She's the True Heir

CHAPTER 5

Dad forced me out of the house with my bag, telling me to get it in the car while he was still packing his crap in the house. Mostly his alcohol that he was taking more care with.

After I put my bag in the car I turned around to see dad stumbling around the living room, unable to even really stand properly but with an urgency that left me confused. Like it always did whenever we had to move like this.

He never gave me a straight answer as to why we needed to move. I know my wolf is different, but no one here even knows I'm a werewolf.

Those damn wolfsbane tablets he forces me to take makes damn sure of that. I haven’t even spoken to my wolf in over a year because she’s been suppressed.

I walked back towards the house when I heard something to the side of the house. I stopped to see what it was but all I saw were shadows from the trees.

It was too dark for me to see anything else so I could only assume that it was an animal.

My conversation with the twins did have me a little on edge. They claimed that they know what I am but I played it off pretty well. Or at least I thought I did.

I called them crazy for believing in any of that supernatural bullshit and I wish I could believe it, but even I know it’s not bullshit.

When I walked back into the house dad was still stumbling around and I stood there watching him as he was packing up whatever he could.

Not that we had a whole lot but he was taking a really long time doing it. I didn’t think it was possible for him to actually take this long to pack. Our house didn’t have anything in it.

“What the f**k are you staring at? Go and get the rest of your stuff.” Dad snapped at me.

“Why don’t you tell me the truth first.” I said, causing him to stop what he was doing and glare at me like I had just personally offended him.

“I already told you. If they find out what you are then you’re dead. They will kill you.” He snapped.

“No. There’s more to it than that. And you know as well as I do that no one can kill my wolf. Not even suppressors.” I said.

Dad then stormed over to me and grabbed me by the hair and slammed me against the wall, making my back scream out in pain.

“I’ve had just about enough of your attitude. Now get your ass moving.” He growled in my face.

“What aren’t you telling me?” I demanded.

But instead of answering me with words, he slapped me across the face before punching me in the stomach and making me fall to the ground trying to catch my breath.

“I’ve had just about enough of your f*****g attitude. Do as I say. I am your father.” He demanded.

“Then why are you lying to me?” I asked, gasping. So he kicked me in the stomach while I was on the floor and he grabbed my arm and leaned over me while he punched me in the face.

“Get your s**t packed or I will burn this house with you in it.” He growled.

I don’t stop arguing, even with my back pressed to the wall and my head ringing, because the idea of leaving feels worse than the pain blooming across my skin, and that thought alone makes me angry enough to keep talking when every sensible instinct tells me to shut up and survive.

“I’m not leaving.” I say, my voice shaking but loud enough to carry, because this house might be a piece of crap with peeling paint and a heater that only works when it feels like it, but it’s the first place I’ve had friends, the first place where I wasn’t just the weird girl who never stayed long enough to matter. “I finally have something here, and you don’t get to just rip it away again.”

Dad laughs, short and ugly, like I’ve told a joke, and he takes a step toward me that makes my stomach drop. “Friends.” He spits the word thick with contempt. “You think any of that matters when they’re sniffing around you?”

“No one is sniffing around me,” I snap, pushing myself upright even though my knees feel weak. “You’re paranoid, and I’m sick of packing up my life every time you get scared.”

That’s when he hits me again, backhanded this time, hard enough that my head snaps to the side and I taste blood, and I stagger but don’t fall, because something stubborn and furious has dug in deep and refuses to let me break.

“You don’t get to talk to me like that.” He growls, grabbing the front of my shirt and lifting me off the floor before shoving me back into the wall so hard the breath punches out of me. “Everything I do is to keep you alive.”

“If that’s true,” I gasp, my hands coming up to shove at his chest even though it’s useless, “then why does it feel like you’re the one killing me?”

The question lands wrong, and I see it in his eyes before I feel it, the way his jaw tightens and his balance wavers, rage and alcohol sloshing together into something meaner. He shoves me down again, and this time I hit the floor hard, my shoulder screaming, the room tilting as I struggle to suck in air.

“Get up.” He barks, kicking my leg when I don’t move fast enough. “Get your s**t and get in the car.”

“No,” I say, curling slightly on the floor, one arm wrapped around my ribs as I glare up at him. “I’m done running. I’m not leaving my friends, I’m not leaving school, and I’m not taking those damn pills anymore.”

That does it.

He lunges, hauling me up by the arm and shaking me hard enough that my teeth clack together, his face inches from mine, breath hot and sour. “You don’t get a choice.” He snarls. “You never did.”

He throws me back down, and my head hits the edge of the coffee table, white exploding behind my eyes, and for a second I can’t hear anything but a high ringing that drowns out his shouting. I taste blood again, thicker this time, and I focus on staying conscious, on not letting him see me fade.

“I will drag you out of this town if I have to,” he says, grabbing my hair and yanking my head back so I have to look at him. “And if you keep pushing me, I swear I’ll end this myself.”

The fear finally creeps in then, cold and heavy, because there’s something unhinged in his expression that I haven’t seen before, and my wolf stirs faintly under the suppressors, a distant ache like she’s pounding on a locked door.

The front door explodes inward.

Wood splinters, the sound cracking through the room like a gunshot, and Dad freezes, his grip loosening as two figures fill the doorway, broad and furious and unmistakably not human in the way their eyes glow.

Axel and Atticus stand there, chests heaving, jaws set, and the way they look at my father isn’t curious or confused or even surprised.

It’s murderous.