sanzu wants you under his thumb so badly. tries to persuade you to quit your job but really, if you’re a bit stubborn about it, he has no problem going over your head. it takes him no time at all to....convince your boss that perhaps you’re not the greatest fit for the company. and when you come crawling back to sanzu, upset, practically inconsolable, he’ll be right there to take care of you. you’re in an extremely vulnerable state and he’s smart enough to take full advantage of it. tells you that, with you having no income, perhaps it’d be best not to renew your lease, not when he has such a nice and secure penthouse. and you agree, of course, it’s not like you have very many options. and sanzu is just ecstatic once the last of your boxes are dropped off at his place. you’re so dependent on him now, so keenly aware of how much you need him, which is how it should be. no one could ever take better care of you than him, and he’s so excited to be able to show you that.
(maybe part 15.5, I might add more to this chapter later)
That little black wolf makes one sorry sight in his little huddle of boxes, that's one thing Henrik can't deny.
He's kind of a friendly-looking wolf, one of the ones that could almost be mistaken as a domestic dog, but even at a smaller size than other werewolves Henrik's seen, he's still too big to be anybody's pet.
"He's locked down here too," remarks Chase at one point.
"He's guarding us," growls back Henrik.
"You said yourself he wasn't going to do anything."
"Not for now."
"There's two of us."
"Yeah, and I've shifted twice in my life, Chase. I'm not exactly fighting fit."
Chase puffs out a breath of air. "Well, this cellar is sealed shut. Maybe we can do that thing in the movies where we hide behind the door and jump out at him, and then both make a break for it."
"The door opens outward."
"Well, something like that, man."
"I think that older one could tear us both to shreds," says Henrik, and then, after a pause, "He already did once."
Chase thumbs at the scar of the wolf bite on his arm and shivers.
The black wolf -- JJ, Anti said -- pushes out of his box, standing on the other side of the room and looking at them. Sitting down against the wall as he is, Henrik is suddenly aware of just how long it would take him to clamber to his feet or get his teeth out. The wolf could be at his throat once again before that. He hears himself growling without even thinking about it, and he puts an arm in front of Chase, gaze narrow.
JJ just sneezes.
"Um, so, would you want to shift back and say hi?" asks Chase, blinking at the wolf. "Or are you some wolf-only idealist?"
JJ cocks his head at him. After a second, his valiant tail starts wagging again, and his nose twitches as he scents the air.
"Don't say hi to him, he bit me!" snaps Henrik.
Chase glances at him aside, frowning. "Yeah... right, you're right. I'm sorry, man, I don't think I checked on how you were doing well enough. Here, let me get a look at it."
"No." Henrik flinches back from him. "Don't touch me."
Chase's face falls, but the guilt Henrik would usually feel over that expression is buried beneath a sudden defensiveness, thrown up in his brain like a cop parked in front of a car crash. No. No hands on him, and especially not near his neck.
He woke up to that. To someone in his doorway, and then a wolf coming at him, pressing him down. To teeth in him. He clutches at his own arms, trying to rub some heat into them. He needs to run so badly it aches.
"I'm sorry," he whispers. "I can tell tomorrow will be the full moon. Everything feels so... I don't know. Like the human things are losing focus. I thought I would only need to shift the night of the full moon, but already I feel it strongly."
"I don't want to have my full moon here," Chase whispers back. "I was with him, Anti, for the first one, and... it's not just that it hurt, it's that I was so suddenly a wolf. It was almost like I forgot my human life for those days. And Anti was just my pack, undeniably, I couldn't - well, you saw me with that fucking piece of his hoodie. Henrik, I think if we have our full moon here, our instincts - "
"You think we'll be stuck as pack."
"You remember when Marv took us to that coffee bar? And the Alphas were coming over to scent at us and introduce themselves? It was hard enough to resist walking off with one of them, and that wasn't even the full moon. And they weren't willing to fucking abduct us to push us into this either. Maybe that's what this Alpha was waiting for - for the full moon, to come get us again."
