Finn had been told not to look at the Alphas.
It was the first rule carved into him long before tonight—long before the stage, the blinding LEDs, and the humid press of bodies breathing too loud in the dark. In the small-town cage where he'd spent the last six months, the rules were simple:
Keep your eyes down. Keep your scent small. Do not invite the hunt.
But the air in this Seattle auction hall was thick enough to choke on. It was a stagnant soup of pheromones—expensive cologne laced with the iron tang of anticipation, leather oil, and expensive tobacco. Underneath it all was the faint, copper trace of fear. His own. It felt sharp and humiliating against the cool, bare skin of his chest.
He knelt on the polished concrete. The spotlight was a physical weight, bleaching the world to a sterile white. In front of him, resting on a charcoal velvet cushion, was the collar.
Cold silver. Unforgiving. Waiting.
His wrists were bound loosely behind his back with hemp rope—symbolic more than secure. There was nowhere to run. The stage was a circular, raised ring for livestock. For spectacle. Beyond the light, tiers of shadowed seats rose into the darkness, each holding an Alpha whose power rolled off them in slow, territorial waves.
Finn swallowed, his throat dry.
The metal scent of the collar cut through the room's ego. It didn't smell like jewelry; it smelled like a cage.
"Lot Seventeen," the auctioneer called, his voice a smooth, practiced silk. "Unbonded omega, twenty-three. No prior claim. Tested. Compliant."
The word compliant crawled across Finn's skin like a spider. He thought of the jagged, thin scars hidden near his ribs—the marks of a "kidnapped" stray who had fought his first cage. The auction house had spent weeks "breaking" him just to use that word today.
A ripple of low murmurs answered from the shadows. The vibration traveled through the floor and into Finn's knees. He tried to steady his breathing, but it caught against the suppression cuffs at his wrists. They dulled his scent, but they couldn't erase the visceral reality of being a shirtless prize under the gaze of a hundred predators.
He felt their attention like teeth against his neck.
The first bid came from the left. Disinterested.
Another followed. Closer. Warmer.
The numbers rose in a detached, calm rhythm, as if they were discussing oil futures rather than the ownership of his breath. Finn focused on the collar. He imagined the magnetic lock clicking shut. The finality of the sync.
His pulse stuttered. And then—the air changed.
A new scent rolled through the room like distant thunder, static-charged and heavy. Clean cedar. Dark amber. A thread of woodsmoke that felt elemental, like a forest fire burning deep in a winter night. Every omega instinct Finn possessed snapped to attention.
He didn't mean to look up. He did.
The Alpha in the center row didn't shout. He didn't need to. The room quieted around him as if the oxygen had been sucked out of the hall. He was broad-shouldered, his black suit unbuttoned at the throat, radiating a mantle of quiet, terrifying authority.
Remus.
The name was a ghost whispered in the holding cells. Territorial. Untouched by scandal. An Alpha who didn't collect omegas—he claimed them.
Remus didn't look at the auctioneer. He looked at Finn. Not with the hunger of the others, but with a cold, predatory assessment. The cedar note in the air deepened, wrapping around Finn's senses like a physical hand.
Mine, the scent whispered.
Finn's body betrayed him instantly. His spine straightened. A sharp, unwanted heat coiled in his stomach.
Another Alpha tried to outbid. Remus simply raised a hand. One finger.
Silence.
"Sold."
The word cracked through the hall like a gavel hitting a bone.
The applause was polite, but Finn barely heard it. His world had narrowed to the sound of measured footfalls on the stage steps. Each step was unhurried.
Remus mounted the stage. Up close, his scent was devastating. It saturated the air, anchoring Finn to the spot. Finn's heart pounded so hard he was sure the front row could see his chest vibrating.
"Look at me," Remus said. It wasn't a request.
Finn obeyed.
Gray eyes met his. They weren't cruel, but they were intelligent—calculating the depth of Finn's fear and the curve of his spirit.
"You're shaking," Remus observed.
"It's loud," Finn managed, his voice a mere thread.
A flicker of something—perhaps approval—passed through those gray eyes. "Yes," the Alpha agreed. "It is."
Remus crouched, bringing them eye-level. He reached for the collar, the silver clinking softly against the velvet. He didn't put it on yet. He held it between them, the metal reflecting the harsh spotlight.
