Auction

I have been packed into a cage, wheeled across more city than I knew existed, and taken into a fortified place from which escape is going to be exceptionally difficult. The orchards I stole from are at the very verge of the city. If you're smart you can sneak in and out. This is the heart of it. There is no coming and going here.

The soldiers open the cage, drag me out, and thrust me at the two robed fellows, both of whom are taller than any man I have seen before. They must be at least seven feet in height, the pair of them.

I am only 5???1. My mother was short, and growing up wild meant being stunted, so my father used to say. He was tall, but these men tower over me and would have towered over him too.

"I am Mattias," the slightly taller one says. "And this is Elias."

Mattias has the face of a poet. I don't know which poet, but there's something elegant about him. Elias is even more finely built. They are very, very handsome men, but not in the way the soldiers might be considered handsome. They are handsome in an androgynous way, almost... pretty. Mattias has deep brown eyes and long dark lashes. Elias is fairer, with blue eyes, and I suspect he would have blond hair if he had any. His face is rounder than Mattias', which is long.

I find them much less intimidating than the soldiers, whose rough bodies, bearded faces, and guttural speech make me want to hide. I am glad that they are leaving now that Mattias and Elias are guiding me indoors.

"My name is Trissa."

"How old are you, child?"

"My father told me I was ten, ten years ago. So twenty. Not a child."

"That is how we refer to our charges," Mattias says. "We look after the girls brought to us, and ensure that they are ready for their new lives."

"As fuck toys for some rich monster? Don't even bother. I'm going to escape as soon as I can. I'll never stop running."

Mattias puts his hands on his hips and gives me a look that confuses me. It's not mean, but it is stern. It makes me feel like a petulant little brat, which is ridiculous because I'm a captive, and I have every right to be fuming with anger.

"Do we need the shackles for you?"

I cut my eyes at him. "I don't know, do you?"

"That's enough," Elias intervenes. "You must be hungry and tired. Come and eat."

I don't ask any more questions. I throw myself at the spread and I begin to devour it like a wild thing, taking great handfuls of food and shoving them into my mouth.

"Slow down, you'll make yourself sick."

I don't slow down. I speed up. Are they going to take the food away? I have to eat it all before they get the chance.

Large hands gently pull me away from the table, press me into a chair.

"Stay," Elias says. "I will feed you."

He is so handsome. I can't stop marveling at it. They both are, in a soft kind of way. I wonder how they came to be here. Most men in the wild have to be rough and dangerous to survive, but these men are not rough. They basically wear dresses. They remind me of monks.

I try to get up. He pushes me back down by my shoulder. I'm still not wearing anything more than my underwear, but neither Mattias nor Elias looks at my half naked body with any kind of hunger. I find that strange, almost unsettling.

Elias feeds me like a baby, taking a spoonful at a time and slipping it into my mouth. My cheeks burn with embarrassment, but he could feed me hanging upside down from my toes if it meant I got more of this delicious food into my body.

"You've had enough," Elias says, putting the spoon down far too soon.