All The Family You Need

**Sekreta **

The way Salvi treated them was not what the way she said, She told me her friends wouldn’t hurt them, but she left Ryan, and Artemis doesn’t look so good.

“You.. you said you wouldn’t hurt them Salvi, but I hurt Artemis and she’s bleeding all over him”

Salvi walks towards me smiling.

“We will get her help don’t worry Sekreta, I promised you I would not hurt them and I won’t let her die”

I’m about to ask her about Ryan, but she seems to sense it and interjects over me.

“Ryan will be okay too he will heal fast, but we cannot take him where we are going”

I nod as we carry on walking deeper into the woods, when we finally reach the house Salvi starts instructing the wolves around us to do things, One of them grabs my arm but I pull away from him.

“Get off me “

“Sekreta it’s alright he’s going to take you to get some clothes”

The thought of being left alone with just this wolf makes me feel a bit sick, I know the harm that male wolves can do.

“Salvi ifs its, all the same, I would like to stay with Artemis to see that she gets to the hospital”

“As you wish, I will get them to bring some clothes for you”

She looks at the man beside me and mutters something quietly, then she takes my hand in hers and leads us further into the house .

They lay Artemis on the bed and start working on her stitching her up. If my time with Arlo taught me anything it was that these people have no idea what they are doing they are not trained.

One woman has been trying to put in an IV for the last 5 minutes, I search for the sink washing my hands and then take over, when I’m done I see Salvi watching me.

“How did you learn to do that Sekreta ?”

I grab some clothes from her hand and shut the curtain to get changed.

“When Arlo had a mother and me, he would make me look after her once he had finished with her, over the years I realised I had a talent for it. It just became natural to me. When I feel someone who injured it is like I just know what they need”

I open the curtains to see her stood over Artemis.

“Its weird isn’t it, how she now seems so powerless to us”

She strokes her hair and her eyes flash red in the way that my own do.

“Salvi, do you know more about our powers? Mother didn’t have any and she only taught me to hide them from Arlo. When we were taken from you and dad she thought you were dead, she spent all her time trying to get us out of there”

She grabs hold of my hand again and leads me away from Artemis into another room, It looks like a library but much like the rest the house it is in a state of disrepair.

There are broken cracked windows and some of the books are on the floor wet and damaged.

“This was the library our ancestors, this house your walking in was mums old house before Arlo tore it apart in his quest for power”

She walks to a shelf at the back, the books on these shelves aren’t covered in dust and dirt like the others.

“This is a section I found when I first got back here, I’ve read the books on here over and over. There are books here that have our family tree line in”

I rush to stand beside her look at the names on the spine of some of these books. I trace my fingers along them feeling like I have seen all of these before, like have read the words on the pages.

“Salvi, I need to ask you something. I wanted to ask you when we first met”

We Sit down on a sofa besides this shelf, it looks like it has been bought in as it doesn’t fir with the rest of the room.

“How did you get back here ?”

Her brows crease and she breathes deeply before replying to me.

“When Arlo came for mum and he killed dad and the rest of the warriors he caught me with his claw, I thought he we going to finish me off but dad jumped in front of me, he fell on top of me and I guess Arlo assumed I was dead”

I replay the day over and over, the two of us were so young and I spend so long thinking she was dead that it never occurred to me she might not be. I always had this feeling in the pit of my stomach that I wasn’t alone in this world I just thought it meant Artemis and her sisters.

“So what happened to you after that?”

“Well one of the neighbouring packs must have heard about the attack and came to search it, I was found by a guy called Leon. He took me home to his pack and cared for me with his wife. They bought me up like their own and then when I was old enough they let me leave to look for you”

“So you had a family”

“I guess you could say that yes, they looked after me like their own but I was old enough to know they weren’t. I always knew you and mum were out there, I watched Arlo drag you both away so I knew I had to find you “

“So once you left how did you find this place?”

