Chapter 1: Her Ball
Chapter One: Her Ball
"Laurel, it is time." A deep masculine voice spoke from the door. It was her father, King Titus of the Green Valleys Kingdom, the man who’d be selling her today.
"I don’t want to get auctioned out, Father," she dared to say. The worst he’d do was kill her, and then she’d never have to be sold anyway.
Laurel slowly turned to face her father in fright, regretting the words that left her lips. Her hairs stood as her eyes met her father’s blue ones, chillingly cold even in the dark. He had a calculating look in his eyes, one that sent shivers down Laurel’s spine.
"I mean, yes, Father, I’ll leave this instant—"
The remaining words were stuck in her throat when her father took a step forward. Laurel instinctively stepped back, but she was soon met with a wall.
"I’m sor—"
But she didn’t have a chance to complete her sentence. His raised hand landed on her face, striking her again and again before he grabbed a fistful of her hair and hurled her toward the mannequin that held her dress for tonight.
Laurel collapsed in a heap but her father paid no mind. He simply adjusted his tunic and straightened the sword hanging on his hip.
"Five minutes," he said, before walking out.
Laurel bit her lips, hurriedly putting herself in her dress, holding her cheeks with one hand. She couldn’t cry; she was so used to it that she didn’t have to react to the pain. She still had to wear a smile for her auction.
To think that she was wearing her dream dress, yet she felt none of the joy she had imagined for herself. All the laces and ribbons could not hide the fact that she was packaged goods, ready to be auctioned off to some old Alpha tonight on her eighteenth birthday.