<h4>Chapter 430: Chapter 430 MIREYA</h4>


    MIREYA’S POV


    I didn’t remember the exact moment everything went wrong.


    For a long time, all I had were disjointed fragments—sensations that didn’t quite connect, like scattered story pieces I was left to collect and piece together myself.


    The smell of sun-warmed dust.


    Laughter—mine, I think.


    My sister’s voice, calling after me with annoyance and fondness intertwined: “Don’t go too far.”


    I had gone anyway.


    It was supposed to be a short trip. A simple errand just beyond the boundary of familiar territory, the kind that didn’t require a second thought.


    I remembered the sky being clear that day, the kind of blue that made everything feel endless, open, safe.


    I remembered thinking I’d be back before sunset.


    The next memory came like a rupture.


    Rough hands.


    Too many.


    The world tilted as something mmed into the back of my head. The sound hadn’t even registered properly before the ground was gone beneath me, and darkness followed.


    When I woke, it was to pain.


    And voices. Low. Transactional.


    “...good condition.”


    “Pretty enough.”


    “Should fetch a good price.”


    I didn’t understand at first. My thoughts were thick and slow, as if wading through honey. My wrists burned when I moved—that’s when I realized they were bound.


    The room was dim. Not dark, but deliberately shadowed, like whoever owned it preferred things hidden.


    A man stood near the door, arms crossed, watching me with the kind of detached interest one might give an object they were considering purchasing.


    “She’s awake,” he said.


    Another voice answered from somewhere behind him. “Good. We’ll move her tonight.”


    "Where?" My voice was rough.


    The man by the door smiled in a way that reminded me of a shark documentary I’d once watched.


    “You’ll see.”


    Everything moved too quickly after that—new restraints, a sack pulled over my head, the world reduced to sound and motion and the sharp, suffocating scent of suppressants.


    By the time I saw light again, it wasn’t freedom waiting on the other side; it was a different kind of cage.


    Women lined the walls—some silent, others in tears. The air was thick with perfume that couldn’t mask the sourness beneath.


    Days blurred. Or maybe it was weeks.


    Time stopped meaning anything when there was nothing to measure it against.


    They fed us, kept us clean, watched us like inventory.


    I learned quickly not to speak unless spoken to.


    Learned even faster that resistance didn’t change oues. It only brought hurt.


    Day in and day out, our numbers fluctuated. Some days they took. Other days, they brought in fresh faces.


    And then they came for me.


    “Move,” the guard who came for me snapped, not bothering to hide his irritation.


    “I am moving,” I hissed.


    He shoved me. “Not fast enough.”


    I stumbled, almost smacking my head against the door we’d angled towards.


    He knocked once.


    “Enter,” a deep voice called out.


    He pushed it open.


    “Delivery,” he said.


    Delivery.


    The wordnded inside me, cold and leaden, sinking into a pit of dread that made my whole body clench.


    I lifted my head as I was shoved inside—and everything went still.


    It hit me like something inside my chest had been yanked forward without warning, as if a thread I hadn’t known existed had abruptly pulled taut.


    My breath caught as the bluest blue gaze snapped to mine.


    And in that moment, everything locked into ce.


    Mate.


    The word didn’te from thought.


    It came from instinct.


    “Boss?” the guard called out when the man in the room—his boss, apparently—didn’t move.


    “Leave,” he said, his voice barely above a whisper.


    The guard didn’t argue.


    The door closed behind him with a soft click that sounded far too final.


    Silence settled. Heavy. Charged.


    I couldn’t look away.


    Neither could he.


    “What’s your name?” he asked.


    His voice was low and controlled, like everything about him existed behind restraint.


    “M-mireya.”


    He repeated it under his breath, like testing how it felt. “Mireya.”


    My heart actually skipped a beat.


    “Damian,” he said.


    That was how I met my mate.


    At first, I thought the bond meant something. I thought it might save me.


    And for a while, I convinced myself that it had.


    He didn’t treat me like the others.


    Didn’t touch me the way the men at the brothel the women were sold to had nned to.


    He took care of me.