"And now they mean to imprint on us."
He does remember the coffee bar. That Alpha, Mohammed, who came so close to him, smelling like such a big, bonded pack - the smell of him had lingered somewhere in Henrik's mind for days. He wondered more than once if he should go find him again. His whole psyche seemed to crave that security offered, that safety and pack family. Even the thought of falling into line for him felt right - and Henrik's not exactly a natural follower.
Will the pull be that strong again? Could it be stronger with the moon so close to full?
He couldn't fight JJ at all once he got his teeth in him. Is he narrowed down to his instincts, his frontal lobe shutting down progressively, and if so, how bad will it get? He's trapped in this basement. He's trapped in this body. Will they bite him again? Force him out to a wild part of Europe or some remote part of the Americas where he can't get home at all? Could he be stuck in his wolf form for the rest of his life?
Do they want him feral?
"Schneep, hey. Hey. You gotta breathe."
Chase's hand comes down on his shoulder. Henrik hears himself snarl, snapping his teeth at Chase as he jerks away from him, hyperventilating, and his friend falls back immediately, ducking his head to show his neck, both of them reduced to instinct in a second. It's already fucking happening.
Then that black wolf steps forward and puts himself right in front of Chase.
Stands in front of him, no longer wagging his tail. Steady on his feet. Eyes clear like stars, piercing, dangerous.
The wolf who bit him, standing in front of his packmate as if Chase is his.
Henrik feels some piece of his control break in half.
He shifts back so fast it burns, without even meaning to, and he throws himself at JJ like a shark, teeth first. He catches a snap of black fur, but JJ's already darting away - and then coming back at him.
"Stop, don't hurt him!" Chase shrieks.
JJ changes trajectory at the words and darts away from Henrik, almost bouncing with the lightness of his step, but there's no longer anything playful about his demeanor. Henrik waits for him to bark at him or howl, but it never comes. He doesn't even growl. Henrik barks instead, once, twice. He wants the wolf away from his pack.
JJ stands by the stairs, now, and Henrik's rational thought is buried under his need to escape the basement. It doesn't matter that the door to upstairs is locked. All that matters is that this wolf is in his way.
He lunges at JJ again, and this time, the wolf collides with him, both of them snapping at each other's shoulders and throats, and Henrik feels teeth tearing at him. Chase yells, pulling off his clothes to shift in the periphery, but Henrik doesn't care. He thinks from the warmth along his side that the smaller wolf has scratched him, but there's no pain with this much adrenaline running through him. He bites and catches flesh; blood pools inside his mouth. JJ doesn't even yelp. He's gone a second later, whipping away so fast Henrik can't follow him, and then the little wolf comes back with a vengeance, leaping at his throat; Henrik turns to catch him with his teeth, if he can.
There's a loud thudding noise, and Henrik doesn't have the focus to recognize it as the sound of the door to upstairs slamming before there are fresh teeth around his neck, and a growl in his ear so loud it stills him instantly, panic overriding all else.
"JJ!" he hears Anti howl, rushing to the black wolf - but if Anti's still human, then the wolf with its teeth around his throat must be...
Henrik's eyes roll to stare at the edges of grey fur, and a sharp, chemical scent, mixed up with caramel and electricity in a way that should be nice, maybe, but ends up bitter and... burned, somehow. It doesn't change the fact that it's the smell of an Alpha: intoxicating.
"He just lost control, he just panicked!" Chase is insisting, frantic a few feet behind him, stripped of his shirt and shivering hard. "Don't hurt him, don't hurt us, we're just scared, please, please."
"He bit my brother!" Anti shouts back.
"Maybe your brother shouldn't have put his teeth around Henrik to begin with! Maybe you should have all left us alone!"
"It's okay, JJ, I'm here, I'll take care of it..."
The Alpha starts pulling at his scruff. Henrik barks, calling for he doesn't know what, but he can't resist. He's dragged up the stairs. Chase yells and tries to follow, but snarls from both the Alpha and the Second freeze him in his place, and he stares at Henrik with huge, watery eyes.
