Crimson Ballerina

Long before history was written, shifters and humans walked side by side, their worlds intertwined beneath the same moon. They hunted, built, and loved as one people—until fear split them apart. Forced into the shadows, the shifters vanished from human memory, fading into myths and bedtime stories.

Now they walk unseen among the world—lawyers, doctors, teachers, celebrities, and magnates. To the human eye, they are ordinary. To each other, they are the remnants of an ancient legacy, of wolves who run beneath the midnight sky by night.

The world believes they are gone.

The shadows knows some secrets were never meant to stay buried.

The crisp March air in Aspen bit at Andros’s skin, the cold more biting than usual tonight. His breath hung in the air, fleeting clouds of fog dissipating quickly in the darkness. The moonlight gleamed over the snowy streets, casting long shadows that stretched across the pavement, as if something were waiting to emerge from them.

He stood leaning against the stone wall of the clinic, his eyes scanning the street. The time seemed to stretch on, the minutes curling and snapping like the branches of the pine trees lining the road. Valerie had been inside for over an hour. She’d mentioned a routine check-up, but Andros knew better. There was always something more lurking beneath the surface with her—something he couldn’t put his finger on, no matter how many times he tried.

He huffed, running a gloved hand through his dark hair, pacing slightly to keep warm. His wolf was restless too, prowling beneath his skin, its instincts alert, ears flicking in every direction. He had grown used to the feeling over the years, the low hum of power and caution that lived within him.

But tonight, there was something... different.

A sudden, sweet scent cut through the air, so out of place in the chill of the night. It was subtle at first, the softness of coconut mingling with vanilla and warm hazelnut, like a tropical breeze on an otherwise frigid evening. But that wasn’t the strangest part. No, it was the way it made his wolf stir, a deep hunger rising in him—wanting to track it, to follow it, to find the source of the scent. His instincts flared, sharp and demanding, urging him to act before his mind could catch up.

Andros turned sharply, his eyes scanning the night, searching for the woman who wore that intoxicating fragrance. His heart rate picked up as the scent led him through the quiet street, around a corner, and into an alleyway barely lit by a flickering streetlamp.

There she was.

A young woman dressed in a dark puffer jacket and black pants, her long brown hair hidden beneath the hood. She was walking briskly, a large duffle bag slung over her shoulder, and the same scent clung to her—coconut, vanilla mixed with warm hazelnut, and something else, something darker, like she belonged to this world of shifters, but also... not.

His wolf rumbled in his chest, eager to get closer. Every instinct screamed that she was important. That this wasn’t some random encounter. She had the attitude of someone who had secrets—secrets he was willing to uncover.

He stepped forward, but just as he made the move, the clinic door swung open, and Valerie stepped out, her sharp gaze locking onto him immediately. The moment their eyes met, Andros knew it was over. He could no longer follow the scent, like it has dissapear all of a sudden. Was he imagining?

“Something wrong?” Valerie’s voice cut through the cold, her eyes narrowing as she looked at him.

Andros forced his gaze away from the woman, and his wolf reluctantly backed off, its curiosity gnawing at him still. “No,” he said, his voice clipped as he walked toward her. “I thought I saw something. I was just waiting.”

Valerie raised an eyebrow but didn’t press him further. Her hand rested on her stomach, an action so subtle yet telling, and Andros instantly knew.

Her expression softened, and she smiled, the glow of something big shining in her eyes. “I’m having a pup, Andros. You’re going to be an uncle.”

The words hit him like a punch to the chest. His heart leaped in his chest as he stared at her, stunned. A rare wide grin spread across his face as he pulled her into a tight hug. His mind barely registered the cold as he whispered, “That’s incredible. Congratulations, Val.”

She chuckled softly, her hand resting on his shoulder as she pulled away. “It’s time to tell your brother and sister the good news,” she said, a knowing smile playing on her lips.

Andros pulled back slightly, the weight of the moment sinking in. His eyes softened, a rare vulnerability in his gaze. “You already told Elijah?”

