“It’s my choice,” I said. I flipped the box back open. “Everything has been my choice from the moment Vaughn told me why he’d taken me. I don’t want that to change… I won’t let it,” I said firmly. I forced myself to pick up the collar. It barely weighed anything, but it might as well have weighed a hundred pounds.
I felt sick as I found the clasp and worked it loose. The party wasn’t for hours yet, but I needed to do this now so I could be one hundred percent focused on everything that was happening around me when the time came.
I swallowed back the bile that was trying to creep up my throat as I reached up to put the collar around my throat. I dropped my eyes and stared at the desk as I fumbled with the clasp.
But I couldn’t get it to snap together and all my effort to be strong felt like it was slipping out of my grip just like the frustrating clasp.
“James,” I whispered.
“I’ve got it, Aleks,” Vaughn said as his hands took over the task for me. When his fingers drifted down my neck and rested on my shoulders, I knew it was done. I could barely feel the collar, it was so light. But I could feel it.
And I was still okay.
I pulled in a breath, then another.
It wasn’t until Luca handed me a tissue that I realized I’d been crying the whole time.
I was tempted to lighten the mood by coyly asking how it looked, but I knew I couldn’t pull it off. And from the looks on the faces of the men around me, I doubted any of them could find even a scrap of humor in the situation.
I reached up to touch the collar… no, the necklace, because that was all it really was. I’d take it off in a few minutes, but I wanted to prove to myself I could forget about it, so I stepped back into Vaughn’s body and reached up to link my fingers with the ones that were resting on my collarbone. His touch did what it always did and calmed me.
I looked around at each of them. They all had different emotions on their face.
Luca looked torn, Con looked like he was feeling completely powerless, and King… King just looked pissed.
I didn’t need to look at Vaughn to know what I’d see.
Because I saw a little bit of that emotion in everyone else’s gaze too.
Pride.
Chapter 23
Vaughn
That moment had been one of the hardest in my life.
Not the one where Aleks had put that collar around his neck, but that had been pretty bad. No, it’d been when I’d had to help him with the clasp. Logically, I’d known it hadn’t been me putting the hated piece of jewelry on him, but now as I watched him obediently follow Luca into the darkened room, I felt like I’d forced that noose around his neck and I was terrified he wouldn’t figuratively be able to take it back off when he physically took the thing off. He’d made so much progress in the past couple of weeks that I just wanted to take him some place where I could nourish that growth.
Protect it.
Cherish it.
But I didn’t get to decide which choices Aleks made for himself, and he’d made this one and stuck to it. The most I could do was make sure that his stay in this world was as short as possible.
I let my eyes scan the room as we made our way to the lounge area. I felt sick as I watched all the men having a good time as their “pets” obediently stood at their sides or knelt at their feet. Most of the kids were in their teens, but I knew it wouldn’t be long before I saw younger boys and girls too. Some, like Aleks, were wearing collars, which was a clear signal to the other owners to keep their hands to themselves. But the ones who weren’t had to suffer through being passed around and pawed by other guests. Thankfully, the party wasn’t the kind where the guests would just start fucking their property right there in the open.
There would be private rooms for that.
The party was actually an auction that was scheduled to start within the hour. There was a stage set up on the far side of the room, which was heavily decorated in varying shades of red velvet and gold trim. The furniture looked like what you’d find in any fancy living room and was spread throughout most of the room. Once the auction began, most of the chairs would be moved closer to the stage so the men could get a better view of what they were bidding on. While they waited, they had access to tablets that had information on it about each kid. Luca had handed the tablet he’d been given to me upon entering the party. I already knew it wouldn’t have any kind of cellular or wireless connection, so there’d be no way to link to the outside world. The tablet was solely used to let guests look through the pictures and stats of the kids being sold. And anyone who’d ignored the rules about bringing any kind of phone, laptop, or camera had been turned away at the door. Extensive background checks had been done prior to the party and had included both the kids and any bodyguards the wealthier guests had brought with them. There’d also been a limit of one bodyguard per guest.