Bringer of Winter- a M/M/M Epic Fantasy Romance

9- The Auction

***** I'm always overly cautious with trigger warnings so: imaginary non-con*****

KHIF—

When the sun was high in the sky on our eighth day in the courtyard, Ryker and I were surprised to see four guards moving towards our cage. We both stood, almost as one, and I noticed only then that another dozen guards were beginning to herd the group of men from the courtyard as well.

The four sent to get me and Ryker opened our cage warily, looking up at us with guarded and suspicious gazes.

"Ryker, keep your temper in check," I muttered, moving to the edge of the cage as non-threateningly as I could. "You are no longer my war'rog, but simply my companion. Act like it."

"Understood, Khif," he answered fluidly, following my cautious, steady tread. When I reached the edge of the cage and jumped down to the ground, a height of about five feet, all of the men took a step back, and one hissed a curse.

Gods, I wanted to roll my eyes. By then, I had begun to feel more irritation than despair and fear by their reactions. I just wanted to be sold, so that I would stop being the beast in the cage that everyone stared at, pointed at, and feared deep down.

The men spoke to us in Nelek, and I was able to understand the gist of their words. One told us to follow, another warned against any kind of escape attempt, and a third asked the others why I was chosen with the bigger, stronger, older men. Proud of how much I understood what they said, I hardly paid attention to the fourth man's answer, but I knew what it was. I had seen Eten and Paul speaking to the man with the stallion when they had sold us, gesturing to me as they bartered. They had gotten more money for me because I was a fighter. The lives of their men had only meant a bigger payday and a better story for whoever eventually bought us for good. I would be sold as a fighter, which meant what— heavy labor in mines, farm work? Despite my speed and abilities as a war'rog shadow, I was not that much stronger than I looked, and hoped deep within me that this wouldn't be the case, all the while knowing that something was coming I might not be able to live through.

Directly through the gates, the men were being ushered up onto a stage of some sort. In the middle of the flat wooden, raised platform, a man stood with his arms outstretched, speaking in Nelek so fast it was only a blur of sound to my ears.

Ryker and I were last, still trussed up and ridiculous looking with the chains, and still coated in weeks', even months', worth of filth. I had the disgusting thought that it would take a dozen baths just to get me sanitary, and a half dozen more to get rid of the terrible stench that I knew rolled off of me in waves. In the past few weeks— months, maybe, I wasn't even sure anymore— I had been coated in blood so many times my skin was brown with an inch of the dried liquid, pissed myself twice— once while I watched my mother being raped as her body twitched in its last death throes, my skin still burning where she had shoved me beneath her boudoir and commanded I make not a sound— and the second time as Ryker yanked me from my hiding place and I saw Ally's tiny body next to my mother, still holding her hand in death, the grip like a vice, held with all the strength the tiny girl had possessed— vomited down the front of my body, been spit on by the crowds in the town we had stayed in for all that time, moved barefoot through that same town where the mud was most definitely wet with more than just rain water, and had been unable to clean myself after relieving my bowels for what I believed was at least a month.

On top of all of that was the natural odor of sweat and my unwashed body, leaving me a heaping pile of steaming, disgusting odor. I knew that Ryker probably smelled just as bad, but I was unable to smell myself, much less him. I was much too used to it by then.