She nodded. “I already facetimed him during the sonogram and believe me when I say that he’s on the way to the pack. Let’s head home now.”

He felt a knot of relief in his chest, though the other part of him still buzzed with unease. He hadn’t forgotten the girl. The coconut-vanilla hazelnut scent still lingered faintly in the air, teasing him. But Valerie... she was his priority now. His pack, his family, was his first and only concern.

“Let’s go home then,” he said, his voice steady as he opened the door to the car. “I’ll drive you extra carefully today.”

Valerie gave him a grateful nod, and they climbed into the car, the engine humming to life. Andros’s hands gripped the steering wheel, the warmth of the car a stark contrast to the freezing night outside. His mind should’ve been focused on Valerie, on the joy of the moment, but the scent still lingered, intoxicating, filling his senses.

His wolf paced restlessly beneath his skin. The girl. He had to find her. The connection felt undeniable, like a thread pulling him back into the dark, into something he didn’t fully understand yet.

The road stretched before them, the headlights illuminating the snow-covered path. Valerie was talking beside him, her voice a calm melody, but Andros was lost. His mind kept drifting back to the girl in the alley.

“Val,” he said abruptly, his voice low, barely above a whisper. “There’s something off about someone I saw. Something off about the scent of that person.”

Valerie’s gaze flicked to him, her brow furrowing in concern. “What do you mean?”

Andros hesitated, his grip tightening on the wheel. “The scent coming out, I could smell it at first and then it disappeared. Another thing was the duffle she was wearing. It’s... a logo from the Velvet, the nightclub we are investigating. But something feels off, if she works there or not I can’t tell.”

“She? Maybe she was human waitress and you misinterpreted something?” she muttered. “Don’t let your instincts cloud your judgment,” Valerie warned, her voice still calm but firm.

“We’ll figure out the rest when we get back to the pack.”

But even as she said the words, Andros’s wolf wouldn’t stop pacing in the back of his mind. The girl, the scent... it wasn’t just a passing curiosity. It was something more. And he needed answers.

When they arrived at the Pack territory he helped Valerie out and up the house porch stairs just in case something happened.

The air was crisp with the scent of pine and approaching snow when hurried footsteps echoed across the training grounds.

Andros had barely finished overseeing Valerie enter their house when a distressed voice called his name.

“Beta Andros!”

He turned sharply.

Julia Whitmore stumbled through the crowd, her chest heaving from exertion. Her usually neat chestnut hair hung loose around her shoulders, and tears glistened in her frightened eyes.

Immediately, Andros turned to see her.

“Julia?” Concern creased his brow as he approached her. “What’s wrong?”

She grabbed his forearm, her fingers trembling.

“It’s my daughters.”

“Sonya and Sarah?”

Julia nodded frantically. “They never came home.”

The words struck him like a blow.

“What do you mean they never came home?”

“They went into Aspen yesterday afternoon.” Her voice cracked. “They wanted to visit the market and meet some friends. They promised they would return before sunset.”

Andros frowned.

“And they didn’t?”

She shook her head.

“No. At first I thought perhaps they had stayed with one of their cousins, but I’ve checked everywhere. No one has seen them since yesterday evening.”

Fear flashed across her face.

“They’re young, Andros. Too young to be wandering among humans after dark.”

The Beta’s expression hardened.

Sonya and Sarah were only sixteen.

Old enough to visit town under supervision.

Far too young to disappear without explanation.

“Have you tried mind-linking them?”

Julia swallowed.

“Neither of them answered.”

That immediately set off alarm bells.

Even when wolves were angry, rebellious, or avoiding their parents, they almost always responded eventually.

Silence was never a good sign.

Especially not from two young she-wolves.

“When was the last time anyone saw them?” Andros asked.

“A shopkeeper near Main Street said he saw them around sunset.” Julia’s voice shook. “After that... nothing.”

The Beta glanced toward the forest beyond the pack borders.

A thousand possibilities flashed through his mind.

A rogue attack.

Hunters.

Human authorities.

Or worse.

