Moonlight Cage: The Obsessive Wolf King's Redemptive Love

1

The cold rain dripped down the rusted pipes, splashing into a filthy puddle, its sound completely drowned out by the frenzied clamor of the underground auction house.

The air was thick and foul—a miasma of cheap cigar smoke, the sour rot of aged whiskey, and… a more primal, naked scent of desire. A spotlight swept back and forth across the central iron cage, as if inspecting a piece of cargo about to change hands.

Elara Vance huddled in a corner of the cage, her thin white dress stained with filth, her damp black hair clinging to her pale cheeks. Her body trembled uncontrollably, but her right hand, hidden behind her back, clutched a shard of glass pried from a broken bottle. The sharp edge cut into her palm, warm blood seeping through her fingers. The pain was the only thing keeping her sane.

the auctioneer bellowed, his greasy voice echoing through the amplifier as spittle flew.

The spotlight snapped onto Elara’s face. She flinched, instinctively shutting her eyes, then forced them open again.

Her amber pupils constricted in the harsh light. They held none of the numbness or pleading the auctioneer had hoped for. Instead, there was only the ferocity of a cornered, dying animal. The sight made some of the buyers in the crowd whistle in excitement.

“Starting bid, five hundred gold coins! Each raise no less than fifty!”

“Five-fifty!”

“Six hundred!”

“Seven hundred! This one’s got fire, I like her!”

The bids rose one after another, like a pack of hyenas fighting over a carcass. Elara’s stomach cramped, her fingernails nearly embedding themselves in the glass shard. She stared at the rusty lock on the cage door, her mind racing—if she charged out, could she tackle the fat man to the left? How many seconds would it take to slit his throat with the glass? Or… should she just plunge the shard into her own carotid artery?

Death was better than being sold to the red-light district.

Just as the price soared to twelve hundred gold coins, the heavy doors of the auction house were suddenly, with a tremendous BOOM, blasted inward from the outside!

Wood splinters flew, and metal hinges groaned an ear-piercing shriek. A fierce wind, carrying cold rain and the thick stench of blood, poured into the muggy underground space.

The uproar ceased instantly.

Everyone turned their heads in terror.

A tall figure stepped in over the shattered door panels, his boots crunching on the wood shards with a teeth-grinding sound. The hem of his black greatcoat was still dripping water—no, not rainwater… it was dark red, not yet fully coagulated blood. A few drops had even spattered onto his face, resembling some bizarre totem under the stark lights.

Damien Blackwood.

No introduction was needed. Every denizen of the dark world present recognized that face—and the two attendants who followed him like silent shadows, exuding the aura of apex predators.

The auctioneer’s gavel fell from his hand with a clatter. The entire hall was so quiet you could hear someone’s teeth chattering.

Damien didn’t look at anyone. He walked straight toward the auction stage, his pace unhurried, yet each step seemed to land on everyone’s heartbeat. His face was unnaturally pale, his tightly pressed lips betraying a barely suppressed vexation. His deep, gray-green eyes were shot with blood, his pupils faintly, unnaturally dilated under the light.

His  was on the brink of an episode. He had just finished a bloody purge of traitors, and the excessive slaughter combined with the cacophony of the rain had pushed his already overloaded senses to the breaking point. It felt like countless needles were stabbing his brain, his ears filled with the amplified sounds of heartbeats, breathing, the scratching of a distant rat… The smell of cheap perfume mixed with sweat in this basement was almost enough to make him vomit.

He had only been passing by tonight, intending to find the darkest, quietest corner to wait it out alone.

But then he heard the auctioneer’s excited shouts and saw the iron cage under the spotlight.

And the eyes in the cage.

The moment his gaze pierced through the foul air and met the girl’s—

Hum.

All the piercing noises in his mind were wiped away, as if by an invisible hand.

All that remained was a strange, near-vacuum silence.

What kind of eyes were those? There was fear, of course. Despair, thick and suffocating. But beneath it all, an unquenchable flame burned—a resolution to drag her enemies to hell with her. They were clear, yet searingly hot.

Damien’s steps halted.

The auctioneer finally found his voice, trembling as he tried to salvage the situation.

“Get out.”

Damien didn’t even look at him. His voice was low and hoarse, like sandpaper on stone.

He walked directly to the iron cage. The spotlight followed him, stretching his shadow long, enveloping the entire cage. Every muscle in Elara’s body tensed. The hand clutching the glass shard was white-knuckled from the force. She watched him approach, watched the drying blood on his face, watched the inhuman, cold yet restless light in his eyes.

He wasn’t a buyer. He was something far more terrifying.

Damien stopped before the cage, bowing his head slightly to scrutinize the  inside. This close, Elara could smell the thick scent of blood on him, mixed with something else… like a forest before a storm, primal and dangerous.

he said. The words were for the auctioneer, but his eyes remained locked on Elara.

“B-but, My Lord, that’s against the rules. We must wait for the transaction to be complete…”

Damien finally turned his head to look at the auctioneer, a terrifying violence flashing in his bloodshot eyes,

The auctioneer’s legs gave out. He scrambled to pull out a key, fumbling as he inserted it into the lock. With a click, the lock sprang open.

But Damien seemed to lack the patience to even wait for him to use the key. The instant the cage door popped open a crack, he reached out—

CRACK! SNAP!

Five welded, thumb-thick iron bars were seized in his single hand and, as if snapping rotten branches, were brutally bent and torn apart! The ear-splitting shriek of twisting metal echoed through the silent auction hall.

