Page 52

Seren

Seren shadowed Ana at work on the first day. By the second afternoon, the Hollow Moon descended into beautiful, maddening chaos.

It started slow—two shifters with tattoos and broken noses arguing over pool.

A trio of witchlings on a hen do shrieking with laughter at the bar, knocking back lilac shots that gave off sparkling plumes.

Then came the warlords, all brooding silence and sharp suits, trailed by humans who clearly wanted a taste of the wild side.

There were also the humans with bad intentions—the snitches, the spies.

The music pulsed. Glass clinked. Voices rose.

And Seren struggled.

Trays slipped. Orders blurred. She forgot table numbers, dropped coins, and once—tripped over a tail.

"Watch it," snapped a shifter with curved horns and too many teeth.

Rhea, behind the bar, tried to help—but her patience had seams. "Focus, kid," she muttered after the third time Seren returned for the wrong drink .

Ana flitted through the floor like a queen on roller skates—flirtatious, efficient, untouchable. She winked at the cute ones, snapped at the handsy ones, and somehow managed three trays at once without spilling a drop.

Mira, the fourth waitress, was sweetness and fire—but she was busy mixing drinks so fast the glasses blurred.

And Ravaryn?

Was a pain in the arse.

Mocking. Cold. Sharp as shattered glass.

"You'll get eaten alive if you keep looking like a baby bird," she told Seren that night in the hallway, brushing past her without looking.

And then came Griff.

He cornered her near the kitchen.

"You want to be here, little bird?" he growled. "Then do your job. This place doesn't have room for dead weight."

She nodded, humiliated, throat tight.

By the time she got home, her hands were sticky with liquor, her feet blistered, and her eyes burned with held-back tears .

Talis was already home. He'd cooked something that smelled of garlic and basil and home.

She barely made it past the door.

"It's awful," she gasped, voice cracking. "I am so useless."

Then the tears came. This wasn't supposed to be her life.

Messy. Heaving. Furious.

He didn't say anything at first—just handed her a fork.

"You could quit," he said after a while, softly. "You don't owe anyone this."

But she shook her head.

"No," she whispered. "I want to stay. I need to prove I can."

The weeks passed.

Seren learned. Slowly. Painfully.

By the end of the first week, Seren had had enough .

Shifters were snarling at her, baring teeth over spilt drinks and late orders.

A witch on her third cocktail accused her of tampering with her charm.

Someone called her "prey-shaped." And now—this one—a feral-eyed shifter of unknown origin was snapping at her heels, his voice rising with every complaint.

"Too slow. Too clumsy. You've got foxblood, don't you? That explains the twitchy little fingers."

She clenched her jaw, trying to breathe through it, but his voice grated like broken glass.

"You'll never last in this place, fresh blood. No bite in you."

And that was it.

She turned, tray still in hand, and said loud enough for the nearby tables to hear:

"Do you want your friends to know about your tryst behind the bar cooler last night?"

The shifter froze.

Several heads turned.

His face darkened—first with shock, then with rage .

"How did you... What the...You little—"

He lunged toward her.

But before claws could flash, Griff appeared, moving with unexpected speed for someone so massive. One meaty hand clamped on the back of the jackal's neck.

"Out."

"But she used—"

Griff didn't let him finish. He hauled the man off the floor like he weighed nothing and threw him toward the exit without ceremony. The door slammed shut behind him.

Then he turned back to Seren.

His jaw worked. "Don't."

She swallowed.

"I didn't cast anything—"

"I don't care," he said flatly. "No magic. No tricks. No games, little witch. You hear something? Keep it in your pocket. This bar's a no-magic fly zone. "

"But he was—"

Griff's voice lowered, rumbling. "I saw. And I handled it. Just don't let it happen again."

Seren's hands shook a little as she picked up her tray, anger and humiliation bleeding under her skin like bruises.

"Understood," she said quietly.

He gave a gruff nod and retreated, leaving her burning.

But things got better in week two.

Slowly.

The regulars grew used to her. She learned which of them to avoid, who tipped well, who preferred silence. Ana taught her shortcuts. Ravaryn mostly left her alone, except for the occasional snap.

"Tripped on air again?"

"Nice shirt. From the pity rack?"

"You pour like a toddler on caffeine. "

"That tray's winning, Useless"

Rhea started leaving herbal teas near her locker with sticky notes that said "Drink. Don't argue."

And in the rare quiet hours—Seren breathed.

She walked to the edge of the city, into the wildest part of the forest where the trees grew thick and the ground hummed under her boots.

