Fortunes Bite

The baritone voice echoed through the lofty penthouse like a verdict from on high. Upper East Side Manhattan hid a thousand such fortresses, many owned by the Cross estate—chaired now by the ailing Alfred Cross.Damon lurked in the shadows, a tall silhouette etched against the floor-to-ceiling windows. His icy blue eyes gleamed like eclipsed moons, unblinking. Calculative. Mourning."To say I don't have long left would be a grave understatement," Alfred rasped from his sickbed, tubes snaking across his frail frame. "I've lived my life one way. What comes next will be no different. At any time, I want my affairs sorted. This is the will of any man."Damon shifted, eyes squeezing shut. He'd known his father was ill, but hope had been his thin armor. Now, those words shattered it. Alfred wasn't distant like some estranged ghost—no, he was distant like a god granting free will, watching from afar as his sons forged their paths.Damon couldn't remember wanting for anything. Alfred ensured that. A sleek Rolex glinted on his wrist now, a relic from those European boarding school days—crisp uniforms, whispered rivalries in ancient halls. Summers blurred into turquoise waves off Turks and Caicos, or Cancun's sun-drenched haze. Luxury cars purred under his command by eighteen. To the world, it was envy. To Damon and his brother Anthony, it was just Tuesday. But glamour like theirs always hid rot. The Cross legacy? Darker than most dared guess. Whispers of old scandals clung like smoke—affairs, embezzlements, fortunes built on buried bones. Damon had sensed it in the boardroom stares, the way deals soured overnight. Yet he'd buried the questions, focusing on the empire's cold machinery."Do you not hear me, boy?" Alfred's voice cracked like a whip, vicious enough to slice the air.Damon snapped back, pulse hammering. He'd drifted, lost in the news, caught between grief for a stranger-father and terror for the life he'd claimed as his own. Alfred's fist slammed a kidney dish off the medical trolley. It clanged across the tiles, spinning wildly.The male nurse, Hansel, poked his head in—round face paling at the mess. He lunged to grab it.In a heartbeat, Hansel's body crumpled, headless. His wide-eyed skull rolled beside the torso, blood pooling like spilled ink. Damon choked back a scream, a gasp his only betrayal. Alfred bolted upright, sheets tangling around gore-slicked arms. Jagged teeth gleamed, eyes igniting with a golden-yellow glow Damon had never seen. Fangs. Fur rippling faintly along his knuckles."Well, thank goodness," Alfred drawled, voice casual as a board meeting. "I could've wasted my last hours chattering. My apologies—you weren't meant to see it this way. But he stepped out of line. Told not to enter, no matter what."He eased back against the pillows, features melting to their familiar gaunt lines. As if decapitating a man was just spilled coffee.Damon pressed into the corner, breath shallow. The room reeked of copper and something feral—wet earth, moonlit pine. His skin prickled, a deep itch uncoiling in his gut. Suppressed flashes hit: nights he'd woken sweating, bones aching under full moons; urges to hunt dismissed as stress; a raw hunger for... what? Pack? Mate? The words slithered unbidden, ancient and alien.Alfred's gaze pinned him, coy grin splitting gray lips. "You look at me like you're any different, boy."All the air fled Damon's lungs. Hairs rose on his arms, tears stinging. It couldn't— No. The legacy wasn't just money. It was this. Blood-deep. Primal. Fear twisted to rage, a snarl building in his throat he swallowed hard. The headless corpse sprawled like a warning: Insubordination ends here.His father's ramblings resumed—legacy, honor, pride, will—but Damon caught fragments through the roar in his ears. No more monsters. Just duty. Cold calculation settled like frost, sealing the cracks. He was Cross. Heir. Alpha, if the beast inside whispered true.Alfred straightened, motioning him closer. From the bed's edge, he drew a thick envelope, sealed with the family crest—a snarling wolf in silver. "I'm not blind to the distance between us, boy."Damon, mid-thirties and still "boy" in his father's mouth, perched on the bed's edge. The mattress dipped under his weight."But with this truth," Alfred murmured, pressing the envelope into his palm, "I hope to bind us closer than blood. Even in death."Damon's fingers tightened on the seal. Inside, the will—and whatever fangs it hid. But as he met his father's glowing gaze one last time, a deeper pull stirred. Not just legacy. Fate. A mate out there, waiting to shatter his control. Or save it.He tore the envelope open. The first line blurred: "To inherit the Cross empire, you must claim a true mate—before the next full moon rises.