For the Taking ✅

63 • Embrace

Seraphina POV

Desmond was right I think we had lost our damn minds, but I couldn't come up with a better way out of this.

Philip was obsessed with me so Siris thought what better way to distract the alpha than giving him exactly what he wanted.... a show. The only thing was I didn't know anything about myself how the gold flames in my eyes where controlled. Siris said it was on emotion, at least that was the only conclusion he could come up with. It wasn't enough.

He wanted me to learn what was under my skin but I was too terrified to try. I didn't want to know that part of me still. I felt like it controlled me more than I controlled it when it surfaced.

But here we were in an empty field. Desmond and Siris stood at the back and front of me at least ten or fifteen feet away from me.

"Just try it." Siris said his hands tucked into the pockets of his jacket. It was early in the morning and though winter hadn't completely disappeared the sun felt warmer on my face than normal.

I stared at him from a far. We hadn't spoken still after our fight. At least not one on one. I had chosen to go to bed early in my own bedroom and Siris hadn't come to bother me. I was grateful but the night felt longer and the bed emptier. We'd talk about it, I told myself. When the time was right, now wasn't the time.

"I don't think I can. I don't know what to do to shift." I admitted.

The brothers wanted me to shift. As if that part of me came naturally. I've seen it done a thousand times in front of me but I've never done it myself. I didn't know how to do it and the older the person is when they shift the harder it is.

Most people shift when they are teens when growth is still possible and shifting is much smoother.

Desmond came up beside me holding his hand out in front of himself. "Here start with shifting your fingers from fingers to claws."

He rolled up his sleeve and I watched. His fingers slowly morphed, the small bones snapping and realigning into durable, terrifying claws as long as his fingers. I gulped watching as they shifted back to his human hand. He did it two more times before I licked my lips and gave a nervous smile.

"Does- does that hurt?" I asked as Desmond pushed his sleeve back down. At some point Siris had wondered over to us.

Desmond looked over to his brother before giving me a sheepish grin. "It used to, but not anymore. Now it just feels like I'm cracking my knuckles."

I bit my lip. That didn't make me feel any better and Siris noticed resting his hand on my shoulder.

"Shifting for the first time isn't going to be easy or feel- pleasant but it does get easier with time. Like Des said. Once you shift the first few times it starts getting easier, quicker, and it doesn't feel painful anymore." There was tenderness in his voice nothing like the dejected tone he used last night.

Siris extended his own hand in front of me. His large hand shifted, snapping just the same as Desmond's replacing his fingers with thick hooked claws. He didn't shift them back allowing me to gawk longer at their shape.

"The first step is thinking about what you want to shift. Most werewolves are about to shift small parts of ourselves."

It was true, time and time again I bared witness to people shifting their claws out in a fight or sprout hair on their arms and face.