Page 38 of The Vixen

Luna splays her palms in alet’s have it thengesture.

“I think it does, I mean,” the girl stammers. “It has alphabet letters on the cover.”

Luna’s hands slowly move to her sides as her face turns to stone. Her eyes widen the slightest bit. Just enough to see her contempt even if her clenched jaw didn’t show it.

“He’s teaching you to read?”

The girl bites her lip and nods.

Luna says nothing for several seconds while I try to process a twelve-year-old not yet knowing how to read.

Luna’s idea? Keep the members ignorant, easy to control.

No. She’s too young to have made that decision.

“In my bedroom,” Luna says at last. “Bottom shelf, seventh book from the left… Do not touch anything else.”

The girl’s eyes close as she lets out a sigh of relief that lasts only a second before she curtsies. “Thank you, Your Grace.”

She scurries from the room and the Ice Queen’s crystallizing gaze.

“What the fuck was that?” I ask.

Luna walks to the desk, sits, then carefully retrieves a laptop from the top drawer. She places it on the desk before opening it.

“Who was that girl?”

Keys clack as Luna types. Her eyes never meet mine as I walk around the desk to be next to her. “None of your concern.”

“Why was she wearing a nightgown? And why was it white?”

A sigh blows past Luna’s lips as she swivels in the chair to face me, her forearm resting on the desk. “Her name is Persephone. She’s wearing a nightgown because she slept in. It’s white because she’s a Seraph. Any other questions, or may we get started?”

A chill crawls from my temples to my ears as blood drains, my heart wobbling. I grip the edge of the desk as my stomach flips.

“She’s a Seraph… Currently? Or she’s a future Seraph, and therefore, wears white?” My voice shakes.

“In most cases, children are separated into their respective roles at age fourteen. Persephone’s potential has been discovered early. It’s an honor she’s rightfully grateful for… If you’re going to throw up, do it in the trash can.”

Luna pulls the can around to me, metal scraping wood. It clangs as she releases it and goes back to the computer.

Nothing wrong. Nothing out of the ordinary.

She clicks around while I stare at her and swallow back nausea. At home, I vomited maybe once a month, always the morning after an especially chaotic party. My breath would taste like bourbon or brandy, and Angel would show up with pancakes and swear by seltzer water.You pace yourself like a fourteen-year-old.

Here, every day is like waking up after a bender.

“Are you saying your father…? She’s his…?”

“Companion,” Luna deadpans.

A clock on the romance bookshelf ticks the seconds passing.

When I blink, I see Zephyr. Kind and calm as horrors swirled around her—like an eye within a storm. So normal until she wasn’t.

I could see her growing up in this compound, isolated from the outside world. Not at fault for her ignorance. Blameless of her sins. With a father too controlling and manipulative to stand a chance at developing her own thoughts and feelings and opinions.

Never have I looked at Luna in the same way. But for a moment, I can’t help myself.