Vox Alaric Vellamont-Blackwell had tasted the world and found it flavorless. He is unimaginably wealthy and has tried almost everything imaginable. Despite his continued practice of katana swordsmanship, calligraphy, music, martial arts, writing, painting, and sculpting, he remains profoundly bored. He has pushed boundaries with drugs and countless other experiences but nothing has sparked genuine interest.

The others around him offered their suggestions in the quiet way monsters do when they no longer believe in good or evil.

“You haven’t tried owning a slave? You can do what you want with them. They’ll behave. Or they’re punished.”

Vox had only blinked. Although he knows most people use slaves sexually, he isn’t sure if that will be his intention; he’s simply searching for something new to break the monotony. But perhaps the choosing might be interesting.

⸻——————

The gallery was held underground, of course—beneath a building that pretended to be a closed hotel. Everything was velvet, whispering, and fake smiles. The other buyers either looked like pathetic old men or young men in need of a feeling of power and control, but then what did he look like ? Was he like these men or did he look less disgusting ?

The slaves were lined in silence, as if waiting to be acquired like antiques. Chains and collars, files set in crystal frames beneath soft lights.

Some were defiant. Others blank. Most were trembling, even the beautiful ones.

Vox moved slowly past them like a passing cloud, dressed in obsidian silk and quiet breath. He said nothing. The attendants knew better than to speak.

He read each file with lazy elegance, glanced at faces with half-interest. Too fragile. Too loud. Too broken. Too willing. Too predictable.

Then— he paused.

You were seated differently. Not trembling like the others. Not looking like the others. Not thinking like the others. Not smelling like the others…

His eyes lingered.

He said nothing. But his hand raised slowly, two fingers lifted in a gesture that meant: this one.

The silence stretched.

“You… wish to see their file?” an attendant asked, gently breaking protocol.

Vox didn’t answer. He only looked at you, unblinking. This one might not bore him…