Chapter 9
1506 Words
Seraphine's POV
Teaching six-year-olds takes a surprising amount of concentration. You have to keep track of who isn’t allowed to sit next to whom, prevent pencil-related wars, and explain why licking glue isn’t a valid life choice. Under normal circumstances, I was pretty good at it.
Today wasn’t normal.
Today, Caden Ashford had taken up permanent residence in my head. Not literally—that would have been worse. But his words from that morning refused to leave me alone.
We need to talk.
I erased a math problem from the whiteboard.
We need to talk.
I handed out worksheets.
We need to talk.
I hated him for it. Not because the words had no effect on me, but because they did. That was the most annoying part.
“Ms Voss?”
I looked up. One of my students was staring at the board while several others giggled. My stomach dropped. Slowly, I turned around.
Written across the center of the whiteboard in large, clear letters was: CADEN.
The classroom erupted.
“Who’s Caden?”
“Ms Voss wrote a boy’s name!”
“She’s blushing!”
“I am not blushing,” I said.
“You are!” they chorused.
The laughter only grew louder. I closed my eyes for a second, then erased the board with more force than necessary. “Everybody open your workbooks.”
I spent the rest of the morning seriously considering early retirement.
---
By lunchtime, I was regretting every decision I’d made since roughly 2008. Dani found me hiding in the staff room. The second she walked in, I knew something was wrong. She wasn’t just annoyed—she looked furious.
“Tell me you haven’t checked social media,” she said.
I blinked. “What happened?”
She shoved her phone into my hands. The photo filled the screen. It had been taken yesterday in the corridor. Caden standing close to me while we talked. The angle made it look far more intimate than it had been—deliberately so.
The caption underneath was even worse: Alpha Ashford and His Ex-Luna Reunited in Secret?
The comments were already piling up with speculation, rumors, and wild theories. Some were ridiculous. Others were dangerous.
I stared at the screen for a moment, then handed the phone back.
Dani looked disappointed. “That’s it? You’re supposed to be outraged.”
I considered it, then shook my head. “No.”
That surprised her. It surprised me too. Because I wasn’t outraged. I was recognizing something. This wasn’t random gossip or harmless curiosity. It was strategy. Someone wanted eyes on Caden, on me, on us. The timing was too perfect, the photo too convenient.
“It was deliberate,” I said.
Dani nodded. “Obviously.”
I stood up, my mind already racing. “This wasn’t about embarrassing me. It’s about weakening him.”
Caden was Alpha. An Alpha who looked distracted or unstable in public became vulnerable. And there was only one person who stood to gain from that.
Isolde.
I grabbed my bag.
“Where are you going?” Dani asked.
“To warn him.”
---
School pickup started at three-thirty. Kids spilled out of the building like tiny escaped convicts while parents waited by the gates and teachers tried to maintain some semblance of order.
I spotted Caden immediately. He was standing near the visitor parking, watching for Evan—and for me.
I walked straight toward him. “We have a problem.”
His expression sharpened. “What happened?”
I explained quickly: the photo, the rumors, the timing. The moment I mentioned social media, something dark flickered across his face. It wasn’t surprise, more like recognition.
“You know who did it,” I said. It wasn’t really a question.
He looked away briefly, then nodded. “Yes.”
Of course he did. Isolde was clearly running out of hobbies.
Before we could say anything else, a familiar voice rang out.
“Mama!”
Emery launched himself at my legs. I barely stayed upright. “Hello to you too.”
He grinned up at me. Luna appeared beside him, looking far more composed, as always. Evan trailed a few steps behind them, and the boys immediately went back to their dinosaur conversation.
Luna looked from me to Caden and back again, her little brow furrowing slightly. “Mama?”
I forced a smile. “Yes?”
“You’re worried.”
Caden and I both froze. She sounded like a tiny adult, and she wasn’t wrong.
Before I could answer, movement caught my eye. Marcus was approaching fast—too fast. His face was pale. The moment he reached us, he looked between Caden and me.
“We need privacy,” he said, voice low and urgent.
“What happened?” I asked.
Marcus glanced at the children. “Not here.”
Caden straightened immediately. “Kevin’s.”
Marcus nodded without argument. The fact that Marcus wasn’t arguing made it worse. He argued about *everything*. If he was this serious, he was scared.
As we headed toward the parking lot, I glanced back at the school building. A figure stood in one of the first-floor windows, watching us.
Isolde.
She wasn’t waving or moving. She was just standing there, smiling, like someone who’d already lit the fuse and was waiting for the explosion.
The drive to Kevin’s felt endless. The kids filled most of the silence with their chatter. Emery was still on dinosaurs. Evan listened intently. Luna sat quietly beside me, observing everything. Marcus followed in his own car. Caden drove, and I sat in the passenger seat. The whole arrangement felt strange and temporary.
Halfway there, my phone buzzed. Unknown number. I opened the message.
She took something today.
Caden’s phone was already in his hand. His face had gone pale. He’d gotten the same message.
“Oh God,” I whispered.
“What?” he asked.
I was already digging through my bag, hands shaking. Notebook, pens, lesson plans, keys… and then nothing.
“No.”
“What?” Caden repeated.
“The cabinet,” I said, voice tight. “In my classroom. The registration cabinet.”
Marcus swore viciously over the speakerphone.
“Seraphine,” he said. “What exactly was in that cabinet?”
I stared out the windshield, already dreading the answer. “The twins’ registration files.”
The car fell into a heavy silence. Birth records. Territory registration. Bloodline documentation. Everything.
Kevin opened the front door before we even reached the porch. One look at our faces and he stepped aside. “Inside.”
---
We sent the children to the living room with strict orders to stay put. Dani took one look at the group of adults and didn’t even try to c***k a joke—another bad sign.
We gathered around the kitchen table. Marcus dropped a folder onto it with a heavy thud.
“Isolde filed a complaint,” he said, looking straight at me.
My stomach sank. “What kind?”
Marcus gave a humorless laugh. “A bloodline complaint.”
The room went dead silent.
Bloodline complaints weren’t ordinary pack disputes. They triggered investigations. Tribunals. Hearings. The exact kind of questions I’d spent four years avoiding.
“When?” I asked, my voice sounding distant.
“Three hours ago.” Marcus opened the folder. “The tribunal convenes in seventy-two hours.”
Three days. Three days before everything I’d built came crashing into everything I’d left behind. Three days before my children became evidence in front of elders and pack officials.
Across the table, Caden looked physically ill.
A small voice broke the tension. “Mama?”
We all froze. Luna stood in the kitchen doorway. Emery and Evan were right behind her. They’d escaped. Again.
Luna ignored my question about how long they’d been there. “The lady in the window,” she said.
Marcus crouched down to her level. “What lady?”
“At school. The one smiling.” Luna folded her arms. “She wasn’t watching us. She was distracting people.”
The room sharpened.
“What happened after that?” Marcus asked quietly.
“Two people left,” Luna said. “The man from the harbour. Tall. Dark hair. He smells like Evan.”
The silence that followed was suffocating.
Marcus stood slowly. “Daniel.”
Daniel Crane. Isolde’s brother. The man who was supposed to be abroad for months.
But he hadn’t been. He’d been here, in Millhaven, watching. For four months.
The photograph. The school. The stolen files. The fake negotiations. None of it had been coincidence. It was all part of a long, careful plan.
Caden stared out the window into the gathering darkness. “The negotiations were never real.”
Marcus shook his head. “No.”
They hadn’t come for peace. They’d come for me.
Marcus looked around the table, his expression grim. “We have three days.”
And from the look on his face, Isolde was only getting started.
- Writer
