Vikki

The troll who has hold of me, who chased me down because he thinks he bought me, is enormous as he encloses me, traps me against the locked door. One arm casually leans on the frame, cigar clamped between two clawed fingers, the smell of rich tobacco encircling us as he, with similar nonchalance, runs his hand down the side of my face.

Two vast horns curl back from his forehead, set off by his perfectly coiffed dark hair, thick and luxurious, a little salt and pepper at the temples. By anyone's standards, he is sex on legs. Handsome high cheekbones, burning blue eyes, heavy white tusks jutting up out of delicious kissable lips. His skin is not really gray, it's more iridescent, reflecting the light like granite.

This troll is nothing like anything I've ever read in books or seen at the movies. Or lurking under bridges. He is absolutely gorgeous.

Vikki! He bought you. At a human auction. He is NOT sexy.

My knees are weak, but his hand is tight on my jaw. As he leans farther into me, my resistance fails. Above all things, what I should not do when I've been mistakenly bought at a human auction, something which has to be illegal, surely, is kiss the creature who thinks he owns me.

Even if the creature is a nearly seven foot troll in a bespoke pin stripe suit who smells like smoke and whisky and sin.

His lips brush mine and I should hate it. I should hate him for being a big monster throwing his money around, buying innocent humans where he has no business to. But I don't hate it. I don't hate it at all.

I like it.

"I work here," I whisper. "This is my first day and now you're going to get me fired." My body bends towards him, wanting more, even while my mouth says something entirely different.

"Not a chance," he rasps in a way which causes my core to rattle.

"Mr. Horenson, I'm so sorry, there's been a huge error!" a voice calls out from behind him.

My troll jerks away from me, blinking those piercing blue eyes as if awoken from a deep sleep before they narrow and become completely focused.

"There certainly has been, Sygo. This human has just informed me she was not willingly in the auction."

He growls as he turns his back, shielding me with his broad body. I risk a peep to one side. The once horribly empty corridor is filling rapidly. There's a naga, his tail flicking with agitation, and shouldering, or rather tinkling, her way through the crowd is Alyssia.

This is it. I am going to lose this job before my shift has even finished. That has to be a record, even for me.

"Are you okay?" Her face is a picture of worry directed at me. "Navvik said he asked you to go for ice," she growls and her sharp teeth appear. "I told him you hadn't had the proper orientation yet!"

"She does work here?" the troll, Mr. Horenson, asks in his deep sinful voice.

"This is her first shift. She is absolutely NOT participating in the auction," Alyssia says loudly, pulling me out from behind the troll with absolutely no fear of him whatsoever.

"What a shame," a loud, nasally voice calls out over the general hubbub. "But then I thought she was a cut above the usual fare."

My troll straightens, and gone is the one who smoldered his way to a kiss. Instead he is entirely, entirely business like.

"If that is the case, you have my sincere apology." He gives me a brief bow. "And, if you'll permit me, I'd like to make it up to you, given my bid is null and void." He glares over at the auctioneer.

"Make it up to me?" I stare around at everyone, knowing this is the last time I'm going to see any of them and I'm saying goodbye to a job I thought was going to save the day. My eyes fill with tears and I hate myself for looking so weak. "What can you do which will make it up to me?"

"You can come and work for me," he says. "For one month. And I'll pay you what I bid for you."

"You'll pay me half a million pounds for one month's work?" I say, incredulously.

"There will be a contract. It will be all above board," he says, reaching into his pocket and pulling out the latest model iPhone. "Are you in agreement?" He punches at the screen and holds it to his ear. "Morris? I need you to come to Arcane and draw up a contract," he barks into the handset. "I don't care what time it is. What do I pay you for?"

He hangs up.

He looks at me.

Six hundred thousand pounds for a month's work.

I'd be an idiot to refuse.