Bought By The Raven King English Version – Ava York (1)

The crossbow came up. I saw the bolt leave the bow, saw it spinning toward my chest, and I knew I should move, should dodge, should do something. Wings wrapped around me, blocked my vision, blocked everything. I heard the bolt strike. A dull thunk, then a hiss of pain that wasn’t mine.

Cador stood in front of me, breathing hard, a crossbow bolt embedded in the meat of his left wing. Black blood dripped down the feathers, spattering the flagstones. He didn’t seem to notice. His eyes were fixed on something behind me. I turned. Too slow. The assassin was already there. He’d circled while Cador shielded me, moved through the shadows like he’d been born to them. His gloved hand closed around my throat. His dagger pressed against my carotid, the same spot where Cador’s thumb had rested earlier, searching for the pulse I didn’t have.

“Don’t move, Raven King.” The man’s voice was calm. Almost pleasant. “The aunt wants proof she’s dead. One little slice, and I’ve got all the proof I need.” The ravens fell silent. Cador stood frozen, his wounded wing hanging slightly lower than the other, his face unreadable, eyes fixed on the blade at my throat, on the man’s gloved hand, on my face.

“Let her go,” he said. “I don’t think so. She’s worth a lot of money dead, you know. The aunt’s offering double if I bring back the head.” The assassin’s grip tightened on my throat. “Now, I’m going to walk back toward that wall, and you’re going to stay right where you are, and when I’m over the top, you can have whatever’s left of her.” I grabbed his wrist. Not the hand holding the dagger.

The other one. The bare one, the hand that had closed around my throat, the hand that was touching my cold, dead skin. And I pulled. The sensation was a door opening inside me, a hunger uncoiling. Heat rushed out of his body and into mine. Not slowly. Not gently. A torrent of stolen warmth that flooded my veins, poured into the hollow aching space beneath my ribs.

His eyes bulged above his mask. “What—” he gasped. “What are you⁠—” I couldn’t stop. The hunger was too strong, too desperate. Months of cold and stillness and fading, months of stealing scraps of warmth from petals and borrowed touches. And here was life. Pure, hot, living life. Filling the empty vessel of my body. I drank.

his is a spin-off series to Arranged Monster Mates. We’re back on Alia Terra with steamy stories told by your favorite paranormal romance authors: Eva Brandt, Lia Frost, Cara Wylde, and Ava York. Alia Terra No one remembers the world before the Shift. It was thousands of years ago, all lost, all forgotten. Scientists and historians say that before, the world was better, brighter, and our planet belonged to us, humans.

There were proud countries and bustling cities, and technology was at its peak. We can hardly imagine all that. There is no proof, no written texts, no pictures of Alia Terra before the Shift. All we know is the face of Alia Terra now. The land haphazardly divided into territories, the walled cities, the poor living on the fringes, barely surviving. The monsters. The temples where young maidens can take a DNA test and be matched to one of them.

Being owned by a monster is often the only way a woman can save herself or give her family a chance to not starve. But for women who are not maidens, or whose blood never found a match, there is another path. The bride market offers a desperate chance. Here, women pay a small sum to enter a public auction.

Monsters bid, but in the end, it is the bride’s choice. Will she go with the highest bidder, or will she choose the less monstrous? This is Alia Terra. Their world, more than ours. 1kitap1.com/en I OLWEN stood on the auction block, third from the left, and performed the act of breathing. Shallow inhale. Pause. Slow exhale. I’d practiced in front of a cracked mirror for three weeks straight, watching my reflection until the rhythm looked natural, until the rise and fall of my chest matched the women around me.

“Lot forty-seven.” The auctioneer’s voice bounced off stone walls, too loud, too jovial for what this place was. He was a thick man with a red face slick with perspiration, jowls quivering as he consulted his leather ledger. “Human female. Twenty-two years. Literate. Numerate. Merchant stock.” He squinted at his notes. “No diseases. No deformities. Teeth intact.” A yellow smile. “Excellent breeding potential, gentlemen. Shall we start the bidding at one hundred gold?”

I kept my gaze fixed on a point above the crowd. The rafters. Thick oak beams gone dark with age, left over from the building’s days as a granary, or perhaps from less savory purposes. I didn’t want to know. Easier to look up there than at the faces below. The monsters who had come shopping for wives.

This is a short excerpt from the opening of “” by Unknown, quoted for review and introduction purposes. All rights belong to the copyright holders.

Book Information

• Unique ID: d529e99015bd9241
• File Extension: .pdf
• File Size: 2,751,162 bytes (2.624 MB)
• Title: –
• Author: Unknown
• Pages: 107
• Language: English (en)

Reading & Word Statistics

• Estimated Reading Time: 146.92 minutes
• Total Words: 29,384
• Total Characters: 166,531
• Average Words per Page: 274.62
• Average Characters per Page: 1556.36

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