    Gave me a room that wasn’t a cell. Clothes that actually kept me warm and didn’t put me on disy. Food that didn’t taste like mold and rot.


    And sometimes, he was gentle.


    Enough that I started to believe there was something there I could reach.


    “You don’t have to do this,” I told him once when we were alone.


    His gaze lifted from whatever document he’d been reading, settling on me with uninterrupted focus.


    “Do what?”


    “This,” I said, gesturing vaguely, meaning everything and nothing all at once. “Whatever this is.”


    A faint smile touched his lips. It didn’t reach his eyes.


    “You’ll have to be more specific.”


    “You know what I mean.”


    He studied me for a long moment, his piercing blue gaze unsettling.


    Then he stood and crossed the room.


    Every instinct in me said to step back.


    I didn’t. I held my ground.


    “Be careful,” he said quietly, stopping in front of me. “You’re starting to sound like you think you understand things you don’t.”


    “I understand enough.”


    His hand lifted.


    I couldn’t help it; I flinched.


    But instead of striking, he brushed his fingers lightly along my jaw, tilting my face up.


    The touch was gentle. Tender


    “You don’t,” he murmured. “And you’re better off not knowing. You just sit pretty and stay safe.”


    It was moments like that that made it easy to delude myself. Easy to pretend I was in some sort of loving rtionship.


    But it got harder to pretend.


    To pretend I didn’t hear screams of abused women day in and out.


    To pretend I didn’t see Damian wiping blood off his hands on more than one asion.


    To pretend that I hadn’t slipped out of bed one fateful night and watched him rip a guard’s throat out.


    That was the first time I tried to run.


    It wasn’t thest.


    Each attempt ended the same way.


    Failure.


    Capture.


    And afterward, punishment.


    It wasn’t physical—he could never bring himself to hit me.


    My punishment was istion. Restriction. Starvation.


    The world shrank, everything tightening and squeezing until the very act of drawing breath felt stolen, like even my lungs no longer belonged to me.


    “You’re doing this to yourself,” Damian told me once, after dragging me back.


    “You could just let me go.”


    “No.”


    “Why?”


    His grip tightened on my arm.


    “Because you’re mine.”


    I’d dreamed my whole life of hearing that sentence from my mate. Someone who loved me wholeheartedly, who would die before seeing me hurt.


    Fate had a sick sense of humor.


    I was on my knees before him, my wrists and ankles bound by silver, when he came up with the idea.


    “You want freedom?” he asked, his tone conversational. “I’ll give it to you."


    That got my attention. “You will?”


    He gave me a small cold smile. He took a sip from the ss of scotch in his hand before he spoke again.


    “I’ll put you up for auction.”


    I nched. “What?”


    He shrugged. “If someone bids on you, then you’ll be free.”


    It sounded simple.


    It wasn’t.


    Because no one touched what belonged to Damian Rooke.


    No one crossed that line.


    And even when someone dared to ce a bid, they never followed through.


    There was always a better deal.


    A safer option.


    A smarter choice.


    Or a mysterious "ident."


    And I remained.


    Disyed.


    Circted.


    Untouchable.


    Until her.


    She didn’t hesitate, didn’t back down.


    She saw the line and tap-danced all over it.


    Even now, standing in the quiet aftermath of escape, I couldn’t quite understand it.


    Why me?


    Why that risk?


    “You never have to go back there.”


    Her voice echoed in my mind.


    I looked down at my hands.


    They were steady. They bore no chains.


    That felt unnatural, like my skin was too loose.


    For so long, everything had been measured in control—what I showed, what I hid, what I allowed to slip through.


    Now, there was space.


    Too much of it.


    Seraphina and Kieran.


    Together, they felt like something solid in a world that had been anything but.


    “I owe you,” I said quietly. “I’ll repay it. However you need.”


    That was the only thing I had left to offer.


    “But before that...”


    The words caught.


    Something like hope—a fragile thing—quivered in my chest, daring to take root again after so long buried under fear.


    “I need to go home. I have a sister, and I need to let her know I’m alive. I need to go home to Olivia.”