Siren -Editing-

Chapter twelve

The warm darkness beckoned me in closer, its grasp clawing at me, inviting me to stay longer, to go deeper.

Familiar stinging in my wrists kept me grounded in reality. The silver he had dug into my arms had dulled from a searing pain to a numb tingle. I didn't want to wake up, I didn't want to go back to the pain of living.

Father had everyone convinced he was an amazing Dad who doted on his daughters and managed to raise them to be functioning members of society despite losing his mate. He even had me convinced he cared sometimes.

But they were wrong. He was evil. He was turning me into a monster. A beast he decided was perfect. I didn't recognize myself in the mirror, I couldn't find my scent on anything I touched, and I couldn't walk without the forcible reminder of what he was doing to me under teh cover of the perfect Father.

I hated perfection.

I hated what it did to me, what it covered up, who it left behind. I hated living the way I did in the name of "Perfection."

It was the reason my mate would never find me; the reason he could never truly accept me.

I was the creation, the beast, that Father worked to make.

The monster I was afraid of becoming.

The siren I hated, the machine they all loved.

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I wasn't stopped when I walked into the stuffy meeting room with the Alpha. Or when I sat in the cushioned chair next to Blake, lacing my fingers with his under the table. I wasn't even looked at as the rest filed in, and my Father sat across the table from me.

The meeting opened similarly to how the dinner had, with the alpha sitting up straighter and welcoming everyone in, briefly going over what they were intending to discuss.

"Thank you all for coming after all the scheduling issues that we've had." There was a murmur among them echoing the frustration he expressed. "As you know, we recently had some changes to our pack numbers. May they rest in peace."

There was another murmur, sadder this time, leaving me shocked. No one had told me there had been some tragedy before we came, but it did explain why our pack was so small and why it was so easy for Jes and I to enter the territory.

The meeting carried on with numbers and resources that were needed or that could be shared. Nothing that even indicated that the Alliance was rocky. Until the subject of patrols came up, and how sparse ours were since the tragedy no one wanted to directly address.

"We could always merge our packs," my father leaned in, tearing his gaze from me for the first time since the meeting started.

"No." The three Alphas spoke in unison.

"You just want your Sirens back," I folded my arms. He wasn't in any high position in his pack; that could be the only reason he'd be allowed to tag along.

"Perhaps, darling, but you two aren't the only ones around."

"Among the few who survived you."

"How do you-?"

"Enough," Alpha Taani interrupted as I glared at Alec. "We will supply what we can spare for a few weeks while you get back on your feet. Alec is in charge of our patrols, and I expect him to join you for that duration with the grace and professionalism our pack is known for." He hissed the last few words to Alec as he grimaced.

A small part of me was glad my father, Alec, was finally getting some pushback after the years of leeway that he had gotten from the aging Alpha. But another part of me was wary, why now? What did he do to lose the favor that had gotten him so much? How did he land himself a job in charge of anything?

The rest was scheduling and Alec finding new places he could put himself to extend his stay as long as possible. At the end, despite my objections and Blake's suggestions, my father was set up to be the busiest wolf in the room and set to stay two months if we still needed him.

I hoped we wouldn't.

Blake walked me out after the meeting concluded, lacing my fingers with his, letting the silence between us grow stale until we were alone. Even then, he waited until we were in our room, unwinding after a long day neither of us was a fan of, to finally speak.

"You're impulsive." He observed taking off his shirt like I would still be able to properly pay attention to anything he said. "I don't know the details between you and your father, but that wasn't the way to go about it."

"I wasn't wrong."

"Maybe not, but now he's staying for two months. That's two months you and Jes are going to tiptoe around, hoping you won't have to run into him and face your monster again." He folded his arms as he looked at me sitting on the bed, "I can't watch you turn into a zombie because he's here that long."

I bit my lip as the worry in his voice finally spread to the rest of him, starting in his face. "Why do people call you Alpha if your dad is still in charge?" I dodged the subject, earning an eyeroll from him.

"Because I'm taking over some of the duties so that the transition between me and my dad isn't so hard on the pack like it was when my dad took over. They just started to call me that out of habit from my dad doing those duties instead." He took my chin and made me look up at him, "You can't dodge him forever."

I sighed, "I can't dodge him at all, and I wish it were different. But a lot of the stuff your mom is coaching me through is involved with at least one of the duties that man decided was perfect for him."

Blake gave me a gentle peck. "Then, you might be able to shorten his stay."

"How?" I hummed.

"He's only here as long as we need him, if the roles he's taking can be transferred to someone else or if they're suddenly unnecessary then he goes home before the two months are up."

I stared at him for a moment before I kissed my genius for pointing out what should have been obvious. I cupped his cheeks, pulling him in closer, as a laugh erupted from his throat.

He easily moved me further into the bed as he crawled in, careful not to break from my lips for too long, like I was his oxygen and he was mine. "That's all I have to do to get you to initiate?"

I hit his chest with a forced annoyance I couldn't bring myself to actually explore. Instead, I was excited when he went back in and pulled me in deeper, going further than I had ever thought to go before.

~

Edited