Serena Winters Age Novels & Stories

The door opened slowly and revealed a young woman standing in the doorway. A young girl with dark hair and eyes who looked like she couldn't be older than Eighteen years old. She was wearing a white dress with long sleeves and a short skirt. There were flowers embroidered on the hem of her dress and small lace straps that crossed her shoulders and connected together to create an elegant halter neckline. "Good morning, Miss Victoria." The young girl bowed politely. "Hello." Serena replied and smiled gently.

I had seen it before. A crystal decanter slipping off a shelf in my penthouse during a late argument. The way she had moved—fast, precise and almost bored. I set my glass down carefully and sat up. My hand had gone slightly unsteady, and I didn’t allow unsteady hands. My gaze dropped to her wrist. There was no scar. Serena had a thin crescent mark there, on her left wrist. She said it was a riding accident when she was fourteen. I remembered noticing it because she hated when I looked at it too long.

Not having her around him, is like he is swinging in a deep ocean with no chance of surviving. Anyway, he blinks his eyes, when a shadow behind him stops. " I knew you would be here! William!" A familiar voice makes him turn. The sharp sunlight blocks his sight to see who the person is. However, he fails and stands up. " It's been a while, William! Remember me?" Serena Hugh, 25 years old smiles walking towards him and embracing him tightly... " Look what you made yourself. I thought if I could return, I might see you happy. Your glumpy attitude would be gone by some beautiful women. I am wrong, I think!"

"They're the ones who —" "Yes." A silence. Sera looked at her with something complex and direct in her dark eyes. "How are you?" The question landed oddly. Not because it was wrong but because it was specific, and she wasn't used to specificity from anyone except herself. "Functional," she said. "That's not what I asked." Wren looked at her. At Sera, who had twenty-four years of life narrowed to a bed and four walls and a dying she was managing with more grace than most people would — and who was nonetheless asking about Wren.

Saturday arrives warm and bright. Sera's mother reaches the compound shortly after lunch. Her name is Vivienne. She is thirty-nine years old, and she carries herself with the quiet competence of someone who has spent fourteen years raising a remarkable daughter alone. Not performative strength. Actual strength. The kind that becomes part of daily life. She steps out of the car and looks around. Not with Sera's inventory taking precision. With something softer. She is searching for a place she has heard about for years through the eyes of someone who loves it.

“What do you want?” Serena’s smile didn’t falter. She simply held out her hand again. That’s when Tasha, standing just behind her, let a folder slip into Serena’s free hand. Serena opened it with a deliberate slowness, her eyes flicking over the pages before she spoke. “Well, well,” she began in a voice almost too pleasant. “Aria Langston. Seventeen years old. Former member of the Silverwood pack until… oh, until defeated.” She glanced at me, her eyes gleaming with satisfaction before looking back at the paper. “Now a refugee in Ravencrest. Rank six. Omega status.”

She exhaled and ran her hands down her lap, her leg still had some bandages on it but she could walk without having to use crutches. “Sera. I can call you Sera right?” I nodded at her with a smile. “You don’t look older than me, you seem young.” “I’m twenty.” I flaunt with a grin, loving how it feels to be young again. “I’m twenty-three and stuck in a strange place.” She said with an eye roll. “Isn’t this what they call adventure?” I winked. Raelle laughed shaking her head, I know she disagreed she didn’t have to say it.

The silence stretched until Serena couldn’t bear it anymore. She watched Seraphina across the dim warehouse space, studying the absolute stillness with which the other woman held herself. It was remarkable, Serena thought — almost unnerving — how someone could speak so calmly about losing fifteen years of her life, about losing a child, about losing the future she had once imagined for herself, and still sit with perfect posture. Like grief had long ago become another accessory she had learned to wear elegantly, another role she had mastered in front of an unforgiving audience.