A/N: Hello m'dears and welcome!

This piece is an extended (companion) scene from my other story, Blind Loyalty that I have written as part of the RLt's 2014 Fall Event (The Halloween Collaboration): Witches and Goblins and Ghosts, Oh My!

Please, everyone, if you like this piece, fav/follow! Enjoy!

Oh, she so wanted to make him proud.

However, the luxury penthouse they occupied on the top floor of a high rise in one of Starling's ritzy uptown neighborhoods was filled almost to the rafters with masked figures, many of whom Sienna had never met. Most, she assumed, were members of Starling's rich and powerful sect. They were the people that Slade's puppet, Sebastian Blood (whom Sienna considered to be no better than a slimy worm), needed to court in order to secure his position as the city's next mayor.

To the majority of these faceless people, Slade Wilson was nothing more than a dashing, charming businessman. To the men, Slade was an articulate and sophisticated man they wanted to befriend, to do business with. Ah, but to the women, though? To the women he was this animalistic enigma they wanted to figure out, and tame. So what if he stood accused of kidnapping Thea Queen? In their minds, if the charges had held any serious merit, well, he'd clearly still be behind bars. Besides, a good many of them had skeletons in their own closets. It wasn't like they could castigate Slade for what to them would only amount to a small lapse in judgment.

To those in his employ, however, he was the man behind what was an elaborate revenge plot. He was the one giving the orders, opening the doors, setting the wheels of what he planned into motion. Even with his private war against Oliver Queen in full swing, there was a need to maintain appearances. That was why Slade had requested she plan this Ball. The image that he projected to the world kept it from discovering just what he had planned for Starling's prodigal son. She didn't know what had happened to turn Mr. Queen and Slade into enemies. It wasn't a topic that Slade openly discussed and she was far too much of a coward to actually question him about it. But I will ask him just as soon as things settle down again, she promised herself.

Sienna swallowed a sigh as she searched the room for her one-eyed bandit. The masquerade was barely getting underway and yet she could see that a great many of the guests her... Slade, she corrected quickly. She wasn't quite ready to call Slade Wilson her boyfriend, even in the privacy of her own thoughts. Not that they weren't involved as a couple, because it was more than obvious to her (and everyone else) that they were. And it wasn't because she questioned her role in Slade's life. She was quite aware that to him, as well as to the world at large, she was the Queen of his vast empire.

Even if she didn't always feel like she was Mistress of his Keep.

Most of the guests, she saw as she slowly glanced around, were congregated in small clusters at the edges of the makeshift dance floor. A small crowd was twirling to Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake, Op, 20 (Lake In the Moonlight), their brightly colored masks almost as extravagant as the jewels and costumes they were wearing. People had already been lining up in the dining room in order to partake of the refreshments being laid out when she'd passed a few minutes ago. A quick glance showed her that even more were taking advantage of the full service bar that had been set up out on the balcony.

She was surrounded by a cornucopia of people.

Damnation, she thought as she reached up to finger the huge blood red stone nestled between her breasts. There are more people here than I anticipated there'd be. She was half tempted to just scurry back to the relative safety of her private bedroom suite and say the hell with the Ball. Slade knew she still got anxious in crowds, he'd understand why she couldn't attend. Oh, but I so want to make him proud.

No, what she really wanted was for Slade to suddenly appear at her side, tuck her hand into the crook of his arm and escort her into the ballroom. Sienna pushed that fanciful thought aside. She had to do this without her sinfully handsome pirate to hold onto. Her anxiety was not something she could easily put aside. Not when the familiar bands of panic were already starting to wrap themselves around her chest and cinch tight. She chewed on her bottom lip, struggling to work up the courage necessary to take the final steps that would lead her into the sea of masked strangers.

Almost as if he'd been conjured up by some sort of magic spell, Slade appeared at her side, a devastating smile curving his full lips. "Hello, little one."

"Slade." The stark relief she heard in her voice sickened her. Still… "I'm so glad you're here."

"I have always been there when you have needed me, have I not?"

"Yes." She nodded. "Of course you have been."

"Then you knew I would be here now."

She saw his eye sweep her then, appreciation and something darker, hungrier burning in its depth that absolutely stole what little breath she was managing to draw in. The primal hunger shimmering in that obsidian depth left her knees wobbly, her mouth dry and her pulse bucking more than a wild Mustang.

"You look beautiful, love."

Sienna shivered as her belly coiled into those achingly hot knots it always did whenever he spoke in that low, throaty baritone. "Considering how you chose my costume?" Her lips curled delicately at the corners. "I would hope that you are pleased with how it turned out."

"I am more than pleased."

Sienna had to admit that she was pleased with how her costumed had turned out. At first she'd been flabbergasted when he'd presented her with the mask and gown that afternoon, not understanding the reasoning behind his choice in costume at all. The dress had flowed over his arm in a waterfall of sequins and beads the color of fire and ice. Once she'd dressed, though, she'd understood exactly why Slade had chosen this particular costume for her. The woman looking back at her in the full length mirror had glowed with heat and pulsated with coldness. She was the fire Maiden and the ice Queen.

And both sides of her were his.

Same as both sides of this man were hers. She accepted that Slade was both mercenary and liberator. It's why I chose for him to dress as a pirate tonight, she thought, surreptitiously studying him. Slade's profile wasn't perfect. There were streaks of silver in his dark hair and goatee. His nose was straight, the nostrils slightly flared, his swarthy face smooth except for a few faint lines at the corners of his eyes and mouth. He was a man who could smile cruelly, or sensually. He hadn't shaved that evening, and the shadow of stubble along his jaw and over those angular cheeks turned what was already an arresting face into something edgy. Powerful. Beautiful.

