Accidentally Claimed
I tell myself that means I’m doing the right thing.
If being quiet makes Daddy happy, then I can be quiet forever.
I stop telling him when I have bad dreams, I stopped telling him when I miss him and also when my chest hurts. Because strong girls don’t need to be told they matter.
They already know…Don’t they?
****
The tension finally snapped the following Tuesday afternoon. Ethan was away settling a border dispute, leaving the pack house under Natasha’s careful, smiling supervision. She spent the morning walking its halls, her gaze sharpening at every reminder of the woman who had lived, and been loved, there before her.