Total pages in book: 69
Estimated words: 64392 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 322(@200wpm)___ 258(@250wpm)___ 215(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 64392 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 322(@200wpm)___ 258(@250wpm)___ 215(@300wpm)
He gathers himself and leaps at me. But the man standing before him is no longer there. His paws make contact with thin air. By the time he lands, I am already on top of him and in my alpha shape. My teeth sink into the back of his neck, gripping him by the scruff as I pin him to the ground. I am more than twice his size. I am not a lanky young creature used to skulking and committing crime. I am an alpha. Domination is in my blood.
CHAPTER 12
Kira
I’ve seen Cain’s wolf form before, but I never appreciated just how large and powerful he really is. He is massive, and he is incredibly agile. Colton’s attack looked terrifying at first. Then it became a clumsy, almost clownish thing as Cain simply flowed into his wolf state and took him down.
Now Colton is lying on the ground on his side, whimpering for forgiveness. He doesn’t have any of his human bravado. He’s all animal now. It’s probably the better part of him. Definitely the smarter part.
“Get off my son!”
My aunt comes rushing down what’s left of the path and starts hitting Cain with a dish rag. She’s not shifting herself. She’s just doing the most laughably ineffectual thing possible. Her face is twisted with rage, and her shrieks sound like those of a person who expects to be taken seriously for no apparent reason.
This is the moment I lose the last shred of respect for my aunt, as well as any sense of fear of her. It’s strange to see someone I have always been so completely terrified of reduced to an insignificant nobody.
Cain, of course, does not respond. He is making sure he has Colton’s submission. Every time Colton tries to move, Cain snarls, until Colton gives up and lays there, unmoving, allowed only the occasional pathetic whimper. Cain barely did anything to him. He didn’t have to.
“Let him up! Let him go!”
My aunt tires of flailing her rag and starts kicking Cain instead. My eyes widen, knowing this will not end well. I’m so ashamed of her and of what passes for my family. All she had to do was act halfway sane, but she couldn’t be bothered to try. She’s insane and she’s always been insane. It’s just that I never saw her compared to somebody who was reasonable and rational. She’s always been the queen of my inner world, the demon who haunts my family life. She’s been the beginning and the end of everything, defining the boundaries of my existence.
But now she just looks like an unhinged maniac with no power whatsoever, and I don’t understand why I ever gave her any—besides the fact that she raised me from a baby and made my very survival dependent on pleasing her and agreeing to see the world in all the same ways she saw it.
Cain ignores her kicks. They make no more of an impression on him than a fly would butting against an elephant. First he waited Colton out, and now he is letting her tire herself out. He could easily kill her for this disrespect, but he is patient, and he is letting things run their course for my benefit, I think.
Colton shifts back into his human form and lies cowering in the dirt, covering his face and neck with his hands, shivering from head to toe. Just when I thought things couldn’t get any more pathetic, they do.
Cain allows Colton to scramble out from under him. Colton runs to his mother as fast as he can, bolting past her to hide indoors. I wouldn’t be surprised if he never showed his face again.
“Never speak to me or my son again!” My aunt shrieks the words.
She tries to storm back into the house, but Cain is not having that. He slips back into his human form which means he is now standing stark naked in my aunt’s filthy yard. His clothes have been absolutely shredded, but he doesn’t care. I pick up his cell phone and his wallet, both of which lie in the debris.
“I have some questions, and you will answer them.”
He strides naked into the filthy house I grew up in. I am ashamed of it at the best of times, and this is not the best of times.
“Get out of my house!” my aunt shrieks, flapping the dishcloth at him. “I don’t have to answer any of your questions. I don’t owe you anything at all. If you’ve decided to slum it with my slut niece, that’s your problem.”
There’s a long silence after her poisonous tirade in which I can practically feel Cain calculating his options.
“Did you pick up my phone, Kira?”
I give him the phone, not saying anything. I don’t want to speak in my aunt’s presence. Her description of me was foul, and her energy is bitter and cruel. Cain might be able to protect me from her physically, but he can’t stop her from saying things that shred me on the inside.