“They know the rules,” Julia whispered. “They know not to remain in town after dark. Something happened, Andros. I can feel it.”

Tears finally escaped down her cheeks.

“A mother knows.”

Andros gently placed a hand on her shoulder.

“We’re going to find them.”

Julia looked up, desperately searching his face for reassurance.

“You promise?”

“I do.” The certainty in his voice steadied her breathing. “I’ll send trackers immediately. We’ll search every route between Aspen and the territory.”

Relief and fear battled in her expression.

“And the Alpha?”

Andros nodded.

“He needs to know.” His gaze darkened. “If two members of our pack vanished within human territory, this is no longer a family matter.”

It was a pack matter.

A dangerous one.

Andros turned toward the Alpha House perched atop the ridge overlooking the valley.

A growing sense of unease settled deep in his chest.

Because wolves didn’t simply disappear.

And if Sonya and Sarah had failed to return home... it was because someone had made sure they couldn’t.

And Andros intended to find out who.

No matter what it took.

Robin

Another day, another girl. Robin though as she was walking the streets of Aspen on her way to the nightclub she worked at, the Velvet as as any other men’s club with the slight difference that they primarily welcomed shifters from all around the state.

Secretly, they were also big business partners from the infamously shifter underground community known as “the Ring”. Even tough the real owner of the club was not part of nothing and she just cared about making money and powerful contacts, her brother was a member of the community of the Ring that also happened to be a bing purveyor of “assets” or “items”.

Robin new better. She was kidnapped by that same organization years ago, when she was just fourteen and now she was there, being a special asset for them by training the new girls before being moved to other sides of the world to be participants or just “companionship” to the higher ranks of it, even when she despises doing it, shw also trained them on how to scape or do thing to later being able to escape of seek help.

By now she had helped around twenty five of the girls scape. She kept her track engraved in her memory.

As she opened the back door of the club, she got inside and moved in automatic to her changing station, left her bag at the table and removed her puffer jacket and kept it in her locker. Turned on her mirror light and sat at the chair and looked at the woman in front of her. Beaufitul cheeks, full lips, long lashes, small pointy nose, perfectly defined eyebrows and her long brownie wavy hair.

She didn´t want to be here tonight. Another couple of girls set to be trained by her were about to arrive here.

She could not do it anymore. The pretending.

She had be pretending for eleven years now. Moved from facility to facility until she was “sold” to the Trader around a year ago. Being abused since she was fourteen, until she was capable enough to resist herself or even defend herself was tiring beyond measure. She used to dream to found someome was coming to rescue her, all she got was being used, lied and no one ever came back for her as they promised. Instead she began using that gifted mind of her, listen to voices, noises, places names, directions, nicknames, names and surnames, dates, counting tiles, sidewall panels from shipping containers where she had being moved or as they say “shipping the assets” from one compound or facility to another.

Everything.

But she stopped dreaming for her salvation, stopped dreaming to find her so fated mate, a pack, a family. She just stopped dreaming.

She began to focus en gathering data that was becoming helpful for her training to the girls about to be shipped or “distributed” in those so called “Asset Auctions” held more frecuently that she would’ve liked.

“Hi, pretty girl” a soft voice next to her took her out from her stuppor “Does your trainees have arrived yet?”

“Hi, sugarbush, not yet” she smiled while looking at her only friend in this horrendous world she was living in, despite everything, it was better being here than to be auctioned every time and being harrased by rich men, women as they pleased. “Hopedully they get taken away or scaped”

She whispered the last part.

“That’s what everyone in this fucking establishment want” she said sitting in her own makeup chair while turning on the mirror lights “except the Trader, of course.”

“Uhum”, she mutter while she started getting her makeup done for her shift tonight.

Both of them stopped their chat as other staff members, dancers and personnel arrived. Robin hopped those trainees she was about to receive tonight never made it there and wish them to scape.

A big ruckus was happening outside the changing stations just across the dancers, where the owners usually operated.

“I told you this before, no underage!” the female mother was shouting at her brother, the Trader “o fucking underage girls in my fucking club! Take them out now!!”

