Penny who had been frightful previously looked in the direction where everyone's eyes started to move at one man from far behind. At first, the man was only a silhouette but when he started to walk, people moved away from him to make way so that he could walk.
She saw him walk where the stage was set up. Every step of his bringing him closer to where she was while his view only got clearer, his eyes were set on hers and hers on his. She had seen plenty of handsome men in her village and the town around but none could compare to this man. When he finally came close, she took note of his red eyes that were dark. His cheekbones high, eyebrows dark with a thick black straight mane that he had left to be disheveled.
As they stared at each other, she saw something dark and dangerous lurk behind his eyes which put her on an alert. There was a piece of a stick that played at the edge of his lips, stopping only when he came to stand in front of the stage.
"Master Damien!" the auctioneer greeted the man with a nervous undertone in his voice, "Are you buying the slave?"
The man didn't break his gaze away from the young girl who was staring just like he did. The auctioneer seeing this took it in a different way that the master was being offended by the girl maintaining her eye contact. Frank pushed the girl's head down quickly and her head bent due to him pushing her down so that she would show some respect to the elite pureblooded vampire.
With the man's gaze broken away, he looked up at Frank, "Hmm, the gold will be delivered to you in an hour," the man named Damien stated, not wanting to rebuke any argument.
"Of course!" Frank bowed his head with his hand still holding down the girl's head. The man stepped on the stage with one jump swiftly like a cat before standing up.
"Hands off."
"Huh?" The man didn't understand what he meant out of pure happiness that they had sold a girl for five thousand gold coins. That was money one of his kind could only dream to have.
"Take your hands off my belongings," the man didn't need to be told twice. He quickly moved his hand away from the slave whose head he had been pushing.
"You can collect her from the backside of the stage," Frank replied back, keeping a step distance from the girl as the man glared down at him. Compared to Frank who was of average height for a man, this man who stood in front of them towered in his height.
With the grubby man's hand not on her anymore, Penny wanted to look at the man who had bought her but with his gaze that came back at her, she felt intimidated. With the way the man who had been rude and disgraceful with all the slaves, he now seemed like a shaking leaf.
Already having enough sight and plight of what the slaves had to go through Penny didn't want to risk looking at him.
"You can keep this as your deposit to collect the gold," she saw the pureblooded vampire pull out a bag that jingled softly. He handed it over to Frank.
"Please master Damien. We don't need the deposit," said Frank with a small laugh to let the man know he trusted that they would be paid.
Damien didn't respond to it. Instead, he gave one look at the young woman who stood in front of him. He bit into the stick that he had been playing within his mouth. Not saying anything he turned around, jumping down from the stage that had been set up to walk around and towards the backstage. A smaller man followed him, hot on his trail who looked a little shocked just like the people who had witnessed what just happened.
Frank, clearing his throat, he went to sell the next slave, "We have another young girl just as beautiful as the previous one. You won't be disappointed," he shouted.
Penny was taken back in from where she had come, going back to the tent which had gotten darker before she had left. With the last of the slaves now being sold out in the open, it was only the guardsman, the elder woman and her.
"Sir Damien," spoke Kreme who had caught up with the senior councilman.
The black market was no place to wander and if it weren't for the man whom he was serving, he would have never stepped into this place. People here were not who they seemed to be and it wasn't just humans and vampires who walked in and out. There were white witches and the black witches, the last thing he wanted was to be butchered by a witch to be turned and saved as a potion in the bottle. At one point Kreme had been looking at the woman who had been calling him through action which he ignored knowing how people here were.
One second and he had lost the man from his sight to make an announcement of giving out five thousand gold coins. His eyes had bulged out hearing it.
"Bring the carriage here, Kreme," ordered Damien dismissing their current work as they had already acquired the information they had come for.
"Will you be going home?"
"Yes. Now quick," said Damien, spitting the stick out of his mouth before entering the tent to see the girl he had just bought.
She was the same girl, thought Damien to himself as he walked towards her. He hadn't expected to see her here, not in this state but he was here now. At first, when his eyes fell on her with the man bidding her it had caught him by surprise. It was the same girl whom he had seen a week ago in the rain. Her clothes were dirty, the one which slaves usually wore in the slave establishment. Her hair looked like it hadn't been washed for a while where it stuck above her head.
As he drank in her appearance, he found her looking at the ground without meeting his eyes.
