oldest vampires on Earth, and a member of the Vampire High Council, my very good friend, Talia the Traveler.” Queen Bellamy announced proudly.

Talia walked out on stage and there was a rise in the sound of the applause. Like there were more people clapping than ever before. It was impressive, but she was pretty impressive, too. It seemed small, powerful women stuck together.

“When Talia isn’t deciding the fate of vampire-kind, she enjoys reading, traveling, and spending time with her favorite children. The bidding will start at five thousand dollars.”

I thought there’d be an outcry at the jacking up of the price, but it was like a feeding frenzy of people bidding for her. She looked off stage at me and winked. I realized my mouth was open and closed it. That was crazy. By the time she turned back to the crowd, they were already up to sixty thousand dollars!

Voices started quieting as the number got higher. When they were finally finished, they stopped at half a million dollars. This part of the auction was not for people like me. She turned to walk off the stage.

“Talia, I know you’re planning on bidding on a few people. Pick one. I want this to be fair for everyone and for others to have a chance.” Queen Bellamy said to her quietly.

“You’re no fun, phaeta.” Talia pouted.

“I know. Promise me you’ll only bid on one.”

“I promise. I’ll go figure out which is my favorite now.” Talia responded and headed off the stage. When she went past, she smiled. “Like I said, don’t feel down about not getting as much as me.”

“I could never think to compete against a high ranking vampire. I’ll be happy with whatever I can bring in for the orphans.” I told her.

The bear was up next. He was announced as the future Urso of his own sleuth. He flexed his muscles just once and women swooned in the audience. Like literally swooned. It was crazy.

“This is Stanton. He’s an Alpha bear shifter. He’s just turned twenty-nine and is looking for his Ursa. Stanton likes shooting, wrestling, and hiking. He’s an ex-mercenary and head of the collective’s weapons training program until his sleuth is established. We’ll start the bidding at a thousand, because it would be an insult to start an Alpha at the same level as everyone else.” Queen Bellamy announced.

Bidding for him spiked quickly as well. It sounded like a fist fight broke out. That tracked. Females always wanted strong males and this one was looking for his mate who would rule his people beside him.

They ended at twenty thousand dollars. I peeked out to see who’d won and it was a smaller woman with soft curves and a little extra padding. I was betting she was a werebear as well. Probably had designs on being the next Ursa.

He nodded to the crowd and walked off stage. Lucien shook his hand and thanked him for coming out. He didn’t say much, just kind of nodded again and walked off.

“He didn’t seem very friendly.” I whispered.

“He’s in a mood. I beat him in a fight this morning. Alphas hate losing, no matter their species.” Alpha Lucien replied.

No one else really hit the levels of Stanton or Talia through the rest of the night. They were between two thousand and seven thousand, which meant Emmalyn and Richard beat out almost everyone who wasn’t a high powered supernatural.

I thought these things usually only drew in a few hundred a person. Was Queen Bellamy’s collective so successful the people in it could afford things like this, or was it just the ones with a lot of money who came tonight?

Evan came up beside us and waited for the female who was being bid on to finish and come off. I wondered what she was doing. Did she think she could try again now that the vampires were here?

Once the other woman was off-stage, Evan walked out to Queen Bellamy and handed her a folded piece of paper. Queen Bellamy opened it and read it, then whispered something I couldn’t actually hear to Evan.

With a nod, Evan walked off the stage and past us without even looking over. She must have been acting as Queen Bellamy’s assistant just then. I thought that was a lot sexier than her flirtatious demeanor.

I got ready to head out on the stage, when Alpha Lucien put his hand on my shoulder. He wasn’t letting me move. I looked at him in confusion.

“Bellamy wants you to wait until last, remember? There’s still someone ahead of you. It’s easy to lose count.” He said.

“I guess that’s alright. I was kinda nervous anyway. Everyone dressed up and I haven’t even had a hair cut in a couple months.” I chuckled.

“I can imagine writing takes up a lot of your time.” Alpha Lucien replied.

“For the most part I try to treat it like a Monday through Friday 9-5 job. It doesn’t always work out like that because I get ideas on the weekends and in the middle of the night. If I don’t write them down, I’ll lose them. It makes it hard to really have a defined work time.”

“I get it. Being Alpha is kind of like that. You try to treat it like a normal job, but a pack is a living thing with needs which are prone to falling outside of banker’s hours.” He told me. “Don’t worry about being fancy. Women are into that rugged stuff.”

I nodded and relaxed next to him. At least I had a stay of execution. I couldn’t imagine what it would be like if I had to go out on that stage, but I’d know the feeling shortly.