Chapter 244 My Wolf

Chapter 244 My Wolf
>>Riona
The question hung in the air, raw and desperate, almost as if I were trying to hold onto some thread of hope that I could be wrong. But I knew. I knew the answer even before he replied.
Niall’s expression didn’t change immediately, but I saw a flicker of something in his eyes—something dark, something calculating. He didn’t seem the least bit surprised by the accusation. Instead, he almost seemed... pleased. Like this was a confession he had been waiting to make, a twisted validation of everything he had done to get to this point.
His voice was slow, cold, almost amused as he answered, “No, Riona. I didn’t kill them.” He paused, eyes narrowing, before he added, “I had to make sure they stayed out of the way.”
I felt the world shift beneath me. The ground beneath my feet felt unsteady as his words landed like a punch to my gut. Stayed out of the way?
I swallowed hard, my chest tightening. The pain of his words cut deeper than I had expected, as if they weren’t just about my parents but about my entire life being shattered. I stared at him, horror written across my face, feeling like I couldn’t breathe.
“W-what do you mean, stayed out of the way?” I managed to force out, my voice trembling with disbelief.
His lips curled into a cruel smile as he leaned closer, that disturbing gleam in his eyes growing more intense. “They never would’ve let me have you. They never would’ve let me take what’s mine. They were always trying to keep you from me, from us.”
I felt my stomach churn, my hands instinctively reaching out to steady myself against the nearest surface. His words kept swirling around in my mind, crashing against each other in a sickening cacophony. Everything I had thought I knew about my parents, everything I had believed, suddenly felt like a lie.
"Wait..." I gasped, the pieces falling together faster than I could process them. "So you..." I couldn’t bring myself to say it. The truth of it felt like it was strangling me, suffocating me.
Niall gave me a satisfied, twisted smile, as if he knew exactly what I was thinking.
“Yes,” he said, voice dark, “I did whatever I had to do to make sure nothing stood in the way of what was meant to be. You were always supposed to be mine, Riona. But your parents—they wouldn’t listen to me. They just wanted you to be happy with Milo. I tried to show them... over and over again... that I was the better option. But they- Oh!” He shook his head in annoyance, “The things they would do to keep me apart from you,” His face was filled with disgust, mimicking the type boiling inside of me.
He was unhinged, his words spilling out like venom, each one more twisted than the last. I could barely breathe, barely process the depth of his obsession.
He thought he had a right to me.
I felt sick. The anger that had been rising inside of me finally bubbled over, sharp and cutting. "You’re insane," I spat. "You don’t own me. You never did, and you never will."
But his smile didn’t waver. Instead, it grew wider, more deranged, like he found my anger almost... entertaining.
“I already have you,” he said softly, his voice dripping with malice. “You just don’t realize it yet.”
"You!!" The words came out as a sharp, desperate scream, my body shaking with disbelief. "You killed Mom and Dad!!"
Niall didn’t flinch. He just shrugged, an expression of casual indifference on his face. "I didn’t kill them," he replied, his voice unnervingly calm.
I stared at him in stunned silence, unable to process what I was hearing. The words hung in the air like a deadly fog, suffocating me.
"It was you!" I screamed again, my voice cracking. "You just confessed!!"
Niall's lips curled into a twisted smile, like he was almost enjoying this. "It wasn’t me, Riona," he said, his voice so cold. "I had Milo do it."
!!!
I felt the world tilt beneath me, as if the ground had been pulled from under my feet. My heart skipped a beat, and I felt a wave of nausea hit me. "Milo did it?" I whispered, barely able to comprehend what he had just said. My mind couldn't wrap itself around the words.
Niall's face twisted with a kind of pride, as if he were explaining something trivial. "Look, I always said Milo wasn’t for you," he said casually, like he were talking about the weather. "I drugged him with a little hallucinogen and... well, you know the rest. He went on a killing spree."
I was frozen, unable to even respond. The horror of his words seeped into my very bones, and a cold dread wrapped around my heart. The man I had once trusted, the man I had believed to be like a brother, had manipulated everything. He had destroyed my family. The betrayal was suffocating, a weight pressing on my chest that felt like it was about to crush me.
But then, something else—something darker—stirred deep within me. The trauma of everything I had just learned, everything I had witnessed, seemed to break something inside of me. The grief, the rage, the sheer despair—it all boiled over in a wave of emotion that I could no longer hold back.
I felt heat surge through my veins, an unnatural fire that burned beneath my skin. My bones felt as though they were shifting, cracking, twisting beneath the weight of this new force awakening inside of me. A scream built in my chest, but it wasn't one of pain—it was primal, raw, and full of something else entirely.
I looked down at my hands in disbelief. The change was happening so fast, too fast. My skin felt tight, stretching as claws—claws—pushed their way out of my fingertips. I screamed, my voice a mix of horror and wonder, my whole body trembling with the intensity of it all.
"Riona?" Niall took a step toward me, his voice filled with confusion, a touch of fear creeping into his tone. "What’s wrong with you?"
But I couldn't answer him. My chest heaved, my breath coming in ragged gasps, as my body buckled under the strain of the transformation. I fell to the ground, my limbs feeling like they were being torn apart. The heat in my veins grew stronger, hotter, until it felt like my very flesh was on fire.
I screamed again, my voice distorted, like it wasn’t my own. My bones snapped and twisted, reshaping, elongating with a sickening sound as fur began to sprout along my skin. The pain was like nothing I had ever felt before. My spine arched, the muscles in my back rippling as they expanded, lengthened. The claws on my hands and feet dug into the earth, the sensation almost relieving amidst the agony.
I could feel my face changing, the skin stretching and reshaping as my nose and mouth elongated. My teeth grew sharper, more animalistic, and a low growl rumbled from deep within my chest. My senses became heightened, everything around me sharp and clear, as if I were seeing the world through the eyes of a predator.
It was happening—I was changing.
I felt the final shift, the last part of my humanity slipping away as the full force of the transformation took over. My body was no longer my own, no longer human. I stood on all fours now, my new form towering, a monstrous wolf with glowing eyes and fur as dark as midnight.
I let out a final roar, a cry of rage, grief, and pain that echoed through the night air.
And then, I turned my gaze back to Niall—my eyes burning with a fury I had never known before. He stood frozen, shock and fear flashing across his face as he took in what had just happened.
I stood there, trembling, in the new form that felt so alien, yet so raw and primal.
My claws scraped the ground beneath me as I struggled to keep my balance, the sheer power of the shift making my legs feel like they were still adjusting to their new form. Every movement was both unfamiliar and instinctive, like my body knew how to be this, but my mind didn’t.
Panic surged through me as I looked down at my hands, my massive paws with claws that were dripping with my own blood. I could feel the heat of my new body, my senses heightened to an almost unbearable level, the air sharper, every sound louder. I could hear the faintest rustle of the trees, the sound of my own ragged breath, the distant rustle of leaves beneath Niall’s feet. I felt something inside of me twist in terror, an overwhelming fear of what I had become.
But I didn’t have time to think.
Before I could even process the full scope of what had just happened to me, I saw Niall step back, a glint of something cold in his eyes. His hand, shaking but determined, reached down for the gun at his side.
“Riona…” His voice was taunting, almost pitying, but there was a tremor of fear in it, too. “You, what are you?”
I felt a surge of anger—how dare he—but that quickly turned to panic as I saw him aim the gun at me. The cold, black barrel of the weapon lined up with my chest, and for a split second, my heart stopped.
He was about to kill me.