The city fell away behind her.

She returned to her photography.

The forest embraced her—still, even now. Birds came close. A fox brushed past her ankle. The moss cushioned her steps like it remembered her.

For the first time in weeks, she didn't feel like she was unravelling.

She was still bruised.

Still hurting.

But she was standing .

And she was not thinking of Hagan. Of his smile. Of his breath on her neck. Of his fingers working her scalp, of the feel of him spooning her in the morning. She wasn't.

She memorised table numbers. Learned which customers tipped and which ones growled. She got better at carrying drinks and wiping down the disgusting bathrooms that reeked of things she never wanted to identify.

She cleaned vomit with a dead-eyed stare. Collected bloodied shot glasses without comment. Endured whispered slurs from snide drunk humans and shifter smirks alike.

And Ryn—Ravaryn—seemed to enjoy her suffering.

Snide comments. "Accidental" spills. The time she locked Seren in the storeroom for twenty minutes "as a joke."

"You're not special," she hissed once. "Just another runaway with a sob story."

Seren said nothing and endured with gritted teeth. She dreamt of turning Ravaryn into a warty toad.

But one night, a shifter—mean-eyed and stinking of whisky—grabbed her from behind. She was in a sparkly black top that Ana insisted made her "look like forbidden sugar," her hair in a braid, cheeks flushed from a fast shift .

A large hand cupped her behind.

"You're a pretty little thing," he slurred as he tucked a note into the cleft between her breasts. "Let it down for me, baby. I'll make it worth your while."

She froze.

Something in her mind reeled—back to a hand in her hair, a pull, a laugh.

Hagan.

She flinched and stepped back. "Excuse me," she said, calm but firm, edging toward the kitchen door.

But he followed.

"I saw you with it down the other day," he said, leering now. "Like dark silk. So pretty."

She tightened her grip on the tray and turned, quickening her steps—

He grabbed her braid.

It yanked her head back, sudden and sharp. Not enough to hurt—but enough to shock .

Something splintered through her—memory.

A warm laugh, fingers in her hair, the gentle tug she used to pretend annoyed her.

Hagan.

She froze, paralyzed by the clash of past and present.

"C'mon, little one," the wolf murmured, seemingly unaware of her resistance. "Don't be shy. You wear sparkle for a reason."

The tray slipped from her hand, clattering against the floor.

"Let. Go," she said quietly, throat tight.

But his hand stayed.

And then—he yelped.

The wolf shifter writhed on the floor, gasping, one hand clawing at the sticky tiles, the other still half-reaching for Seren. Hands moved to his groin as he groaned on the dirty floor .

Ravaryn stood over him, eyes narrowed, black boot still raised from the impact.

"She's staff, pencil-dick," she snapped.

But Ryn wasn't done.

In one fluid motion, she pulled a wicked-looking knife —a dusky silver blade etched with runes, its edge saw-toothed like it had tasted blood many times and remembered—and pressed it to the man's crotch with lethal precision.

Her expression didn't change.

Just the slight tightness in her jaw. The flicker of something cold behind her eyes.

She snarled. "You touch her again, I'll gut you like the animal you pretend to be."

The bar went quiet for a heartbeat. Even the music seemed to mute itself.

The shifter whimpered.

Before he could even crawl away, a massive hand wrapped around the back of his shirt.

Griff .

He loomed like a thundercloud, eyes flat and voice gravelly.

"I see things are well in hand," he muttered, nodding toward the blade still at the wolf's groin.

Ravaryn didn't even blink. She just sheathed the knife , slow and deliberate.

Griff grunted, then hoisted the groaning shifter like a sack of potatoes—one arm slung over his shoulder, legs dangling, whimpering curses under his breath.

Without ceremony, he marched to the door and hurled the man bodily through it.

A solid thud, followed by a bark of pain and a scattering of glass from outside.

"And you're banned." Griff bellowed before letting the door swing shut behind him.

He dusted his massive paws off, turned back to the bar, and growled, "Get back to your drinks."

And with that, he disappeared back into his office, the heavy door thudding shut behind him.

Seren blinked, her pulse rabbiting in her throat .

Ravaryn turned, tossing her a glance. "You really need to learn to hit back."

But when Seren didn't respond, didn't quip, didn't thank her—Ryn's posture shifted. Just slightly.

Softer. Awkward.

She cleared her throat. "You, okay?"

Seren just nodded.

It wasn't much.

But it was the closest thing to kindness Ryn had ever shown.

Even if she still called her useless three times during the rest of the shift.