The roar of the crowd made Blaine cringe.
He glanced at his friend, Thadeous. The other vampire was obviously enjoying himself as he clapped with the rest of their fellows.
"I don't know why I let you talk me into this,Thad," Blaine ground out between his clenched teeth. "These things always make me sick."
"Figuratively of course." Thad sighed as his compaion went unmoved by the attempt at humor. "Look, Blaine, these people used to enslave each other long before we took over. You can't possibly tell me that you think what we're doing is the same thing."
"As far as I'm concerned, it is the same." He paused and scanned the grinning faces around them before continuing. "And do you have to be so damn happy about it?"
Thadeous opened his mouth to answear, but before he could, another voice sounded behind them.
"Thought you didn't like these places, Anderson?"
The friends turned to see a rather musculer vampire standing behind them, leering.
"Piss off, Karofsky."
"Hey now, I'm just here to admire the new meat."
"You can't do that somewhere else? This is a pretty large area of ground. I'm sure you could find someone whose not completly put off by your presence."
"Is that any way for a noble to talk, Anderson?"
Thadeous cleared his throat, "Play nice, boys. You don't want to start a fight in the middle of all these people, do you?"
Nither Blaine nor Karofsky had time to answer as the next poor sap was being forced out into the moonlight.
The auctioneer grinned evily at the human and chuckled. "Ah, I think you lot will enjoy the story behind this one. We found it at a rebel colony out near the edge of town. By the looks of it, they were planning on starting an uprising. Most of them escaped, I'm sad to say, but we managed to catch this one. Who ever buys it will need to have a strong hand as he's a fisty one."
Blaine looked the young man up and down. He was very pale, more so then some of the vampires gathered there. His chestnut brown hair was tossled, prehaps from the fight he had went through, and his blue-gray eyes held a steely look in them that clearly said he would gladly kill each and every one of them if he could. He was on the lean side, but that was to be expected from a renegade human.
The auctioneer chuckled lightly again before addressing the crowd. "Let's say we start the bidding at 2,000 cridts?"
Someone from the back of the crowd made the bid and another vampire increased the price to 3,000. The price kept going up by 1,000 until it was up to 20,000.
People seemed reluntent to go further, but the auctioneer wasn't going to let the human go just yet.
"Come on now. He's got good teeth and don't let his body fool you, he's actually got quite a lot of muscle in his arms, put him to some heavy lifting, eh?"
"It's a handsome one, isn't it, Anderson? I wouldn't mind pounding that thing into submission."
Blaine's eyes went black and he glared up at Karofsky.
"Do you have a point?"
Karofsky grinned unnerveingly and looked up at the platform.
"40,000!"
The auctioneer laughed good-naturedly, "Do we have 50,000?"
The auctioneer waited a few moments before saying, "Anyone? Anyone at all? No? Going once, going twice--,"
Something like fear suddenly gripped Blaine and before he really knew what he was doing, he shouted out "80,000!"
Thadeous looked at him in shock, as did most of the people standing nearby.
"Now that's what I'm talking about!" exclaimed the auctioneer gleefully. "Do we have--,"
"100,000!" shouted Karofsky.
"300,000!" Blaine snarled, eyeing Karofsky angerly.
Karofsky gritted his teeth and Blaine smirked at him. The vampire noble knew that Karofsky would never be able to aford such an amount since he belonged to one of the Lower Covens of Ohio.
The auctioneer roared with laughter, "Well unless the king and queen themselves have blessed us with their presence tonight, I highly doubt the price is going to increase."
There was a muttering from the crowd that confirmed these words and the auctioneer hit the podium he stood behind with his gavel, making it final.
"Sold, to Count Anderson of Westerville."
The sound of applause rose up around him as the human was escorted off the platform and down the steps that led to the building where the transaction would be carried out.
"Blaine, what did you just do?" Thadeous gawked at him as if his frinend had gone completly bonkers.
"What did it look like?" he snapped, "I just did something I swore I would never do."
He ran a hand through his mop of dark curls and stalked off down the empty path the crowd had made for him with Thadeous following close behind.
The two vampires approched the old barn and walked through the open doors. A gaurd held the human by a length of rope that had been forced around the boy's neck. The slaver that delt in buisness affiars stood in front of these two, bouncing on the balls of his feet as he survayed Blaine and Thadeous.
"I never thought I'd be lucky enough to sell to someone of such high status,Count Anderson."
Blaine was hardly listening. Instead he was studying the human. The boy had been dressed in what looked like an old sack and he was barefoot, feet shifting under the old planks of the barn.
"You can't get him some shoes?"
The slaver blinked in suprise, sparing a quick glance at the boy's feet before looking up at Blaine once more.
"We've never heard a complaint before, sir."
"First time for everything."
"Um, we don't have any for it..."
"He," Blaine corrected sharply, "he's clearly a male so refer to him as such."
"The point still remains that we don't have any footwear for him."
"Then give him yours. You look to be about the same size."
"Blaine."
"Shut up, Thadeous."
Blaine's still black eyes snapped up to look at the slaver. "I wasn't joking."
The slaver hesitated for only a moment before complying. He threw his boots at the human.
Sometimes it payed to be so rich.
The young man eyed Blaine suspciously before bending down and fitting the boots on his bare feet.
"So, um, sir, the money if you don't mind."
Blaine dug out his wallet and paid the slaver who had visably lost his enjoyment of being near the count.
Blaine returned his wallet to his pocket and held out his hand for the rope that the guard still held.
The guard handed it over and Blaine led the human outside.
Thadeous fell into step beside him as they headed down the dirt road that led to Blaine's limousine, casting strange looks at him all the while.
Blaine ignored him. If Thadeous grilled him later on he would gladly answear, but he wasn't up for talking at the moment.

When they reached the car, the boy surpised both vampires by speaking.
"Impressive. I was expecting a hearse."
Thadeous and Blaine stared at him in shock for a few moments (the boy keeping a steady gaze on both of them) before Blaine gave a shout of laughter.
"We're not zombies!"
This did not seem to be the reaction the human had wanted for he scowled and fixed his eyes on the glossy, black transportion.
"Come on, let's get out of here." Blaine said once he had regained control of his breath.
Thadeous opened the back door for Blaine and his new slave before heading to the driver's seat and start the long trip back home.