Penny could feel the man's gaze burning at her and she wished he wasn't looking at her with such intensity that made her want to cower behind the wall. She didn't know what to do and fretted internally as to what was going to happen. When the woman in the cell room had told her the escape plan, she had thought it would be easy as there wouldn't be any guards to catch hold of her once she would be sold off but now it worried her.
The man who had bought her didn't seem like an ordinary man.
"Mr. Quinn," the guardsman bowed his head to show respect to the man. The guardsman didn't bother to make small talk and instead kept his head lowered with the last slave that had to be sold.
But the man blatantly ignored the guardsman and came to stand right in front of Penny.
Penny who had been quiet while avoiding his gaze saw the pair of leather shoes that came into view in front of her eyes. Lifting her head slowly, she found the man looking at her. As if his red eyes were inspecting her closely.
Her eyes widened when his hand shot up to hold her chin, "The cut looks fresh. Who gave it to you?" she was too shocked to reply with his sudden forwardness over her to answer. She moved her head away so that he wouldn't continue to hold her chin, "Speak."
"The man out there," she answered.
"Hmm," he replied as if in acknowledgment. Penny didn't know what they were doing standing there as she had heard the rest of the gold coins would be handed at the man's mansion. With more time passing by, Frank came back with the slave he had just sold.
"Master Damien," Frank bowed again seeing the man in front of her, "Are you looking for another slave today?"
"Do you have something sharp that you could remove the binds," said Damien glancing at the girl's bind for Frank to nod his head.
"Oh, yes we do. There must be a knife here somewhere," said the human who let go of the slave he had been holding by the arm tightly when he brought her back inside to go fetch the knife. Coming back with the small knife, the man went to the pureblooded vampire who had requested for a knife, "Here it is," he handed it over.
"Is it sharp enough?" asked the pureblooded vampire, bringing the knife close to his face to inspect it.
"Yes, yes. Very sharp. I got it chiseled and sharpened last evening," confirmed the man.
"Lovely," remarked Damien, turning the knife in his hand. In a blink of an eye, Penny didn't know what happened but the man's hand had turned to a vegetable as it had been stabbed by the same knife he had given to the pureblooded vampire on the nearest wall. Thankfully there wasn't a table where he had stabbed it on to else the knife would have pierced through to let its sharp end to poke from the man's backhand.
The man screamed in pain of having his skin torn, feeling the burn spreading across his entire hand, "Master Damien, please forgive me!"
Penny frowned hearing this. Since the time she had the blindfold removed from her eyes, she hadn't seen him talk to the pureblooded vampire. At least not until she was being sold to the crowd.
"You damaged the precious slave I just bought. How do you mean to pay for the damage you caused?" She then realized why he did it and her heart shuddered at the thought of it.
"Please forgive me," he cried in the tent. Though his voice could be heard here, one couldn't hear him from outside due to the amount of crowd that had come to form with the slaves being sold. It was one of the days in the week where people hovered in the black market for more than one reason. The man begged, asking his hand to be released but the pureblooded vampire was having none of it.
It was as if he was bored and had picked this man to be his target, "Please allow me to mend it," pleaded the human.
"Are you going to time travel?" there was a depth of huskiness as the pureblooded vampire questioned Frank whose hand had started to bleed, "Does he, Fuller?'' The question was posed to the guardsman from the slave establishment who didn't dare to defy the pureblooded vampire. Penny saw him twist the knife and she cringed when the man cried out, "Are you sorry?"
"Yes, please forgive me," the man begged and Damien finally pulled the knife out from the man's hand.
"You have the ability to strike a slave but cannot hold the same pain when it is inflicted on you?" The people who had witnessed it along with the one who was in grave pain, the thought crossed their mind that slapping and stabbing one with the knife had a lot of difference, "Pathetic. I will be taking the slave. Don't forget to collect the three thousand gold coins at the mansion."
Frank gave the man a ridiculous look, his mouth hanging open. Had the master not spoken about taking the slave for five thousand gold coins?
"We are leaving," announced the man named Damien, ready to leave when he saw the man whose hand he had screwed look up at him confused.
"M-master Damien, you said you would give five thousand gold coins," after being stabbed with the knife he wasn't sure if his heart and body was ready for another attack by the man. He had heard enough about Damien Quinn.
The man came from the highest elite of the society, his family one of the oldest pureblooded vampires who had come into existence first. Though having enough money where his grandchildren wouldn't need to lift a finger for a meal, he worked for the council but this was only his work and family background. Coming to his character or behavior, various people had given different versions about him but one of the most common characteristics was that he was one of the evil pureblooded vampires.
