Chapter 14
Chapter 14
The room had gone silent. Not with absence. But with weight.
Twelve sirens knelt before me, veils fluttering in invisible wind, as if even the air knew it wasn’t allowed to be still around them. Around me.
Vexx didn’t speak. Didn’t move. Just stood there, shoulders tense, jaw locked, eyes dark as oil.
He was Alpha of the Blood Syndicate.
But in this moment?
Even he wasn’t the most dangerous thing in the room.
I looked down at the First Siren. Her voice echoed again in my mind, but softer now, like silk brushing bone.
“You’ve called. We’ve come. Shall we raze the old world?”
I didn’t answer. Not yet.
Because I didn’t know.
I was still figuring out what I wanted to build, let alone burn.
So I asked the one question that had been rattling in the back of my head since the rooftop.
“What are you really?”
The First Siren lifted her head.
“We are what’s left after betrayal. After exile. We are the songs that were buried so men could rule with claws.”
I frowned. “But you’re wolves too… aren’t you?”
A pause. A whisper.
“We were. Before we bled our voices raw and were left in silence. Before the packs decided only strength came from teeth.”
It clicked. Sharp and sudden.
“You’re the female Alphas they erased.”
She smiled beneath the veil.
“Once, we led packs by song, not violence. Our power was harmony, not domination. And it scared them.”
“They turned your voices into myths.”
She nodded once.
“Until you.”
Behind me, Vexx took a single step forward. His voice was cautious.
“What do you want her to do?”
The First Siren turned her head toward him slowly.
“Lead.”
Meanwhile, across the city…
Grell stood in his private chamber beneath the gutted opera house. Candles flickered in a perfect circle around him, casting strange shapes across the broken seats.
A man in a tattered priest’s robe approached.
“She’s awakened them,” he rasped. “The Choir bows.”
Grell turned, his eyes gleaming. “Then it’s begun.”
The priest hesitated. “The Throne pulses.”
Grell clenched his fists. “And soon it will bleed.”
Back in the vault room…
I turned to Vexx.
“I need to train,” I said.
“You’ve been training. Surviving, resisting...”
“No,” I interrupted. “I need to control it. Not just react. I need to learn how to use my voice with precision. Because what’s coming won’t kneel like the Choir did. And I can’t keep blacking out or breaking buildings every time I get emotional.”
He looked at me for a long second. Then gave a short nod.
“Then we train. Together.”
My chest tightened. “You’d do that?”
“I chained you once,” he said quietly. “Helping you free yourself is the least I can do.”
Later…
We stood in the soundproof chamber three levels below the penthouse. A place Vexx had used to interrogate enemies. Now it was mine.
Vexx stood at the far end, arms folded, watching me like a general.
“Try again,” he said. “But smaller this time. Just push the glass. Not the whole room.”
I focused. Sang a note, not high, not loud. Just sharp.
The glass on the table cracked.
Not shattered.
Just cracked.
Vexx grinned. “Better.”
I let out a breath. “I don’t want to hurt people unless I mean to.”
He walked toward me slowly. “Then don’t.”
He reached me. Raised my chin with a finger.
“But don’t be afraid to mean it.”
Our lips almost met, but the lights flickered again.
My stomach dropped.
A cold wind blew in from nowhere.
The First Siren’s voice echoed in my head.
“He’s here.”
Far above…
At the very top of the city’s tallest tower, a shadow stood watching us.
Not a wolf. Not a siren. Something else.
Grell.
Wrapped in ritual marks, surrounded by spell-bound guards with sealed ears and silver blades.
He lifted a hand.
A black feather fell from his palm.
And miles away, the Choir began to scream. The scream ripped through the city like a thunderclap, silent, yet shaking every bone in my body.
I clutched the sides of the soundproof chamber, heart hammering.
Vexx’s eyes were hard, sharp as knives.
“That’s him,” he growled. “Grell’s mark.”
I swallowed thick. “What does it mean?”
“It means he’s coming.”
Before I could ask how, the lights blinked out.
Total blackout.
And then the only sound was my own ragged breathing… and a faint whisper threading through the dark.
“Sing for me, little siren.”
My blood ran cold.
Outside the penthouse…
The city was alive with chaos.
Cars stalled, streetlights flickered, and every wolf within miles felt it.
The black feather.
A dark song.
A warning.
Drekk and the Blood Syndicate scrambled, but even they were shadows scrambling in a storm they couldn’t control. Back in the chamber…
Vexx reached out and grabbed my hand, steadying me.
“Don’t listen.”
But I could still hear it, the voice inside my head.
Dark, seductive, like smoke curling around my bones.
“Sing, and I will make you queen.”
I shook my head violently.
“No.”
His hand tightened. “You don’t have to answer it.”
“But what if I don’t have a choice?”
Vexx stepped closer, voice low.
“You always have a choice.”
I closed my eyes.
Breathed deep.
And sang.
The note was soft, pure, a lullaby this time.
It wasn’t the war hymn.
It wasn’t the deadly command.
It was mine.
The darkness recoiled.
The whisper vanished.
The lights flickered back.
Vexx smiled, but it was a hard smile.
“You’re stronger than you think.”
I nodded.
But inside, I knew this was just the beginning.
Because Grell wasn’t just sending signals.
He was sending shadows.