A hole large enough for a person to pass through appeared in the cage.

An immense sense of pressure crashed down on her with his action. It was the crushing force of absolute power, the natural deterrence of an apex predator toward the bottom of the food chain. Elara’s heart hammered so hard it felt about to explode, the surge of adrenaline making her vision tunnel. Ruled by survival instincts and extreme fear, she reacted—

Her right hand, hidden behind her back, swung out violently! The bloodstained glass shard wasn't aimed at the approaching man, but slashed viciously across her own left palm!

A deeper wound bloomed, blood welling forth.

If I must die, my blood will splash on you.

The thick, fresh scent of human blood exploded in the air.

For Damien, whose senses were in a state of abnormal sensitivity, the smell was nothing short of a猛-blow. But his pupils only contracted violently before a deeper, almost amused coldness washed over the previous agitation.

He ignored her act of self-mutilation and reached directly through the hole in the bars. His cold fingers, with a force that permitted no resistance, seized Elara’s chin.

He forced her to look up, to meet his gaze again.

His fingers were cold, their grip so tight her jaw ached. The scent of rain and blood enveloped her completely.

Damien’s voice was low, audible only to the two of them. His thumb brushed across a drop of water on her cheek—whether it was rain or cold sweat, she couldn’t tell. The motion held a cruel gentleness, like one appraising an object.

Then, he leaned in slightly. His gray-green eyes were inches away, swirling with emotions Elara couldn’t comprehend—violence, curiosity, and a sliver of  that she couldn’t understand had been brought on by her.

he declared, his voice not loud, but carrying clearly to every corner of the dead-silent auction hall,

It was not a bid. Not a question.

It was a proclamation.

Elara’s breath hitched. The glass shard slipped from her now-limp fingers, clinking softly as it hit the cage floor.

In the next second, she was yanked out of the hole by an irresistible force! The world spun. Damien’s cold, damp greatcoat enveloped her, the thick scent of blood and forest filling her nostrils. She felt weightless, like a doll, tucked under his arm.

Damien tossed over his shoulder to the auctioneer collapsed on the floor. Tucking Elara under his arm, he turned and walked toward the door he had destroyed.

His two attendants followed silently, like shadows cutting through the crowd.

It wasn't until the terrifying figure had completely vanished into the stormy night that the frozen air in the auction hall exploded, a chorus of suppressed gasps and murmurs of post-calamity relief filling the space.

Outside, a black, heavily armored sedan with cold, hard lines sat waiting like a slumbering beast in the rain. The door slid open automatically.

Elara was roughly thrown onto the leather back seat. She was dizzy and disoriented. Before she could even sit up, the car dipped as Damien got in beside her. The door closed, sealing them off from the storm and everything else. The car was filled with the same cold aura as him, mixed with the smells of leather and metal.

The space instantly became cramped and dangerous.

A fully opaque partition separated the front and back seats, creating a completely sealed space, just for him and her.

Thump.

A bound document was tossed onto her lap. The edges of the paper were sharp.

Trembling, Elara looked down. By the dim interior light, she made out the ornate, cold script on the cover:

Blood Oath Servant Agreement

The blood in her veins turned to ice.

Damien’s voice came from beside her. He had already taken off his soaked, bloodstained coat and was wearing only a black shirt, sleeves rolled up to his elbows, revealing well-muscled forearms. But he seemed even more unwell—a vein throbbed at his temple, his breathing was more rapid than before, and in the dim light, his gray-green eyes seemed to… faintly glow with an inhuman golden glint.

He was fighting something. And the cost of that fight was the rapid erosion of his patience.

Elara heard her own dry voice, faint but clear. She pushed the document away as if it were a venomous snake.

Damien turned his head to look at her. In the dim light, his pupils momentarily became slits.

he said slowly, each word dripping with ice,

Before his words had faded, an indescribable, terrifying pressure flooded the entire car! It wasn't physical; it was an absolute suppression stemming from a higher level of being and dark power. Elara felt as if she had been tossed into an ice cave, or as if an invisible giant hand was clutching her throat. She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t even move a fingertip.

Alpha’s Aura.

He leaned closer, so close she could see the golden ring spreading at the edge of his pupils. His breath was cold and dangerous against her ear.

His hand covered hers on the document, forcibly guiding it to the last page of the agreement.

It required a signature and… a bloody thumbprint.

“Choose.”

Elara’s teeth chattered. Tears welled up uncontrollably, but she forced them back. The fresh wound on her palm still seeped blood, stinging. She looked at the agreement, at the man beside her who was the very embodiment of the abyss.

She remembered the look in her parents’ eyes as they pushed her forward to settle their debts without a second thought.
She remembered the greedy faces below the auction stage.
She remembered the rumors of girls in the red-light district who lived a life worse than death.

At least… at least here, she was still alive.

At least these eyes he wanted were still on her own face.

Humiliation washed over her like an icy tide. She closed her eyes. When she opened them again, they were filled with nothing but hollow determination.

She pressed her bleeding left thumb firmly onto the signature line of the agreement.

The bright red thumbprint was a jarring stain on the pristine white paper.

Almost at the same instant she pressed it, Damien released his oppressive power. He picked up the agreement, looked at the blood print, and a cold, nearly cruel smile touched his lips.

“Good.”

He tossed the agreement aside, leaned back into the seat, and closed his eyes. The vexation etched between his brows seemed to ease slightly. But Elara keenly noticed that the hand resting on his knee, its knuckles white, was still trembling.