Vice (Fireborn Wolves Book 1) Read Online Free

attend the ball tonight. Seven o’clock. Formal dress. That is a direct order from your alpha.”
    She raised two fingers to her forehead and saluted him, ending the motion by flipping him her middle finger.
    “And you will act like the princess you are.” He gave her a smug grin before turning on his heel and leaving the room.
    “Oooh! You asshole!” She stomped her foot. With a glance at her watch, she headed for the sink to wash up. She’d have to ask Becca to call Kyle and cancel their date. If she was going to make it to Rivergate Manor tonight, properly attired, she’d have to leave now to prepare. She couldn’t be late and she couldn’t say no. Silas’s direct alpha command meant she had no choice. If she tried to disobey, life would get extremely uncomfortable.

Two
    T he dress Laina wore to the ball was a style she’d never have chosen for herself. Stephanie, her Zafka—a doppelgänger used as her security detail—had picked it out for her. One of the benefits of having an employee who resembled you was they could shop for your clothes. Laina was thankful that Stephanie had made the time to obtain the dress on short notice, even if the midnight blue strapless gown was more revealing than she preferred. Still, she understood the cut of the dress served a greater purpose than flattery; it revealed the phoenix tattoo on her upper-right shoulder, the sacred emblem of Fireborn pack.
    “Princess Laina? Is that you?” Evelyn, the matriarch of Crescent Star pack, adjusted her bifocals and reached out to grip Laina’s right hand. “I expected to see a ring on this finger by now, dear. After the horrors of the last year, nothing would cheer this old soul like a royal wedding.” Crescent Star had lost seven males to Alex before Silas had taken him down. Laina’s heart ached for Evelyn’s loss.
    “I guess I just haven’t met the right male,” she said softly.
    “Since when did that ever stop anyone,” Evelyn whispered. “Look around. Anyone in a tie would jump at the chance to have a beauty like you on his arm.” She winked before crossing the veranda to enter the ballroom, passing Silas as he walked out to meet her.
    “What did Evelyn want?” he asked.
    “Nothing more than to dig for gossip.”
    “As if she doesn’t have enough stories of her own to tell.”
    “What she wants is happy stories to make her forget what happened to her pack. I can empathize, but she’d have better luck reading a romance novel than looking to my life.” Laina frowned.
    “You look beautiful.” Silas leaned against the open archway of Rivergate Manor’s ballroom. “I love the hair.”
    “Stephanie did it.” Laina shrugged. Her mahogany hair had been smoothed into a glamorous pomp with a high ponytail. Along with the mani-pedi and salt scrub she’d endured at Spa Stephanie, the hairstyle was enough to make her appear a proper princess.
    “It suits you.”
    “Don’t bother buttering me up. You’re on my shit list, brother. How dare you alpha me here.”
    “Would you have come otherwise?”
    “Of course not.”
    Silas stared into his glass, swirling his vodka and tonic. “Then, I did the right thing. It would look ungrateful if you didn’t show. Like it or not, you’re a princess. You have a duty to your race.”
    She groaned. “Silas…”
    The tension between them was broken when Cameron James, her childhood friend turned alpha of Rivergate pack, tapped the side of his glass with a spoon. “If I could have your attention please,” he called from inside. “If everyone would join us in the ballroom, we’d like to toast our guests of honor.”
    “Where’s Jason?” Laina asked.
    “Already inside sniffing butts,” Silas whispered.
    “Crude.”
    “That’s Jason.” Their little brother was obsessed with the female of the species. Not one female. All females. Laina might have thought it was due to his nature as a werewolf, the wild animal within, only she knew far more wolves who counteracted