With what looks like a great amount of effort, she squeezes out, “Bitch, you do not know who you are fucking with. You think you can come into my territory and start killing up my people? Nah, dragon, I’m going to find a way to punish you. You’re going to pay for this. And I will never beg you for any damn thing. Believe that!”
This she-wolf…she does not at all respond as expected. Rage consumes my flame, as I assure her.
“You will beg. For mercy most of all. For it is you who has no proper comprehension of whom she is fucking with.”
Before she can answer with another one of her emotional outbursts, I shove her away and send her tumbling back.
Then I quickly exit the room.
I can no longer trust myself. My patience...it has grown too thin. And there is this rather strange business of not being able to as she put it, “get inside her head.”
I have never in my comparatively long life been so vexed. Dogs were literally bred to obey us, and I can barely reconcile her immunity…or that this crass, defiant she-wolf is truly a compatible mate.
Yet the proof that she is remains. My male works have fully descended, just as they did the first time I saw her waiting for me at the bottom of the stairs at the Greek estate. And in the parking lot, when she placed herself in my car, humbled and collared.
Fortunately, my male works retract back into my body after the bedroom door slides shut behind me, placing some distance between us. But that relief is short-lived.
Before I reach my own room—a rather modest bedroom and bathroom, that the former gatekeeper had the temerity to refer to as a master suite—the clawing need has once again overtaken me. Demanding I return to her and remain beside her, no matter how infuriated she makes me.
Not yet. I need time. Time to recover from my rage and brace myself for the next battle.
This in itself makes me feel weak.
She makes me feel weak.
And that is a first.
A first I do not like at all.
I cannot get into her head.
But she has somehow managed to wriggle her way into mine.
Chapter Fourteen
OLA
I lie on the hard floor for a long time after Damianos shoves me away.
He makes me feel weak. Helpless.
And not in a good way, like that old Hamilton song they’re always playing underneath meet cute scenes in romcoms.
There are so many voices swirling around my head, but the dragon king's voice rises above the rest.
Dark and ominous. Telling me to stay down. Resistance is futile and pretty much every single mean thing a supervillain has ever said in any film where the hero takes a fall.
I squeeze my eyes close and try to focus on the other voices. The better ones of people who love me.
My Uncle Kyle advises me to set an internal timer for five minutes. When it’s done I’m no longer allowed to feel sorry for myself.
Bitch betta get to queen solving, Uncle Clyde advises, his voice Detroit frank.
But then another familiar voice floats in, small and sad. My twin sister explaining why she has to go hide forever on a secret island. I’m sorry, Ola, I know you want us to fight, but we have to run. He’s too powerful, and if he finds us, he’ll kill us or worse.
Fensa had been raised by gangsters and Vikings, just like me.
But even she didn’t think Damianos Drákon was a problem she and her family could solve.
So many voices….
But eventually, I open my eyes and heave myself to my feet.
More out of spite than anything else. If that huge-ass dragon bitch has brought me here to abuse and kill me, I’ll be damned if I’m going to make it easy for him. Get to queen solving it is.
The good news is that I’m finally alone, which means I can check the wall….
But the bad news deflates me again when I finally find the smart room’s control pad hidden behind all the dresses.
The pad’s screen is completely dead. It doesn’t so much as change colors when I touch it. I guess the closet must be set on a basic sensor. Anyone can open it.
Same goes for the bathroom door, but not for the one leading out of the room. Like the control screen, it doesn’t respond to my touch. The floor-to-ceiling windows are also super damn rude. It responds with underwhelmed clinks when I throw a heavy chair at it. And it merely lets out a muffled thunk when I run up against it with all my wolf strength, which fortunately hasn’t been dampened by the biocollar.
Not so fortunate? I end up landing right back on the floor after my first and only painful attempt, pissed off and cussing. The window must be made out of the same kind of industrial strength glass we have at the kingdom house. Translucent iron made to look like glass. Unshatterable no matter how many bullets or wolf bodies you throw at it.