I don’t look like me.
A quick exploration of the rest of the room reveals a cleverly understated door that leads to a bathroom. It takes a bit of experimentation since nothing looks quite like I’m used to, but I am deeply relieved to discover they have indoor plumbing in this realm.
I barely get back into the room before the large door Azazel left through creaks open. I freeze, but no one appears. Seconds tick by into minutes before I’m able to make my body move. Even then, it’s a fight against myself to walk to the door and peer out. “Hello?”
The hallway is twice as wide as I’m used to and well over ten feet tall. It stretches down to a corner where it turns right, and there are a number of side tables arranged against one wall and four doors between mine and the turn.
The other doors swing open without a sound. I tense, ready to scramble back into my room and slam the door, but then a woman steps out of the nearest door. She’s nearly as pale as me and has an athletic build that’s a little on the soft side. Her brown hair is piled on her head and her dress is deep blue and short, hugging her curves. She turns to look at me, and I distantly note that her nose is crooked.
On the other side of her, another woman steps out. This one is tall and lean with a light tan. She wears a slinky purple dress with a slit up one side. Her black hair falls around her beautiful face in waves, but the way she looks around isn’t as confused or tentative as I feel. She looks like a soldier about to go to war.
Next is a curvy woman with light-brown skin and thick dark curls in a ponytail. She’s wearing a deep red gown that clings to her breasts and billows out about her. She looks at us and laughs, the sound bright. “Wow, we look good.”
Through the final door tentatively steps a woman in yellow that shows off a round and soft body. Her blond hair hangs in a shining bob, and she seems utterly terrified, her pale features completely colorless.
The woman in purple studies us for a long moment and shrugs. “Might as well get this over with.” She turns and starts down the hallway.
Herd mentality kicks in, and we move as one to follow her. Or maybe no one wants to be left alone now that we’ve found others. Aside from the woman in yellow, none of them seem quite as freaked out as I feel beneath the fragile layer of calm I’m barely holding on to. I don’t know if that makes me feel better or worse, so I set it aside and fall to the back of our group to give myself some time to process.
The woman in red chats happily, not seeming to care that she’s only getting monosyllabic responses. The one in purple who’s leading the pack seems to pick up her pace, and I can’t tell if it’s an attempt to distance herself from the rest of us or because she’s hunting something. Her stride is predatory, and if she were coming at me like that, I’d turn around and run for my life.
The hallway ends at another door. The woman in purple doesn’t hesitate. She wrenches it open and stalks through. The rest of us exchange a look, and then the woman in red moves to follow. One by one, we file through the door after them. Low lights make it challenging to see, but not so much that I miss our destination.
A dais at the front of the room.
One by one, we step up and form a line. It’s a little brighter here, which only makes it more challenging to see the rest of the room. I get the impression of large shapes but not details.
I do recognize Azazel’s voice, though, when he says, “Now, we make our selections.”
Chapter 3
Sol
I expected this auction to be a trap. The demon realm might not currently be at war, but we’re never far off. Skirmishes happen along borders as a matter of course, and occasionally those escalate to larger conflicts. Not recently, but…
The fact Azazel has managed to convince all four leaders to come here is a feat in and of itself. Maybe they’re just as desperate for the power he can dole out at a whim as I am. It’s not a comfortable thought. My life would be significantly easier if I married one of the eligible dragon women in my territory. If I wasn’t the territory leader, that’s exactly what I would have done. There are plenty of lovely women in my own territory who I could have been happy with. Perhaps we’d even have children at this point.