Bound to the Billionaire

Chapter Twenty-Three: Bang Bang

 It's not like the law could do anything about it. When a wolf died, it didn't revert to its human form. It would stay that way, a wolf carcass limp on the floor, while I sat there shriveled up in the corner, crying. It would look weird, some might even suspect that the killing was werewolf related—after all, wolves hardly chased people into residential neighborhoods, let alone into their homes.

 But these speculations would end up in the same spaces that speculations on Bigfoot and Mothman piled up into; weird online forums and subreddits. I was shaking. My heart was in my throat as I burst into my dad's old room. 

I hadn't been in his room for over a year; it hurt too much. And even though I thought of my packmates as the lowest of the low, as mannerless, work ethic-less, bastards, well, I had to hand them this: they let this be. As many wild parties they threw, as many spats we'd gotten into, as willing as they were to kick my ass to prove a point, they let me have this: my dad's room. 

Any time I entered it, a big gross lump welled up deep in my throat. My heart hurt to the point that I wanted to back out, this squeezing pain that made it feel like it was being grabbed, strangled from the inside. Even now, darkness and destruction on my heels in the form of snarls and snatching teeth, I wanted to leave. Instantly, as soon as I saw the bed with the flannel sheets neatly made. As soon as my eyes fell on the pictures of my mother in the gold-gilded frames on his end table beside a half-melted candle that hadn't been lit in the past four year. As soon as I smelled the creeping musty odor that should've smelled of Polo Green, his favorite cologne. 

I was choking. Despite the situation, I was choking on the sudden flood of grief; after he had died, it had hurt too much to even look at a picture at him. And then my jaws clamped down; I was doing this for my pack, I was doing this because they couldn't get away with what they wanted to do to a defenseless wolf, but mostly, I was doing this for me. To protect myself and the life my dad had made sure I'd get to have.

There it stood, in the corner. A massive hulking thing. Six hundred and forty pounds of pure steel, the guns inside, loaded. They would have to be if I was in a situation where I'd have to use them. Only I had the code, and no matter how much Jenna pressed, even when Cole bloodied my nose, demanding it, I'd refused. 

A simple four digits: my birth year. My Dad must've figured the other kids were stupid, and he was right. 

Don't f**k up. 

It hit me like a shockwave, my wolf's voice. I'd always thought of him as this primal f*****g thing, something dark that had to be locked up tight inside me, this monster. But here, he spoke, and his voice was cool and deep. Something bigger than me, something I could barely understand. And the transition, again, was smooth.

The fur, the teeth, pulled back into me. It felt natural, again, not as awkward and painful as the last time had been. He was relinquishing his hold, trusting that only I could save us both. But shifting was still new to me, and the force of the change; the muscles peeling back, my spine whipping up at a speed that should've killed me were I normal; the sheer amount of internal hardware being thrown all around like it wasn't delicate at all, it kinda grossed me out when I had the time to think about it. 

Teeth sunk into my thigh. I screamed, the pain was explosive; the bastards had teeth an inch long, he could rip my flesh in half if he wanted to, and f**k, I knew he wanted to. But the face was only a couple feet away. He pulled, and stars bursts like fireworks behind my eyes. I dragged myself forward, the gross smell of rotting meat filling up my dad's room as more and more wolves poured in, their jaws agape. 

Panic swirling in my chest, I reached and reached up at the safe's dial pad. Four numbers. I could do it. Could I do it? My pale shaking fingers were only a few inches away. Giant paws stomped on my back, the growls were so close. They had to think they had won, that I'd made a stupid tactical error. 

Maybe I had. A stinging tear clung to my lower lash. And in this moment, with jaws close to my neck, ready to tear, to kill, I hated myself. I hated that I had to be independent and stubborn, hated that I could't have accepted my fate as Nico's prize. I was built small and soft, I was built to be taken care of. Why did I have to fight so hard? Why did I have to try to be something the Moon Goddess so clearly hadn't wanted me to become. Why didn't I let Nico be my knight in shining armor? Why didn't I let him protect me? Why didn't let him own me?

Because I raised you better than that, Dimitri. I raised you to be you. You're the man I want you to be, and don't let anyone take that from you. 

Not my wolf, not a real voice that bounced in my head, sharing my brain like a shitty roomate. It was from my Dad, when I was sitting on the floor of his room, sobbing, because I couldn't do it. I couldn't fit in. I couldn't be quiet when the kid in the back of the class was getting roughed up in secret. I had to open my mouth like a smart-ass, me, barely 5-feet tall at the beginning of high-school when the kids around me were all ready crushing cigarettes and growing beards. I had to push back and get my nose busted in, accomplishing what I'd thought, at the time, was nothing. 

And I went home, sobbing, because I couldn't just shut the f**k up like everyone else. Couldn't obey the limitations of my body. My dad was a man's man, an alpha, and when I came to him, blubbering, asking over and over what was wrong with me, I thought he'd yell at me, put me in my place for being soft and unbecoming of an alpha. But instead, I could feel the pride in his voice as he pulled me into a hug. 

I didn't need a knight. Scrawny and small and weak as all hell, I hauled myself up by the safe's 'X' shaped handle, hot blood bubbling from the deepening wound in my leg. If Dad's ghost still inhabited that room, I knew he'd be proud of me.  

The door flew open, as much as a door that heavy could fly. I grabbed the rifle beside his hunting shotgun, mine; an unassuming .22, nearly as small as they came in a simple, unintimidating walnut shade. Just my style. 

Over my shoulder, though I hadn't touched it in years, I coveted it naturally. I rested the side of my face on the cheek-weld as if it were an instrument. I aimed the sights on the wolf at my leg. It let go. I could see its gold eyes widen; it had to know what was dusted in the hollow points of the .22. 

"Who wants to f**k with me now?" I asked, my chest tightening as I thought of The Moon Goddess above who must've been livid. Her creation, breaking one of her most coveted rules: Do Not Destroy your Kin in Creature. Do Not Use the Forbidden Element.

If only I had known.