“Well, Leons pack were on good terms with those around them so I was able to walk freely between them and then found my mate Ivar he was the son of the Alpha in his pack. Well more like I ran into him and he knocked me on my ass”

Her face lights up as she remembers the meeting.

“Once I met him I spent time with his pack and became consumed with my own life for years, That was until a few months ago when I got word of three sisters who claimed to be daughters of the first”

Her tone changes instantly her words becoming more spiteful.

“I heard about them I went to their Alpha for help as the Luna of my own pack hoping he would understand, I even met one of them but she barely acknowledged me. I thought to myself how could the mood goddess have made them the saviours. The Alpha Calder wouldn’t even entertain the idea of helping me, he told me Arlo and all of those associated with him would die”

I gasp in shock, I had also heard of the three of them but they never seemed rude or likely to say no to anyone so would they have said no to Salvi.

“I can’t tell what your thinking and you’ve been suckered in by them too. When I left that packhouse I was outraged. Ivar waited for me at the border but I told him I would run home.”

Her eyes began to flash red and her body tenses.

“I ran into the forest and I howled, all I wanted was to find you Sekreta and the moon goddess had not gifted me with anything and I needed it most, I needed them to help me find you. I must have passed out but when I woke up I moved so fast that I was home in seconds, Ivar had people looking for me so I explained to him”

A smile spreads across her face.

“I knew what I had to do then Sekreta, I knew I had to find you and I knew I had to destroy those sisters. They have everything we didn’t and they are selfish with it. They don’t deserve what they have so I’m going to take it from them”

She stands up her face now more angry than ever.

“Salvi, they really didn’t seem that bad I mean Artemis came to look for me”

She scoffs at my words.

“You think she came to look for you to help you. I know you have been locked away for a while but you can’t be that naive, you are a threat to them Sekreta, you taint their ideals by even being alive. With you around, they are not the only descendants of the first”

“What do you mean why would you be a threat to them”

“They have built themselves a reputation of being these amazing sisters with powers straight from the moon goddess, you think they are going to want another random person to show up and change that dynamic? “

“At first when I found you I couldn’t understand while you had asked me to lie to her and to trick her I didn’t know who she was and when she told me we were related it caused me to shift, the shock of it all forced it I think in an effort to protect myself. She ate up every lie I told, she never even questioned it”

” Because she did not care about any of it, she just wanted you to go with her willingly. She would have agreed with everything and anything you said”

“I almost fell for it though Salvi, I almost let her fool me into thinking she wasn’t a bad person”

I bury my face in my hands feeling silly for letting myself be so naive and stupid. Salvi comes to sit next to me and removes my hand from my face.

*” You have done nothing wrong, she played you Sekreta it was what she planned all along but you are safe now, All the family you will ever need is right here with me”

Her words resonate thought me and I feel my own anger build up inside, I stand up heading towards the door only thoughts of Artemis on my mind.

One I reach her bedside I see she is stirring awake.

“Is it true?”

She looks towards me wide-eyed and then tries to free he bound hands.

“Is what true, what am I doing here ?”

She looks around the room a hint of panic in her eyes, but I know she is too weak to do anything.

I ignore her and head for the shelves looking for something to knock her back out.

“You thought I wouldn’t find out what all this was really about?. I may have been locked away for a long time but I’m not stupid. I spend enough time with Arlo to know when someone’s intentions are not what they seem Artemis”

I can feel my rage building the hairs on my neck raising my self-control wavering as she looks at me blankly and confused, I have to give it to her she is playing her part well.

She flails as I move toward her syringe in my hand, I push the needle into her neck. Watching her try to fight the inevitable take over, the sleep capturing her numbing her senses.

I move away from her, my breathing heavy and my mind despondent, how could I have ever thought about trusting her.

For a second back in the forest I almost stood in to help her and now I find out that if I had gone with her she probably would have locked me away again and hidden me from the world.

The thought disgust’s me, how could she moreover how could they!.

They’ve put themselves so high on a pedestal they are stupid to think no one would try to knock them off.