For the Taking ✅

10 • Dread

Seraphina POV

It had been over a week since Osiris yelled at me to get out of his office. I had worked up the courage to talk to him, to face him, and he screamed at me. I thought we were getting somewhere, and getting to know one another but I was wrong.

Now, I avoided him.

I had taken up refuge in my bedroom for most days. I hardly ever came out unless Desmond was home and I think he knew that and sent Ivy over to the cabin the last three days. I was thankful for her presence, it helped ease the discomfort I felt staying in the cabin knowing Osiris was in his office most of the day.

"So you don't have a wolf? At all?" Ivy was astounded as I shared my shortcomings in being a defective werewolf. I restrained from telling her how shameful of a daughter I was to my father but I explained to her that I was twenty-three and still never shifted.

I shook my head. "I never had a wolf."

Blowing on her nails she gazed over at me from the desk chair. The noon sun beamed off her orange hair like a blazing fire. "I've never heard of such a thing. Are you sure that both your parents are werewolves?"

I nodded my head twisting the nail polish closed and looking out the window. The autumn breeze blew loss leaves from their hibernating trees.

"What did your parents think about it?" Ivy pressed on.

"They still love me all the same. I could tell that it bothered them a little but not in shameful way, they were more concerned than anything else. I couldn't say the same for my pack." I blurted out.

I hadn't meant to open up and share such a dark part of my life but the comment flew from my lips before I could clamp them shut.

Ivy's brow knitted together. "What do you mean? Did they bully you?"

I scoffed at her words. If only all they did was bully me I thought. "I wish."

"They... hurt you?" She frowned as she realized my dark reality. "And your parents did nothing?"

"I never told them. There was no reason to, I was an adult when it first started, plus I hid it from them." I explained curling my legs to my chest.

I thought back to the time my mother noticed my first bruised lip. She was so concerned running to the freezer to find an ice pack. I remember telling her that I slipped on black ice and hit the railing or the stair outside the coffee shop downtown. The lie came off my tongue so smoothly that my mom didn't blink twice before chalking up the bruise to my clumsiness.

The amount of relief that came from my little lie should have felt so good but it had. I didn't need her or worse my father, running to the alpha about the regular assaults. It was better to remain silent and lie to them, than to cause an uproar about protecting the defective wolf such as myself.

The bitter memories felt pungent in my head as they jumped from one scene to the next, reliving them all as if they had just happened.

"I'm sorry Phinny." Her voice was sorrowful as she listened. "That's not how packs are supposed to act."

I shrugged at her words. It didn't matter now what was right and what was wrong, the damage was done and there was no reversing it.

"It's much different here as I'm sure you've noticed." Ivy perked up offering a warm smile.

I had let out a dry laugh that caused her smile to dissipate. "I wouldn't say all that. Alpha Osiris isn't much better."

"But of course he is. He's very kind, and patient."