He's yanked back onto the main floor. The door to the outside world is right in front of him as he leaves the stairs behind, but it doesn't matter, because he can't fucking move, not with these teeth in his neck, not with this smell in his nose, not with the lure of the moon in his chest.
The Alpha deposits him in a side room and closes the door behind them.
Henrik lays panting. There's blood running down him. He thinks that little wolf got him better than he thought he had, and the Alpha wasn't anything close to gentle. His neck's been pierced, now.
He smells the Alpha's shift more than sees it. The smell of wolf fading into the smell of skin. He's scared to look.
"Change back," comes her voice.
A woman. He hasn't been around female werewolves, or maybe he has and just didn't notice. He had thought their smells would be different, but they aren't. She's just chemical and springwater, wafted over in caramel and electricity. The combination clashes. He doesn't suppose smell should matter when picking a pack, but something about this scent just makes him feel wrong. Like it's not meant to be.
Just another reason he doesn't want to be a part of it.
He hears her pulling clothes on across the room. She approaches and grabs him by the scruff again, and he whines as his fresh wounds pull and bleed, following her grip until he's on his feet again.
"I said change back," she tells him, and the command moves like a wave over him; he shudders. "I'll speak to you as a man at least once before we go away."
He doesn't even like to be naked in front of other males. He tries to hide against the wall, but she won't release him.
How can she have been so big as a wolf, and so small as a woman? She must be about his age, he thinks, or a little younger. She has lots of dark, unbrushed hair and deep eyes, almost black, but she's pallid and thin, not to mention plain. She's yanked on a white sweatshirt and a pair of jeans that smell like Anti.
Beyond her, though, this room... this is full-blown, professional surveillance. A row of screens shove each other for space on a cheap table against the side of the room, red lights blinking on their screens, and all of them are showing different views across town. A camera lies abandoned on the floor, but its red eye is watching him too.
She didn't just look his name up online, didn't just read his research papers. This is high-tech stalking, illegal camera installation included. He's been watched for weeks now, he's sure of it - especially since, on the screen farthest to the right, he has a perfect view of the outside of Sean's office.
She throws a blanket at him while he's still trying to process his own shock, and now, louder and more firmly than ever, she tells him: "change."
He shifts back with effort. It hasn't been so painful before. He didn't know it could be so painful.
"There you go," she says, voice evening out instantly. She walks with all the command of an Alpha, speaks with all the authority. Henrik backs away from her, pulling the blanket over him, finding another pair of sweatpants with his hand as he moves. Sean's apartment was the same: werewolves leave clothes everywhere. He thinks he'd be grateful if he wasn't so shell-shocked.
"Who are you?" The words feel faint in his mouth. "Why did you pick us?"
She steps towards him no matter how much he backs up. "Are you scared of me?"
His back meets the wall.
"You can tell me you are," she assures him. "You know, I can always tell when someone's lying. Try to be truthful."
He breathes hard, keeping his mouth shut tight. He doesn't know what will happen if he tries to speak. Maybe he'll cry, or scream, or bite, or whine. He can't tell anymore. This is barely his body.
"Stay with me, brother," she tells him, and it makes him think of Sean, always calling other werewolves brother, but she isn't him, she doesn't have his warmth or his reassurance, and she sure isn't family.
"I am not your brother," he manages.
"You will be," she tells him, with certainty. "You're going to come away with me. You'll be good after the full moon, I'm sure. But you can't be snapping at my little one in the meantime. You'll drive Anti to fury, and he's already driving me up the wall as it is. You all ought to learn a little respect."
"You can't just keep us here. But then, there's no point in asking you to see reason, is there?" He bares his teeth.
Her hand comes down and strikes him a half-second later, and his head slams back against the wall. He yelps, his tongue blooming with blood where he bit it, and he knows his cheek will swell.
"Don't show your teeth to me," she says. "I'm your Alpha."
