I’d love to ruin a hint of that handsome perfection, to see the blood rush to his face and leave a dark circle, giving him a raccoon eye that he wholeheartedly deserved. An eye for an eye could technically work, though I hoped I'd be dead by the time he tried to pull out mine.
I'd laugh at the idea if I could, but as I focused on my reality I realized my body struggled to function. I was losing sensation in my fingertips and feet while my body shuddered as a strange chill began to sweep through me.
The man standing there suddenly looked concerned, and it was such a foreign sight that I thought my mind was surely hallucinating all of it. He was on his knees the next second, his arms shaking me and his words fighting to cut through to me, but my hearing was struggling because of how loud my blood was pumping. A ringing sound assaulted my senses.
I finally was able to pick up his words as he suddenly grabbed my left bicep.
"Fuck..." he whispered before those shock-stricken circles peered into mine, which were beginning to grow weaker. "Will! You're Will, aren't you?!"
Could I even answer his question? Obviously not, as I suddenly felt like I was slipping through some cracks beneath the ground. It was a slow transition: bits of me were already drifting away while others fought hard to remain and see what this man was shocked about.
Wasn't it obvious who I was? I was the girl who was always mistaken in the tabloids for being some sort of twin sister doppelganger of the richest heir in NYC.
Anyone - and I mean anyone - would want to be William De Luca. The rich heir of the De Luca Organization, which hid its secret mafia roots behind plenty of businesses. The organization made the idea of giving drug money to the poor appear pure.
I tried to speak, but that only made me cough up more blood. Suddenly I was gasping as dark spots began to claim my vision. The man before me was now wildly shaking me, and it almost pained me to see the fear that gripped those cotton candy spheres.
He knew I was dying. While it wasn’t caused by his own hands, it left him desperate to be the one to claim such ownership of my end rather than allow another to do so.
As I continued to drift, his eyes became wilder, leaving me almost confused as to why.
"You can't die!" he declared as if it were my choice. I surely didn't want to enter the pits of Hell when I'd yet to prove my worth, let alone find a mate that would be crazy enough to date the 'human' mistake of an Alpha mafia leader father, but sometimes beggars really couldn't be choosers. When death came knocking on your door, all you had to do was suck it up and skip right into Judgement.
The idea of it all made me wonder if I'd be able to do just that - skip right into the toasty realms of Hell.
My attention returned to the man as he dropped to his knees. He clearly didn't care about the blood that surely would have pooled all around me by now as his hands pressed against the very wounds that bled away the remaining fragments of my twenty-five years of life.
"Dammit!" he cursed and looked me dead in the eye. "Don't you dare slip away from me! Did I fucking give you permission?!"
That made me smirk, though it had to be a tiny one that ignited his rage as he pressed even harder. I couldn't feel the pain anymore, but I was sure that my blood merely slipped through the spaces between his spread fingers and quickened my approaching demise.
How wonderful to get a helping hand.
"You're not leaving us," he snarled when his efforts were finally deemed hopeless. However, his words made no sense as he couldn't stop fate itself.
I was a goner, just like my mom had been as she lay chained in the dungeon of our mansion home for weeks until she finally died. My death was better off. Quick and painless now that my senses were practically gone.
"Awaken." The man's whisper left me in wonder before something seemed to beat hard enough for me to feel through the numbness.
What?
The man of my peak of hatred watched me in shock before tiny traces of hope flooded those pink rings that dilated further.
"I knew it," he whispered as a cynical grin formed on his lips. "Our little wolf is right there at the brink of death."
He hovered over me suddenly, and I watched as a tattoo that blared with vitality within the dark night formed on his left arm. His eyes began to glow, those pinks spheres suddenly shifting to a dangerous silver with rings of purple around his irises.
His black short strands began to flood with silver, leaving me to shiver internally as the pulsating force pushed harder for release.
He looked into my eyes with so much force that it seemed to unlock the sensations that had been muted by my approaching death. Sensation came surging back through me, making me gasp as my back arched like I’d been revived by a defibrillator.
"Awaken, our forbidden fruit! Let that dazzling beast out of you!" he commanded, and the next pulsing force left me screaming. The pain was back but far worse than before. I was frozen with spasms of crippling agony as my mind experienced multiple emotions.
They flickered through from four different directions, a compass of foreign feelings that begged for my utmost attention. Confusion, uncertainty, and intense lust were only a fraction of the emotions running through me. A burning anger swept in from all four directions.
Only, the combination of rage wasn't directed at me but rather at the person who did this to me.
When another wave of pulsating force went through me, it triggered something unimaginable. My eyes rolled in the back of my head as my body convulsed once more. I suddenly was consumed by heightened agony as the splintering sound of snapping bones was followed with my vision suddenly shifting entirely.
I almost lost consciousness at the peak of it all, but a combined force held me up from losing the battle I seemed to be enduring with myself.
When my eyes suddenly opened, the vision before me was magnificently clear, even in the darkness that aimed to hide our surroundings. I was on all fours, but everything else was different, from the extraordinary vision to the elevated sense of smell that tickled my nostrils.
Warmth flooded me while the place that surely was my chest seemed to be bathed in extra warmth as the pain lessened with haste.
When the pain seemed to be gone, I looked at my legs to see the white hairs of fur with the tiniest hint of fine pink fibers in the soft coat that reflected against the moon's rays.
A chuckle of pride and exhaustion drifted onto the passing wind and my attention was on the sole man before me. My height was at his shoulders, seemingly abnormal when he well surpassed 6'0", but it didn't matter as I narrowed my eyes at him with the intention of attacking him returning to me.
He lifted his hands up, but that taunting smirk was still present on those sexy lips of his, all while he stood there - naked and hard at the mere sight of me.
"Finally. Our sweet forbidden fruit is ripe and ready for us to pleasantly enjoy."
A rumble left me that morphed into a low growl, but it only made him chuckle.
"I'm not your enemy, Will. Or should I say, Willow?" he inquired and used my true name, and I lowered in preparation for attacking him if he didn't lower that sick pride of his.
"Willow, my sweet." The way his seductive voice said those very words had me tingling from the inside out as my body burned to be beneath him and fucked.
I shook my head wildly at the thought, and that left him chuckling before he was standing before me in one swift movement. I should have bitten him, but his hand was suddenly stroking my cheek and soon I was lowering my head as he knelt down to one knee and pressed his forehead against mine.