Not many spoke of it, but there was always a differentiation when it came to the kind of creatures that walked on the four lands of the empire- Valeria, Bonelake, Mythweald, and Woville. There were types where some didn't bother with the others and others who didn't know to mind their business but there were some who were insane and didn't get punished. Damien Quinn was the man who belonged to this category.
Call it as luck or the connections he and his family had but the man didn't miss an opportunity to make a person suffer. His dislike for humans was not a secret but then, the man looked down upon even the vampires and some of the pureblooded vampires. His words were sharp and taunting most of the time like a snake.
Damien who had readied himself to leave with the slave who he had bought, gave a look which looked one of annoyance, "What?"
"I shall collect the gold coins in the evening," Frank corrected himself.
The carriage at a pace that had Penny place her bare feet firmly on the surface so that she wouldn't fall from her seat. After dealing with the man and the guardsman, the man named Damien Quinn had taken her to the carriage and they were now headed to his mansion.
He didn't speak to her and she had no voice right now, not after seeing Frank who had been stabbed quite brutally. She had never seen a display of blood like that and the way this pureblooded vampire had dealt as if poking a lump of meat to check if it were cooked. The only difference was that it wasn't meat but a man's hand. Even though her hands were unbound before getting inside the carriage, she still felt as if they were still being bound by the coarse ropes that had left marks on her skin in the presence of this man who sat next to her.
Discreetly making sure he wasn't seeing, she looked from the corner of her eyes to see his leg crossed one leg over the other. His face turned to look at the window, the view outside as they passed through the hills. From where she sat, Penny could see how handsome he was with the silhouette like a shadow. Sharp jaw and cheekbones, brooding eyebrows with some of his inky black hair that fell on them.
Before he could catch her staring at him, she quickly turned her head away but subtly to make sure he didn't notice her or rather forgot that she existed. What Penny didn't know was that the man had been more than aware of her presence in the carriage. Though his eyes were looking outside the window, when the girl shifted slightly away from him, his eyes moved from right to left to watch her.
While Penny tried to be quiet, her stomach had different ideas. Her stomach growled once, then twice before going on for the man to tap the front window to gain the coachmen's attention. Unlike some who had only one coachman, this man had two men riding in the front of the carriage.
"Stop at Mclair's," the one who wasn't riding nodded to direct the other coachman on the order received.
"When was the last time you had a meal?" asked the pureblooded vampire who hadn't spoken to her directly after asking who had caused the wound on her mouth.
A little taken aback from the sudden question, she turned her face to see him already looking at her, "Last evening," she answered, feeling lightheaded due to the lack of sleep as well as food which was never sufficient for the slaves. The slaves were underfed to keep their body lean but there was also another reason for it which Damien was aware of. By providing an insufficient quantity of food to the slaves, it made them weak which made it easier to turn them obedient to listen to the guardsmen.
Seeing him not answer but continue to stare at her, Penny looked away from him. The more he stared at her, the more it got uncomfortable. She wanted to say, 'Stop staring at me!' but she wasn't courageous enough to do it. There was just something about this man that made her believe that it wouldn't be right to speak back at him, the last thing she wanted was to be stabbed by him.
Best was ignoring him and she did just that until the carriage came to a halt. When the door opened, he opened the door without waiting for the coachman, the door almost hitting the lower man to step aside bowing his head.
She had to be careful as she stepped down from the carriage. Her hands were free but her legs weren't, they were still shackled with a single chain that connected either side of the leg so that it would prevent her from moving fast.
Penny looked at the small building that had a board put upon it 'Mclair's Inn', the man had stopped to feed her? It confused her to no end. She had heard some of the stories regarding the slaves on how difficult it was for them with their overbearing owners who treated them worse than a dog or any other lower animal.
Slaves were never treated well. They were the filth who weren't counted in society. With the various decrees of creatures who walked on these lands like humans, vampires, pureblooded vampires, the two different witches, the society was further partitioned into a class where the pureblooded vampires were of the highest being, considered to be elites while it wasn't humans who were positioned at the bottom. There were some humans who had managed to be in the good grace of others to have a better life. It was the slaves who stood at the bottom where people didn't take their life into account.
The very purpose of the slaves was to serve the people who bought them or the people their master or mistress asked them to serve. They were the caged beings who didn't have a life of their own.
