For the Taking ✅

1 • Bet

Seraphina POV

"What do you think I should wear? This dress? Or," Mara held a red body-con dress from her wardrobe as she pulled another emerald green dress from it. "This one?"

Her red curling hair was pulled back in a half updo, her loose curls bounced around her fair face. Mara was the definition of effortless beauty.

I peered over the book I was reading from where I sat on the sofa in her bedroom. I compared the two dresses as she switched them over her body in the mirror.

"The green one, it makes your hair pop," I told her smiling as she tossed the red one back in the wardrobe.

I turned back to the novel uninterested in the gathering our pack was holding tonight. I felt no need to go knowing I was a shameful excuse for a wolf. I'd spent much of my adult life hearing the endless harsh opinions and degrading comments from those that despised me. I wasn't just different, there was something wrong about me. Something that made the whole pack veer in the other direction whenever I was near.

I made it easier for them by staying far from them all.

My parents try every day not to show how embarrassed they were that their only daughter couldn't shift but I could see right through them. I never felt the need to go to these things knowing my mate would probably reject me the moment they met me. Better to avoid that confrontation like the plague, save myself some dignity and save them from being humiliated.

"Sera you have to come tonight. I don't want to go alone again, please come with me?" She begged tilting her head in a pleadingly.

I sighed eyeing the birthmark on my finger. The birthmark was the only thing I believed was beautiful about my human self. It looked like a sun, a little wrinkly, but a sun nonetheless. "Mara, you know I don't go to these things. I can't shift, I have nothing to offer my mate so it's best I stay home. You're lucky I come over here to see you. Your parents are betas too and they don't even want to seen with me." I explained closing my book and placing it on the side table. "Might ruin their reputation."

"What if your mate is going to be there, and you miss your chance?!" She pressed walking over to me ignoring

"A chance for what? To be humiliated for the billionth time? I'm not going Mara end of story." I was twenty-two, still a human with no wolf sense at all. I had no heightened sense of smell, hearing, speed, or strength. I was just Seraphina. A girl with a family that barely talked to her and a pack that wanted no association with a mutant. I was practically alone, except for Mara. Even to this day, I couldn't wrap my head around why Mara wanted to be my friend still.

Mara growled annoyance laced in the vibration at my same old response. I wasn't sure why she even expected me to answer any other way. This was me. This was how I've always been, a recluse.

"Fine." She huffed pulling her hair out of her updo and sitting at her vanity.

The sun was beginning to set as I looked at the time on my phone it read 6:34 P.M., I was ready to head home.

"I'm going to go home, Mara," I told her pulling my cross-body bag on and grabbing my book. Mara stopped me her inhuman speed grabbing my wrist as I started to walk away.

"No, wait! What will it take for you to come with me to the gathering?" Her eyes begged while her grip tightening as I tried to pull away.

"Nothing I'm not going. I told you this already. No one is going to want me, let alone my mate." I yanked my wrist free from her grasp rubbing the skin she held so tightly.

"Oh, come on Sera this isn't fair. I wanna prove to you that not everyone hates you." She tried to persuade me, but it wasn't going to work. I made up my mind already and it was best for me to just stay home.