She opened her mouth, intending to commend him on at least adhering to the costume part of the masquerade when a man dressed as the Phantom from the Phantom of the Opera shoved by her. Sienna jumped and let out a tiny squeak. Slade snagged her hand and drew her towards him.

"Relax, love."

"There are a lot more people here than I'd anticipated," she finally said once her heart left her throat. "I didn't think there would be so many who'd show up at once. I'm not sure I..." her voice trailed off into a sigh full of both nerves and frustration. I didn't use to be this much of a coward, she thought bitterly. I didn't use to be afraid of walking into a room full of masked strangers.

No, once upon a time Sienna had been one of Gotham's reigning socialites. That woman wouldn't have been afraid to make a grand entrance (the grander the better, in fact) at this Masquerade Ball. That woman used to go to parties like this all the time. That woman had never once feared that someone was lurking in the shadows who could mean her harm. That woman wouldn't look at a dizzying array of masked faces and wonder if one of them meant to sell her on the black market.

No, that woman would have just boldly sashayed into the ballroom with a mysterious smile curving her glossy lips. That woman would have boldly engaged these strangers (men as well as women) in conversation without feeling as if she was going to throw up the moment she opened her mouth. That woman would have been flirtatious, playful, and fearless. She'd have melted against this man and lifted her mouth for his kiss, uncaring about who was watching or might have disapproved of such a wanton display.

Ah, but that woman had been kidnapped while leaving a club in Miami a little over two years ago. That woman's whole world, as well as everything in it, had come screeching to a halt the second three masked men grabbed her and hustled her, kicking and screaming into a van. That woman had been drugged, molested, tormented before almost being sold to a group of masked figures. That woman who'd once been known as Gotham's Ice Princess, ceased to exist.

The first month of her ordeal had been a blur. Sienna had been kept in a suspended state of animation- neither alive, nor dead. Her first semi-clear memory was waking up in that underground auction house in St. Petersburg just moments before they'd interjected her with god knew what and pushed her out onto a stage. The memories rose up, images superimposing themselves over sights and smells. Reality blurred and time ticked to a crawl as she again saw herself stumbling around amidst a sea of blank faces. Her stomach began to coil into greasy knots and her mouth filled with saliva. She knew she was going to be sick if she didn't get the hell out of there and fast. God, she was a damned fool for thinking she could handle attending this Ball.

"Sienna?" she heard Slade saying in a distorted voice. "Can you hear me, love?"

Could she enter that ballroom, he meant. Her answer to that...

"I don't think I can do this, Slade," she croaked out around the ball lodged in her throat. "I'm sorry..."

"Look at me," Slade's husky timbre rolled over her hypersensitive senses, supercharging them even more than they already were. Only when she focused her eyes upon his did he ask, "What are you afraid will happen if you walk into that ballroom?"

She was panting with the effort to not lose the contents of her stomach. "Right now? My greatest fear is that I will embarrass you by throwing up all over you."

His face softened and he reached up to cup her cheek in the palm of his hand. "You are letting your panic defeat you, love. And what have I told you about letting your panic rule you?"

Sienna closed her eyes and turned her face into his palm, absorbing the wondrous feeling of his rough skin upon hers. The sensation was heady, intoxicating. The ugly things shouting at her scurried to the back of her mind with low, moist hisses.

"Don't let it?" she finally managed to rasp.

He nodded. "So what should you do about it?"

A voice in the back of her head whispered a logical response to that question: run like hell. But her automatic mouth had her reply, "Remind myself that I am with you and that you will never allow anybody to hurt me."

"And?"

"And..." a pause. "I don't think I can do this, Slade," she whimpered. "I'm sorry... I just don't think I am ready for something like this Masquerade Ball."

"Sienna..." he began, but she continued talking, unable to shut up now that she'd spilled her humiliating secret.

"I thought I could do this. I wanted to do this. I fully intended to make you proud by walking into that ballroom all by myself..." She sent him a look full of abject misery. "But there are just way too many people here."

"Nothing bad is going to happen to you, love," he murmured in that tone which always seemed to slide beneath the edge of her panic and scare away the demons laughing and hurling obscenities at her. "You know that I'd stop them long before they managed to touch you."

"Promise?"

His thumb lightly traced her bottom lip. "I promise."

Promises, Sienna had come to learn, were things that carried special meaning with Slade Wilson. They were not guarantees that he made recklessly, nor that he treated lightly. She recalled how the first promise he'd ever made to her was about how he would "never allow" her "to be hurt again."

"I will protect you, little one," he crooned to her in a silky smooth timbre that made her belly do jumping jacks even while her head swam in its drug induced haze. "And I will keep you safe. I promise."

It was a promise he'd yet to break in the months they'd been together.

The live band she'd hired began playing Grim, Grinning Ghosts. Sienna felt it an appropriate choice considering the innumerable ghosts surrounding them. Slade led her into a dance moments before one of his masked goons appeared from out of nowhere to dispel the magical lull that had slowly been overtaking them.

"What is it?" he growled at them.

"There is a... situation," the man intoned slowly. "What would you like us to do?"

"Handle it."

The man visibly flinched at the force of those words. "But sir," he stuttered. "It's Oliver Queen. He's been spotted."

Feral joy burned from Slade's eye, and his face no longer was human. "Has he now?"

"Yes, sir."

"Well, then," Slade rumbled now in a voice that sent shivers dancing along Sienna's spine. "Tell your men to be ready."

"Yes, sir."

The man melted back into the shadows then.

"Slade," Sienna began but he silenced her by resting his fingers against her trembling lips.

"Go back to our room and wait for me, love."

Realizing that it was futile to argue with him, she nodded. "Yes, of course."