"Do you understand what this means?" Remus asked quietly.
Finn thought of the cage in the small town. He thought of the ropes. He looked at the powerful man in front of him and felt the shift from "livestock" to "possession."
"Yes, Alpha."
Remus's jaw tightened. He leaned forward, pressing the cold silver lightly against Finn's throat. The chill was a shock, like winter iron dragged from deep water. Finn gasped, his skin pebbled with goosebumps.
"Breathe," Remus murmured, his thumb brushing over one of the faint scars on Finn's collarbone. "You smell like fear, Finn. And something else."
He leaned closer, his breath ghosting over Finn's ear.
"Hope," Remus finished.
The collar slid around his neck.
Click.
The sound was soft, but it echoed in Finn's skull. A pulse of warmth radiated from the lock as it synced to Finn's skin temperature. The pressure was constant. Present. Inescapable.
The cuffs at his wrists disengaged. Finn's hands fell to the floor, but he didn't move. He couldn't.
"Up," Remus ordered.
Finn rose on unsteady legs, the weight of the silver sitting heavy in the hollow of his throat. Remus stepped close, so close their chests nearly brushed. He reached up, his warm knuckles grazing Finn's skin as he adjusted the fit of the metal.
"You are not livestock," Remus whispered, too low for the dispersing crowd to hear. "But you are mine. And I don't like my things with scars I didn't give them. We're going to have a very long talk about who touched you before me."
The possessiveness didn't slice. It settled.
"Walk," Remus instructed.
Finn walked. As they left the stage, the scent of cedar and smoke swallowed him whole. The cage was gone, but the forest had just begun.
...
The transition from the blinding stage lights to the dim, industrial corridor was jarring. Here, away from the polite applause of the elite, the air turned colder. It smelled of wet pavement and exhaust—the smell of the "International" Seattle night that waited behind the heavy steel exit doors.
Remus didn't hold Finn's hand. He didn't need to. The magnetic pull of the collar, synced to the Alpha's bio-signature, acted as an invisible leash.
"The scars," Remus said suddenly, his voice cutting through the silence of the hallway. He didn't stop walking, his stride long and predatory. "They weren't on your medical report."
Finn flinched, his fingers instinctively twitching toward the faint, jagged marks on his ribs—remnants of the small-town cage he'd been kept in before the auction house 'rescued' him for a higher profit. "I wasn't always 'compliant' livestock, Alpha."
Remus stopped. He turned, his broad frame blocking the light of the overhead fluorescent bulb. He reached out, his thumb dragging roughly over the largest scar near Finn's hip. The touch wasn't sexual—it was a claim. A tally of damages.
"Kidnapped," Remus mused, his gray eyes darkening. "Locked away in a town that didn't even have a name on the map. You weren't sold by your family, Finn. You were stolen."
Finn's breath hitched. The Alpha knew.
"In my house," Remus leaned in, his scent of cedar and smoke now laced with something sharper—protectiveness disguised as possessiveness. "The only person allowed to mark you is me. Do you understand, pet?"
The word pet didn't feel like a slur. It felt like a cage of a different kind—one lined with silk and steel.
They reached the black SUV waiting in the rain. As the door opened, the interior glowed with a deep, crimson ambient light. Remus didn't help him in; he watched Finn climb inside, shirtless and shivering, before sliding in beside him.
The door closed with a heavy, pressurized thud. The world outside vanished.
"Hand me your wrists," Remus commanded.
Finn hesitated for a heartbeat. The auction cuffs were gone, but the Alpha was reaching into the side pocket of the leather seat. He pulled out a pair of restraints made of soft, dark fur and reinforced carbon fiber.
"I told you to walk, Finn," Remus reminded him, his voice dropping to a dangerous, low frequency. "I didn't say the walk was over."
Finn surrendered his wrists. As the soft restraints clicked into place—tighter and more intimate than the auction ones—he realized the "Hope" Remus had sensed earlier was a dangerous thing.
Remus leaned back, watching Finn's pulse jump in the hollow of his throat, right above the silver collar.
"We have a long drive to the estate," Remus whispered as the vehicle pulled away into the Seattle rain. "And I think it's time we discuss exactly what 'compliant' means in my bedroom."