“I´m telling you, sister, they are twenty two but look way younger, that’s not on me” he replied trying to calm her, without getting it.

“Out of here, now!” she replied and threw the door finishing the conversation in an instant.

She could listen a heavy upset sigh from the Trader and his footsetps shortly after aproaching her.

“Dallas,” he was apporaching her with fury in his eyes but thingking options as he walked to her. “Some changes are in order for tonight.”

She pretended to be confused and let him talk to her.

“Those trainees I told you before, we are not doing it” he touched his jaw that was tensed in an exasperated sigh again but continue explaining her, while she kept collecting data, “they will have to be trained somewhere else, I need to moved them to another location probably later tonight when we get to the peak of the night.”

“Oh,” she murmured trying to seem distressed by the news as she was to be in the club to traing girls like she was trained years ago, to submit and to be “tamed” and be pleasant to the important “clientele” the Ring was accustomed to.

“I know, I know” he seemed even more anxious but closer to her and whispered to her some unsettling news that she had to act up as indifferent “The higher ups are trying to give the younger girls some suppresants after getting their first heat, you know how some clients prefer the newbies so they can purchase their first times but now they are also purchasing the youngers because they are easily controlled.”

She felt revultion coming up through her throat and somehow putting a poker face at those new data was making her feel beyond sick.

“Anyhow,” the Trader continue ignoring her mental talking “I’ll move them tonight and please help me keep the clients tonight in the club far way from the personnel back door to moved them in the van, I’ll ask Julius to ship them, got it?”

Julius Fraser. The official driver from the trained club girls to the other facilities.

“Got ya’” she muttter with a feigned smile that didn’t reach her eyes at all.

He nodded once at her and then walked back while pulling her hair in a still anxious mood.

She was some sort of relief but at the same time she needed to move faster than them tonight. Julius Fraser won’t be arriving until 1 am and do the move in less that fifteen minutes, she new that, had memorized it after living it multiple times.

The girls must be in his office or somewhere close to the personnel entrance door, meaning the spare clothing closet. She needed to move fast and freed them.

It was good that the loud music and lights were starting to rumble to the place, she could move fast.

The storage closet was barely large enough for two people.

Old chairs, stripper spare clothing in very tiny or barely nothing pieces of fabric, cleaning supplies, and boxes of liquor occupied most of the cramped space, leaving Sonya and Sarah huddled together in the corner. Their wrists were sore from struggling against the restraints that had only recently been removed, and both girls fought desperately to keep from crying too loudly.

The music from the nightclub thundered through the walls.

Every laugh.

Every shout.

Every bass beat.

It reminded them how trapped they were.

“What if nobody finds us?” Sarah wiped her eyes.

“They will,” Sonya whispered, though her voice lacked confidence. “Mom will notice we’re gone.”

A sound outside the closet made both girls freeze.

Heeled footsteps.

Slow.

Approaching.

The handle turned.

The twins immediately backed into the corner.

The door opened.

A woman stepped inside and quietly shut it behind her.

She looked to be in her mid twenties, dressed casually in jeans and a black tank top, her hair partially pinned back as if she was preparing for work.

For several seconds, nobody spoke.

Then her eyes softened.

“Oh, God.”

The twins stared at her.

The woman crouched beside them.

“You two are children.”

The realization seemed to genuinely upset her.

“Please help us.” Sonya swallowed.

The woman’s jaw tightened.

“I knew something was wrong when I smelled you brought in.”

“They won’t let us leave.” Sarah’s voice trembled.

“I know.”

The woman glanced toward the door before lowering her voice.

“My name doesn’t matter right now.”

She reached into her pocket and pulled out a small disposable cellphone.

Neither girl had ever been happier to see one.

“Listen carefully.”

She pressed the phone into Sonya’s hands.

“You have one chance.”

The twins nodded immediately.

“Call your family. Your friends. Your pack. Your Alpha. Your Beta. Anyone you trust.”

Sonya’s eyes widened slightly at the word pack.

The woman noticed.

