Chapter 12: The Escort

“A siren in the dark. A siren in the shadows. Does she sing if she is dead?” A voice whispered around us, and I sucked in a breath. I knew that voice.

“Silas.” My voice was shaky as I pressed closer to Atticus. Dorian moved to watch our backs.

I looked through the trees; so did the alphas, but Silas wasn’t coming out.

A taunting chuckle echoed on the wind, and I shivered.

“A vampire who hides is a dead vampire,” Atticus growled.

Another chuckle was the only response. The air turned brisk, the forest darker as I waited for Silas to come out of the dark.

“You have something of mine, Alphas.”

“Find another human to torment, Silas,” Zachariah warned, his eyes flicking like they were following a shadow I couldn’t see.

“Kassandra Kane is not a human,” Silas strode forward out of the forest, his body as tall as he could make it, his presence intimidating me even when I was surrounded by my alphas.

I had been tortured by Silas’s hands too many times not to be wary of him. I had never seen anyone best him.

I didn’t know if the alphas could.

But they didn’t seem scared—only angry.

And they protected me. That was new. Something warm spread in my chest at the idea, and I leaned into it. It felt good.

“She is not yours either,” Dorian came to stand with Zachariah. Atticus’s arm was still around me, but I shook beneath him.

My voice. It all came back to that.

What if that was why the alphas wanted me too? They said it was my scent, the realm, and what they wanted, but what if that was a lie too? I wasn’t even sure they knew what I was. Just that I smelled different. I wasn’t about to be the one to confirm any suspicions when my voice had been used against me so many times before.

That warmth in my chest turned to ice, and I shivered.

“Have you heard her voice, Alphas? Because I have. And I bet I am one of the few. The second I did, I claimed her.” Silas was circling us slowly, his eyes roaming up and down me like I was a trophy he could take.

Atticus’s hold tightened on me. Dorian and Zachariah closed ranks.

“Leave our territory, Silas. You are trespassing.” Dorian was stern, stepping closer to Silas, who paused his circling.

“Hand the girl over and I will.”

Zachariah stepped forward, his teeth bared in warning. “She belongs to the alphas. Either you leave with your head attached or I remove it for you. Your choice, vampire.”

Silas’s gaze finally left mine, and he looked at Zach. Then Dorian. Then Atticus’s hold on me.

He took a deep breath in, sniffing the air. His eyes glowed red, and a grin spread across his face.

“Your scent has changed, Kassie. You gave yourself to these savages? And here I thought you were saving yourself for me.”

I scowled at him, “You were never going to have me that way. Ever.”

“Hmm. Never is a long time, Sweetheart. Do you know how long a vampire lives?” He was taunting me, and it was working.

Fear clawed at my chest, making it tight and fragile as I let out a shaky breath. But Silas had kept me prisoner for years, killed my family, tortured me. Now he had nothing but his words, and I couldn’t let them get to me.

So I steeled myself against the feelings he pushed through me and met his evil gaze, “As long as it takes me to order your head. Or maybe I’ll have my alphas remove your cock and make you gag on it so I never have to hear your poisonous words again.”

Silas’s brow raised, and he looked at the unmoving alphas that surrounded me. He chose the smart option—retreat.

“I will get to you again, Kassie, and you will pay for every minute you have escaped me. That’s a promise.” And then he was smoke, a shadow moving through the trees towards vampire territory.

I sucked in a breath as soon as he was gone and fell into Atticus, my strength giving way to my fear.

Atticus held me, brushing my hair back, “Shh, Fox. He won’t get to you. We won’t let him. He may be a stronger vamp than most for his age, but there are three of us.”

I nodded and clenched my eyes shut, holding him to me.

“So we’re your Alphas now?” he teased.

I smiled despite my heart thumping against my ribcage, “Yes.”

“From the moment we saw you running in the forest, Sweet Siren.” Dorian pressed a kiss to my cheek, and I smiled up at him.

Zachariah met my eyes, “From the moment your scent crossed my mind, Little Red. Order his head, and you’ll have it.”

I knew that too. The conviction was easy to read in each of them.

And it did help, making me feel safer than I had in a while. It was surprising to have them so devoted after such a short amount of time. Was it all because of my voice? Did they even know what it could do?

I wasn’t about to tell them because then they might want me to use it. Or torture me for it. I shoved that to the back of my mind and looked back at the Alphas.

“Shall we go back to get ready for this banquet?”

Dorian hesitated, then nodded and led the way. Zachariah followed behind as I stayed in Atticus’s hold.

When we got back to Dorian’s treehouse, I went up to his room.

“I have clothes prepared for us all.” Dorian opened the door, and we went in. I sucked in a breath as I was met by a stunning dress hanging up in the window. It was a deep velvet green with a corset top and full skirts. The sleeves were long and flowing, and the edges of the gown were in gold.

“This is for me?” I asked.

Dorian nodded, “I’ll have a handmaiden come up and help you dress. We’ll be in the room next door if you need us, okay?”

I smiled and looked back at the dress. It was amazing—much nicer than I had ever worn. That threshold wasn’t high, though.

The alphas left, and another set of footsteps came into the room. I looked over my shoulder at a woman with brown hair and hazel eyes walking in.

Her hair was curled and turned on her head, tendrils hanging elegantly down her own dress. It was a light tan at the top with a brown corset and overlay. The puffed sleeves and skirts made her look like she was going to a ball. The colors set off the rich brown tones of her irises, too. She was stunning.

I was starting to see that most of the wolves were.

