False Confidence

Helpless

Azriel Huang

((HEAVY TW: Attempted SA))

I wore my sharp canines and pointed ears with honest pride for once, quickly realizing in the insane amount of people gathered, that no one would take a secondary glance at them.

The house was packed, even more so than ever before. Aside from multi-pack or whole pack gatherings that is. Nearly every room of the main floor had someone in it. As I made my descent down the grand staircase, "my brides" trailing behind me, people in all types of costumes littered the area.

I had previously felt that we'd warrant a lot of attention due to the revealing costumes but I had forgotten how nonchalant wolves actually were to showing skin. Some females even wore mesh lingerie and wolf ears, an ironic but cliche joke some of us pulled on Halloween to laugh at the humans' ignorance. Even some males wore no shirt. I spotted a guy in cowboy boots and hat with nothing else but leather pants.

Though we got no extreme attention, some did take double takes at the quality and detail to the costumes of my friends. I didn't plan on leaving their side tonight, noticing how my costume would be more than ordinary without my brides. We leisurely ambulated through the crowd, not losing each other as we weaved and avoided. Finally we arrived at the cold-bar's front, swiping ourselves our own drinks.

Then came the second drink. Then the third and then so on.

We took to loudly talking with others over the boom of the music, dancing when we could and overall just messing around. Some people delighted in our costumes, one of them even offering to take a picture. I enthusiastically agreed, standing straighter as Nora kneeled down and dramatically clung to my upper legs, gazing up at me. Aniya barley gave me a warning as she hopped up onto the side me, gripping to my shoulder for dear life as she fastened her legs around my torso. Anyone else might have a little trouble but my lineage allowed me to hold her weight with ease. I slipped an easy arm around to hold her upwards, gripping Griffin to my other side, my hand cupping his waist.

I opened my mouth as if I might bite his neck, growing out the canines a smidge more. I made sure with extreme circumspect to not even scratch his skin with the point of my fangs. Even if I lacked the intentions, a mark could last years. A second later the shutter of the camera sounded, and then a couple more for good measure. For another shot we made ridiculous faces and then the third we simply flipped off the camera. After the pictures ceased, Aniya hopped down and Nora stood up, allowing me to peel myself away from Griffin and grab back my phone from the stranger with a small thanks.

I scrolled through them, smiling softly at the images. My friends gathered around to spectate the pictures as well, laughing and grinning.

"If you post that on instagram, tag me." Nora reminded, always particular with her social media. Griffin and Aniya agreed moments later, echoing her sentiment, I only nodded along in reply. There was no more room for conversation, louder songs blaring from the speakers. We were swept into a dance, surrounded by clowns and various spider man's. Nymphs and different girls and boys alike with some form of animal ears on their head.

Alcohol seemed to all but pour down my throat, creating a new buzz in me as what felt like hours went by. I knew it was much shorter than that but time seemed to move weird in the mix of writhing bodies and blunts being burnt. My parents would have no tolerance for such things but they were off somewhere in Europe for reasons I had no knowledge of. They were never around too often so it was easy to throw parties like this and hire cleaning crews for the mess that came with it.

After a while, I separated myself from my friends to grab some water. The lights were flashing and whorling; I had no desire to awake with a lethal headache. It felt heavenly to break open the bottled water nestled in ice, feeling ice cold water flow onto my tongue.