5. MINE

ODIN

Regret clawed at me like a ghost that refused to be exorcized, lingering in every empty space where her laughter should have been. I had been close enough to catch her, close enough to reach her, if only I’d acted a moment sooner. She would still be smiling and calling me brother. But I was just a second too late. All I could do was watch as her body plummeted from the top floor of the apartment building, swallowed by a silence that tore at me as her life slipped away right in front of my eyes. I couldn’t protect her. Lynn. My baby sister. The one I remember cradling in my arms the day she was born, her tiny fingers curling around mine, so fragile yet so full of life.

Now, eighteen years later, I cradle her again, but all that life was gone.

Just three months ago, she’d been dragging me around town, excited about college, demanding I buy her everything she’d need, and begging me for an apartment close to campus. She’d wanted so badly to live on her own, experience life outside the pack and among humans. Humans, a hypocritical, delusional creature that I disliked with every fiber of my being. The scum  that I never allowed entrance into my life and kept out of my sight but Lynn had positive thoughts about them. She loved to be among them.  It took all her pleading to get me to agree to let her stay among humans. I absolutely loathed this idea but for her happiness I agreed. I bought her an apartment on her eighteenth birthday. However, I never imagined she would end up jumping from the top of that apartment building.

Blood and bruises hid the girl I once knew, turning her into a stranger in my arms. The pain burnt through me, a raw, searing rage that ate at my insides, hollowing me out. Her lifeless face haunted me, an image that branded itself onto my mind every time I closed my eyes. She was gone, and I’d failed her. 

But one thing was clear. My torment had a name, and that name was Damon. Damon Darcy. 

The name scrawled in Lynn’s suicide note, was etched onto my heart with a blade forged of grief and fury. In her bedroom, the walls were plastered with photos of Damon. I felt her desperation as if it were my own. She’d worshiped him, her love written across every inch of the room, a desperate, twisted memorial to the man who ruined her. 

Every little bit of information about him that had been gathered by my Beta echoed in my mind. 

Damon Darcy, an American businessman, powerful and untouchable. 

No police, politicians, or mafia… no one dared to cross him. The man was known as an untouchable handsome bachelor in the country. And now no more than a rag doll in my grasp. 

I stared at his sweating, fainted figure in my arms, his eyes fluttering shut with surprised, scared eyes that locked onto my wolf’s. “You…” he could not finish and slipped into the darkness due to all the strength he had lost during the struggle, yelling, and shock that I left him.  

As his body went limp in my arms, his features seemed to soften instantly, revealing a beauty I hadn’t expected. It was a rare kind of beauty for a man. Sharp yet delicate. His pale skin gleamed faintly in the dim light, and his hazel eyes, though closed now, had already burned themselves into my mind. 

He was even more captivating in person than in the photos plastered across Lynn’s bedroom walls. Almost two inches shorter than me, his build was slight but balanced, and there was something in his striking face…a dangerous kind of allure that stirred Kin, my wolf, in a way I couldn’t understand.

When he’d whispered, please no, it wasn’t my mind that reacted, it was Kin. Before I even realized what I was doing, my arms reached out, catching him just as he should have slipped into the swamp. I’d intended to let him fall, to watch him drown in the filth, but here I was, holding him. Him, of all people. Never in my life had anyone, let alone a man, stirred something primal within me, something so close to my wolf’s core. But this one...

My gaze fell to his neck, pale and smooth, where my grip had left faint marks like a brand. It unsettled me, the way his skin seemed to accept my touch as if it belonged there. Something about that fox-like, almost seductive face only increased the irritation burning inside me. He looked far too calm, too vulnerable for the monster I knew him to be. 

Then Lynn’s words came rushing back, slamming into me like a blow: “I gave him my everything, but he doesn’t love me. I’m not good enough for him. I hate myself for being a monster.”

Monster. She called herself a monster because of him. How dare he? How dare he make her feel that way? Was she not good enough for him? Fine. I would make sure he lost the very concept of the word "enough." I would strip him of every shred of pride, every ounce of ego, until he was nothing but the pathetic shell I now carried in my arms.

My fingers curled around the edge of his jaw, pressing against that too-perfect face as anger burned through me like wildfire. He had no idea what he had unleashed. No idea what I was capable of. I would ruin him in ways he couldn’t begin to fathom.

“Alpha,” Cade’s voice broke through my thoughts. He stood a few paces behind me, his black eyes flicked between Damon’s limp form and my face. I could see his confusion, even his unease. Damon Darcy, an untouchable man, feared by nations and now lay helpless in my arms like a broken doll. 

Without a word, I slung Damon over my shoulder like a bag of potato. I didn’t spare Cade a glance as I turned and began to walk. “Prepare the things I requested through mind-link earlier,” I ordered coldly, my steps steady as the swamp receded behind us.

Cade hesitated but nodded, quickly falling into step beside me. “Alpha,” he began cautiously, “this human…”

I glanced at the man slumped over my shoulder, his head resting awkwardly against my back. His eyes were closed, his face oddly peaceful, and his scent… was nonexistent. That only irritated me further. 

“He?” I repeated, my voice low and venomous. My grip tightened slightly. “He is mine. Mine to destroy. Mine to own.” 

Damon Darcy was no longer untouchable. He was mine now, in every way and I would make sure he never forgot it.