“Ready to dress, Miss Kane?”

I didn’t bother asking how she knew my name. Instead, I nodded and started stripping off my clothes.

She said nothing about the old scars or new bruises my body wore. I appreciated that more than she knew.

She helped me into the pale undergarments and then the dress. It was lighter than it looked, for which I was grateful.

While the girl was doing up my corset, forcing my breasts up in the dress, she smiled at me, “You are so lucky,” she breathed, “to be escorting Alpha Dorian tonight.”

“I am.” I couldn’t really talk. I was too busy trying to breathe. I hadn’t worn a corset before. It wasn’t something I’d choose to wear again. Even if it gave my body killer curvature.

“My name’s Dawn, by the way. I was Alpha Dorian’s escort last year.” She smiled at me like that made us similar. It did, but it triggered something inside me that had me frowning.

“And by escort him, you mean…?” I left the question hanging.

She smiled with a slight blush on her cheeks, “Oh. Uh. Well, the banquet is a celebration. Of course, the wolves have a specific way they like to celebrate.”

“So you fucked him?” I was much more hostile than I meant to be.

She shrugged, “Not really. He got me off with his fingers—a talent of his, by the way—then sent me off into the other festivities. He usually just watches.”

That shouldn’t have made me feel better, but it did. Not that I had any right to feel any way about his past, but I couldn’t help it. Having a connection to anyone was new for me, and so were the feelings that came with it.

“But he took me as a favor to my father who stopped shifting the year I was to finally attend the banquet. I was a pity date. But he chose you. You’re lucky.”

The way she spoke about the banquet like it was not actually a dinner had me stopping her tying up the strings on the front of my corset dress. “Is this banquet really about the kill?”

```

She grinned. “Not really, Miss Kane. It is to celebrate the kill, but elk is elk, you know? Really it’s just an excuse to drink and fuck.”

Of course it was. That was a warning I could have done with earlier.

She finished dressing me, then pulled out the chair to the wooden vanity in the corner. “Would you like me to do your hair?”

I nodded and sat down. “I feel like I’ve been fucking since I got here. I don’t know if I can handle any more so soon.”

She laughed a light-hearted laugh as she stroked through my hair with a comb, the red strands untangling at the curled ends.

“You are with our alpha. If he didn’t make you sore, then he wouldn’t deserve that title.”

“So fucked up,” I muttered. “And it’s not just him.”

“Yes, the three alphas claiming only one for the blood moon was quite the talk of the pack. Still is. Especially with the power that surged because of it.” She leaned down to my ear, facing us in the mirror with a wide smile. “What was he like, Miss Kane? The women of the pack are dying to know.”

I considered telling her where to shove her gossip, but then I thought of the way the pack worked. His reputation mattered. And to put it bluntly, I was not shy about what he did to me. What any of them did.

I smiled and met her eager expression. “He claimed me first, and it was mind-blowing. Those alphas destroyed me in the best way.”

Her eyes went wide, and her throat moved with her swallow. “Oh, I am riddled with jealousy!” She grinned, pulling the top half of my red hair back.

“I am lucky.” I shrugged, holding the edges of my chair. Talking about the alphas brought that familiar ache back to my stomach. The one that centered beneath my thighs and pulsed.

“I’ll say. How do you manage them all?” She sighed like she was imagining it, her fingers braiding.

“Every ache when I walk reminds me of what they did. That helps,” I let out a small chuckle. Dawn laughed and tied off my braid, then opened some cupboards on the wooden vanity. She found some small branches with leaves twisted into a small headpiece.

“Well, the banquet will really get you going then. I must admit, we are excited to see you with our alpha. When you are with him, his scent changes. It changes the pack for the better.”

I smiled, not sure what to make of that. It had been such a short amount of time, and I couldn’t bring myself to tell her that it might not be forever. That the next moon could see me with another alpha. Permanently.

Instead, I focused on tonight and enjoying myself. “Well, I better find some more of that healing elixir because if the banquet is even a shadow of what the blood moon was, then I’m going to disappoint,” I huffed.

I wasn’t human. I knew that my voice made that true. But my body was human, and there was only so much alpha it could take.

Dawn put the headpiece on me, then grinned and looked at me in the mirror, leaning close. “Would you like to know how we last the night with the warriors?”

I nodded, her devilish expression intriguing me. “Definitely.”

She stood up and reached into the side of her breast and pulled out a vial—another one from her other breast. The vials held a swirling green liquid in them.

“What in the Moon Goddess’s name is that?”

She grinned and popped one of the corks off. “This is the best elixir ever and guarantees a good night. Us women of the pack came up with it to give us an edge over the boys that think because they have a cock, that they are above us.”

I smiled at that. “What does it do?”

She leaned forward and brushed a tendril of my hair away from my face, her lips brushing along my temple, her eyes clashing with mine in the mirror. She placed the vial at my lips.

“It heightens your senses. Every single one. Every man that has a spark of arousal for you, you’ll feel. It gives you a pheromone. One the men can’t avoid. But it bends to your will. Only the men you want can sense it, and it drives them wild. It puts us in control of what we desire for the night, Miss Kane.”

I swallowed. Did I want my senses heightened?

She smirked and pressed the vial harder on my lips. She pulled her own vial to hers.

“Bottoms up, Miss Kane.”

I had said I wanted to experience everything.

So I parted my lips and swallowed the green liquid. As soon as it slid down my throat, my core burned, the scent of my alphas filled me, and I knew this was going to be one hell of a night.

***

```