"What do you think you're doing?" he snarled, towering over her. "Do you think I'm stupid? Do you think I don't know what you were trying to pull?"
"Father...."
The sting burned across her skin, sharp and humiliating. She stared up at him in disbelief, her hand rising slowly to touch her reddening cheek.
Even if she was only the illegitimate daughter of this family, born of shame and kept in the shadows, he had never raised a hand against her before.
Not once.
Until now.
Liora staggered back, her fingers instinctively rising to her burning cheek. Her vision blurred, not from the pain, but from the shock of it. The disbelief.
Her father stepped fully into the room now, his face dark, eyes hardened with something that looked unsettling like resentment. No.... relief.
"You think locking the door would change anything?" he snapped. "Do you think you can run from this fate?"
"I didn't...." Her voice broke. "I just needed time. Father, please…"
Behind him, the unfamiliar man stood framed in the doorway. The wolf collector.
He watched in silence, arms crossed, his expression unreadable, neither cruel nor kind. As though this was a scene he had witnessed countless times before. As though her pain meant nothing.
"So," the collector said calmly, his gaze settling on Liora with cold assessment. "This is her."
Liora's heart shattered at the certainty in his tone.
Her father nodded stiffly, avoiding her eyes. "She's strong. Young. She'll do."
Strong.
As if that made her disposable.
"No.... Father," Liora whispered, pressing herself back until her spine met the wall. There was nowhere left to go. "You said… you said the Blood Hunt might not come this year. You promised."
Her father's jaw clenched, a muscle twitching beneath the skin. "Promises don't feed this family."
Before she could react, he grabbed her arm and yanked her forward with brutal force.
Liora cried out as pain shot through her shoulder, her feet stumbling over themselves as she was dragged across the room.
"Stop! You're hurting me!"
"You should be grateful," he hissed under his breath, his grip tightening until she felt her bones might snap. "If not for this, the collector might have taken your brother. Or your sister."
The ones who mattered. The legitimate children.
Her tears spilled freely now, hot and bitter. "So I'm the price?"
He didn't answer. He couldn't even look at her.
The collector stepped aside with as her father pulled her out of the room and into the sitting area. The worn furniture, the cracked walls, the faded curtains, everything she had ever known, blurred past her tear-filled eyes like a life already lost.
She tried to cling to the doorframe, her fingers curling desperately around the splintered wood.
Her father pried them loose, one by one, each finger a small betrayal.
"Forgive me," she sobbed, her voice breaking apart into fragments. "Please… I'll work harder. I'll do anything. I'll be better...."
"Enough," the collector finally spoke up, sharply.
The single word cut through the room like a blade.
He moved forward then, his presence suddenly overwhelming. His grip closed around her wrist, not rough, but unyielding. Inescapable.
He took her away, and Liora's father closed the door behind them without looking at her even once. The sound of the lock sliding into place echoed in the stillness.
Whatever strength she had left drained from her body.
She twisted her neck desperately to glance behind her, but the door was already shut, sealed tight, as it was final. In that moment, she understood with crushing clarity that her fate had been decided. There would be no turning back. No rescue. No mercy.
The man dragged her down the narrow dirt path toward a bus parked around the corner, its engine humming low and ominous in the gathering darkness. The vehicle looked ancient, battered, its windows barred like a cage.
When they reached it, he shoved her inside without ceremony. She stumbled up the steps, and before she could catch her balance, cold metal snapped around her wrists. He secured the handcuffs to a chain bolted directly to the wall of the bus.
This was how they transported them, bound, helpless, stripped of any chance of escape.
As her eyes adjusted to the dim interior, Liora's breath caught in her throat.
She wasn't alone.
Several others were already inside, girls and boys, some younger than her, some older. Their wrists were cuffed just like hers, their faces pale and drawn, eyes hollow with fear and resignation. Some had been crying. Others stared blankly at nothing, as if their spirits had already left their bodies.
No one spoke.
No one dared.
The bus doors slammed shut behind her with a final, echoing thud that seemed to seal their collective doom.
And as the vehicle lurched forward with a grinding shudder, carrying them away from everything they had ever known, from homes and families and the fragile illusion of safety, Liora lowered her head.