Bought and Sold was the third Theta Sigma story I wrote when I began putting the series together in the autumn of 2005, after Elizabeth and Vampyres. I then went back and wrote a full year’s worth of stories featuring Chrístõ’s first friends, Terry, Cassie, Bo and Sammie before we finally met Julia, aged twelve in ‘Vampyres’. This story was then set many years later when Julia was seventeen and ready to be engaged to him. But I had so many other stories to write inbetween. So it was shelved. Meanwhile, quite a lot happened to Chrístõ and Julia. In the original story Chrístõ had been away for a long time and came to Beta Delta to see Julia on her birthday and arrange for their betrothal. As the stories progressed, though, Chrístõ came to live on Beta Delta himself and lots of other things happened, including getting to know many of her friends. So the storyline was moved from her home to Beta Delta III and set around a gymnastics contest. The names of the friends who are with Julia when she is kidnapped are changed and so is the name of the Time Lord who masterminded the scheme. Originally it was Lord Ravenswode, but he has done much more dastardly things already.

The other change from the original, is that Chrístõ called his father about the plot, rather than Hext, who I had not even envisaged at the time of writing the first draft. But he fits in quite nicely, now.

View the original draft of bought and sold here.