"You're nothing to me," he chokes out. "You didn't even bite me."
"Anti's mine. He did it on my orders."
"Why did you pick us?" he repeats, louder.
Her hand comes towards him again, and he flinches hard. This time, however, she touches his face gently, a rumble leaving her throat.
"You look so much like my Ant," she says, petting his beard for a moment. "Both of you."
"Is that why?" Henrik laughs humorlessly. "You must be joking. No, you're really just this - "
At the look in her eye, he bites down on the insult about to escape him.
"I needed a doctor," she answers finally. "We'll be as self-sustaining as possible. I don't expect it to be easy. There will be injuries."
"Maybe you should have gotten a vet, if you wanted a werewolf doctor."
"You'll learn. You're clever. And you have no one, anyway. You're all alone."
"That doesn't mean I want you."
He gets hit again, then, harder than the first time. It shakes the air from his lungs. He puts his head down on instinct, a cry leaving his mouth, and extends his neck to her.
"I waited for you for weeks," she says, like she hasn't done anything. "You took so long to shift at all. Anti lost Chase, that was his fucking fault. But then they sent him to Jack McLoughlin, and I knew they'd do the same for you. Everybody knows he's the only rehab in the city. And look - you learned, and you bonded with Chase, just like you were meant to. Perfect. I always know. I see everything."
"Leave me alone," he whispers.
"We'll go to the forest in Alsace-Lorraine. You speak German, and I understand French, so if we are forced to talk to humans, we'll be fine. But mostly, we'll live as wolves. Then no one will bother us again the way humans do, jeering at us, attacking us, jailing us, murdering us. We'll all be pack, living the way wolves are meant to instead of pretending to be domesticated. I'm not trying to hurt you, Henrik. I'm trying to keep you safe from the real enemy."
"I don't want to go."
"You will tomorrow with the full moon. But in the meantime, you won't snap at my JJ. You didn't establish deference, that's why you two went at each other. When you go downstairs, you'll submit to him, and that will be that. Hm, well. Maybe he'll submit to you. I haven't decided. Get your act together and you could be high-ranking, Henrik. I know you're smarter than this."
She gets up and kicks a rickety chair towards him, seating herself in another, by the screens. The red lights blink all around her on dark screens, staring at him endlessly. His eyes flicker to the door, but he can't get out. She won't let him. He's lost all control.
"Now," she says, picking up the camera on the floor, "before you shift back, maybe for good - I need to know some things about you, to predict and manage your future needs and behaviors over the courses of our lives."
She grabs a clipboard off the table, knocking over a little orange bottle as she does. Henrik blinks as it rolls towards him, bringing its smell with it. Chemicals. Ones he thinks he might recognize. That's what that smell is. It's not natural to her.
"There's a couple things I need to know that I can't get from observation," she says. "Remember, I'll know if you're lying."
She clicks her pen. He smells the ink, welling up like blood. His neck is dripping. He feels faint.
"Have you ever experienced a terrible occurrence that has impacted you significantly?"
Henrik pulls that blanket as close around him as he can.
I decided to start writing a diary that's why i'm asking i bought a beautiful diary but ofc i won't be writing every day just when i have to get something off my chest
As a kid (13-14 year old) i had a diary but my mom found it and was reading it. She put it in the same spot so i wouldn't know and i finally figured it out 6 or 7 months later when i knew i put my diary in a different position. She returned it to the right place just the position was off. I never wrote anything crazy in it but at the same time i felt violated in my room i hid my diary behind my books. It was the best place because my mom was always snooping around in my room, i did clean my room and all that but she was so obsessed with snooping around. I couldn't lock my room since my mom hid the key, i never actually had a key but when we got new door she took the key right away. My mom didn't snoop just with me bit with everyone. She would also snoop around other people's hand bags when they weren't around (when someone visited us) and she was caught a few times.
Once she snooped in my cousin's bag (my cousin was 19 and she had condoms in it) later on she was telling everyone my cousin was a whore and so on.