“I don’t need details,” she said quietly. “I just know this place is wrong, and whatever they’re doing here with you won’’t be legal.”

She pointed at the phone.

“When you’re done, break it in half.”

“What?”

“It can’t be traced back to me.”

The woman held Sonya’s gaze.

“Understand?”

The twins nodded.

“Good.”

She stood.

“I’m going to leave now and act like nothing happened.”

Sarah grabbed her arm.

“Why are you helping us?”

For a moment, sadness flickered across the woman’s face.

“Because nobody helped me when I needed it.”

Silence settled over the tiny closet.

Then she gently freed her arm.

“You have about ten minutes.”

The woman opened the door.

“When I come back, be ready to move.”

Then she was gone.

Robin walked calmly through the employee hallway.

No rushing.

No panic.

Nothing unusual.

She entered the dressing room alongside the other dancers and sat in front of a mirror.

The reflection staring back at her looked composed.

Inside, her heart was racing.

She began applying the finishing touches to her makeup.

Mascara.

Lipstick.

Glitter. Tons of glitter.

Everything exactly as she did every night.

Nobody paid attention.

Nobody suspected a thing.

While touching up her eyeliner, she discreetly pulled out her personal phone.

A secure messaging app opened.

One contact.

One trusted friend.

Need pickup. Two girls .Personnel exit. Ten minutes. Emergency.

The response came almost immediately.

On my way.

Robin released a slow breath.

Then she changed into her performance outfit.

A sparkling black string two piece bikini designed to attract attention.

Perfect.

The more eyes focused on her later, the less anyone would remember seeing her near the staff entrance.

Ten minutes later she returned.

The twins were waiting.

The disposable phone lay broken into pieces beside them.

Good.

“You reached someone?”

Sonya nodded.

“Our Beta.”

Relief flooded Robin’s chest.

Perfect.

Someone would come.

Someone powerful.

Someone who could investigate what was happening here.

“Then let’s go.”

The girls stood immediately.

Robin led them through the narrow employee corridor.

The nightclub was growing busier by the minute.

Music thundered.

Customers laughed.

Security focused on the front entrance.

Exactly where she wanted their attention.

They reached the personnel exit.

Robin cracked the door open.

Cold night air slipped inside.

She stepped outside first and pulled a cigarette from her pocket.

A routine everyone at the club knew.

Robin always took a smoke break before her first dance.

No one questioned it.

She lit the cigarette and pretended to relax.

Then she glanced toward the dark side of the block.

A taxi sat waiting in the shadows.

Its headlights off.

Engine running.

Her friend had come through.

Robin exhaled smoke.

“Listen carefully.”

The twins leaned closer.

“Run.”

Neither hesitated.

“Stay in the shadows.”

They nodded.

“Don’t look back.”

Sarah’s eyes filled with tears.

“Thank you.”

Robin shook her head.

“Tell your pack what happened.”

The twins nodded.

“Tell your Alpha. Tell your Beta.”

Her expression hardened.

“And tell them to investigate this place.”

Sonya frowned.

“The nightclub?”

“The Ring, it’s behind it.”

The girls exchanged a glance.

Robin lowered her voice.

“There are more victims.”

The statement chilled them both.

“You need to tell someone who can stop it.”

The taxi door opened.

The driver waved urgently.

Time was running out.

The twins hurried forward.

Then Sarah suddenly turned.

“Wait!”

Robin froze.

“What’s your name?”

For the first time that night, a small smile touched the woman’s lips.

“Robin.”

Nothing more.

No surname.

No explanation.

Just Robin.

The twins nodded.

Then they ran.

Across the shadows.

Toward freedom.

Toward home.

Robin watched them disappear into the waiting taxi.

Only when the vehicle pulled away did she finally allow herself to breathe.

She dropped the cigarette.

Crushed it beneath her heel.

Then she slipped back through the personnel door.

The music swallowed her immediately.

Lights flashed.

Customers cheered.

The show was beginning.

And as Robin walked toward the stage, not a single person inside the nightclub realized that two victims had just escaped from right under their noses.