Penny who had a sheltered life without having to look into this part of the world didn't know what to make of this man's behaviour. The man hadn't treated her badly but that didn't mean he would continue to be the way he was.
To think that this man had gone far enough to stop the carriage so that she could be fed, she wondered if the man was going to feed the goat before the goat was butchered, thought Penny to herself. But then, thought Penny to herself, she had been saved from her clothes being torn down for the public to see. If it weren't for him she didn't know what trauma she would have gone through after that.
When they entered the inn, Penny noticed the way some of the passersby gave her looks. Whether it was at the sight of her dress and the clink of the sound that came from her legs due to the metal chains. The inn looked as good as a mansion would and by the look of the people who were in here, the clothes that they wore were enough to know that this was no ordinary inn. It was designed especially for the vampires as every one of them possessed to have red eyes. Some that were light, some that were dark. Amongst them were some women who were humans who were being wooed by men.
As she continued to walk, she couldn't help but start to devise a plan so that she could run away from here without being caught. The black market was far away and now that there were no guards, all she had to do was slip from here without anyone's notice to have her life of freedom again. Ignoring the looks the people in the inn gave her, she looked for the doors and windows, every possible exit that she could make use of right now.
The young woman didn't fail to notice the whisper that went among the people while they stared at her. She continued to walk, following the man who was being led by the owner of the inn.
Coming to an empty room, the pureblooded vampire was asked to sit and the owner left the room closed.
Penny hadn't been asked to sit therefore she continued to stand without a word. The room was small but enough to accommodate two people spaciously for a meal.
"What's your name?" the pureblooded vampire named Damien asked, his back leaning against the cushioned chair.
"Penny, I mean Penelope," she corrected to give out her full name.
"Penny," he tested out her name as the name rolled out of his tongue, "I am Damien Quinn and from today on you shall answer to only me, do you understand," it wasn't a question but a demand. Receiving no response from her, he stood up from his seat, the chair screeching on the floor.
She took a step back when he approached her, her feet not moving too far due to the chain which almost made her stumble back and fall if it weren't for the wall that was right behind her. When her back did hit the wall, the man came to stand right in front of her.
He placed the palm of his hand on the wall right next to her head. His body leaning forward to see the girl's eyes widened.
"I noticed the little pause when you were brought to the stage. What was that about?" he asked her.
Not wanting to take a chance, she answered by keeping a passive face while internally there was a fire going in there, "I don't know."
"Really?" the closer he got, the more she tried to move until he placed another hand on the other side of her head, "Where do you think you are going little mouse? Answer me before I do something you wouldn't like," he taunted her, his eyes looking straight into the depth of her soul, "Your heart has been beating loudly since we arrived here," there was a smile on his face but it wasn't friendly in the slightest.
Penny didn't know what and how to answer it. Since the time she had started to devise a plan of escape in her head, Penny hadn't realized that her heartbeat had been fluctuating up and down for the man who had bought her to notice.
"Shall I answer it for you?" she heard him ask, the creepy smile that had made way continuing to exist on his lips. Damien Quinn was a handsome man and Penny had agreed on it the first time he had jumped on the stage to look at her but no matter how handsome he was, there was something very dangerous about him. Maybe it was the madness in his eyes, that he didn't bother to hide.
"It was only one question," she said, her eyes staring into his.
"You speak more freely than normal slaves do. It seems like they let you go too soon. Shall we go clarify it?" The pureblooded vampire's tone was casual but he picked the smell of worry and fear that spilled out of her eyes which was clear as day, "Am I right?" he smiled, his eyes crinkling with sheer amusement.
"I was only saying what you asked, Master Damien," Penny grit her teeth yet tried to offer him a polite smile, "I apologize for offending you," she bowed her head but the bow couldn't be completed as their head bonked together.
The pureblooded vampire narrowed his eyes at her and before he could speak further, the two servants of the inn entered the room with dishes that had been prepared. The servants started to place one dish after another, which caused her mouth to water at the sight of it. Not once had she had the privilege to look at so many dishes together that was a delight to the eyes.
Damien didn't bother to move and he rather enjoyed her expression of embarrassment in the way they stood in front of the servants who didn't actually dare to look at the customers but Penny looked flustered. When Damien went to sit down on the chair, he left her just as it was before, pointing his hand on the ground.
"It would be rude to not ask you to sit while I eat. Sit," he said before starting to eat by himself while leaving her hungry.