I move out and i am a roommate with my friend now. We are both 23 and we both have jobs. So i thought it was a perfect time to start writing a diary again. Sorry for my english.
Only if tumblr counts... But I'm so sorry your mom didn't respect your privacy and I'm happy you're now in a safe space where you're able to safely return to the habit! ❤️
what advice would you give to a 29 year old woman who still lives at home with catholic conservative parents and they won't allow her to stay the night at her boyfriend's house bc lol no sex before marriage?
I haven't personally been in a similar situation, so I can't tell you how to deal with this. But your parents are being abusive and I hope you find away to escape their control soon!
My abuser/"mother" somehow found out my phone number and texted my address to me which means she found out where I live and I'm just so upset and freaked out because it feels like my sense of safety is just gone like that. I blocked her without responding but i just feel so incredibly stressed and destabilized but also feeling guilty about being destabilized because I've been no contact for almost a year at this point and one thing just triggers and destabilizes me and I'm probably going to have to go inpatient to restabilize myself and I just hate it so much I wish I could just be completely free from her and she wasn't so fucking obsessed with controlling and owning her children because I can't ever live a normal life with her over my shoulder and also for her to have found me it seems most likely that someone I know gave her my info and I'm just not sure how to trust anyone anymore sorry for ranting I just needed to get it out
I am so fucking sorry that your mom has been treating you so horribly and that now she is refusing to give you the space and distance you need to heal. Her behavior is completely unacceptable and you are not wrong or weak for reacting negatively to it. I am sending all my love, because this is beyond terrible and you deserve better.
What can i do if my boyfriend's mom is getting jealous of me and not letting him spend time with me?
I don't think you can do much except telling him that his mom is controlling to an abusive degree and that he deserves better and shouldn't feel obligated to obey her commands
If someone watches my screen to make sure I’m working and makes comments about how I’m probably not working because they feel I’m not making enough financially is that abusive or just controlling?
I have serious social phobia. Really really serious. Still, there are some things that I can't do and things that I can. For example: I can't go to the grocery alone (the groceries around my house are too small and everyone knows my parents, those are the main reasons that make it worse for me), but I can catch a bus, a train and go to a big shopping alone. I can go to places I've never been before because a friend asked me to. At least I feel like I can, but my dad treats me like I'm 8 years old (I'm 20). This makes me furious to the point I want to cry. I've been keeping everything inside me all this time, but recently I feel like I've finally started to speak up for myself. My mother isn't like him and she stays by my side.
I never leave my house at this period in my life because I also have depression and I have no places to go (I'm jobless and I'm trying to enter university). I also have no friends right now, because I only went to school all my life (all my friends were from there), but, ever since it ended in 2021, I talk to no one. There wasn't really a chance to keep any friendships, since I live really far away from everyone and I never wanted to go out (and if I wanted, my dad wouldn't let me go alone). But sometimes I have to go out to do something important. Get vaccinated, take my dog to the pet shop, go to the doctor. Those are all really close to my house. Do you think my dad would let me go alone? No. He even went with me for my entrance exam days when I badly asked him not to. I cried during the first minutes of the tests because I was so stressed. Today he said that we would never leave me alone in our house if he and my mom were both gone for a couple of days for some reason. I said "I'm turning 20, not 8. What am I gonna do if I'm alone here? Put my finger in the socket and get shocked? Set the house on fire? A person is 20 and can't even stay alone?" But he simply doesn't care.
My question is: sometimes I think "I can't even go to the grocery alone, so he is right to see me like I'm 8" but I also think "there are things I can't do, like go to the grocery alone, but there are things that I CAN do" and that if I say I can do something I should be respected and he should let me do it. What do you think is right? Should I do something differently?
Your dad is in the wrong here. Having struggles in one area or even a whole lot of areas does in no way mean that you should be constantly infantilized and treated like a little child. If your dad was a good parent, he would go with you to the grocery store and THEN cheer you on as you go do the things you CAN do independently instead of forcing you into a box of incompetence and overprotection
