Stealing My Best Friend’s Mate

Goodbye Kiss

Xavier’s POV

Kai, terrified that Sloane will uncover the truth once she returns to school, latches onto her claim that she can no longer feel her wolf. Using her “condition” as justification, he arranges a two-week medical leave and keeps her isolated from campus.

By the third day, I realize I am completely f****d. Not because Sloane remembers anything. Not because Kai is losing control of the lie he created. But because every evening I walk into her apartment pretending this arrangement is temporary, while my wolf settles deeper into her space, as if we belong there.

Like the last two evenings, the first thing that hits me when I step inside is always her scent, mingled with laundry detergent.

Home.

And my jaw tightens instantly at the thought. Because Moros was supposed to be the sensible one when it comes to Sloane. My alpha wolf always recognised the weak wolf in Sloane, always grounded the weak human I am, and pulled me into reality.

Reality is that an alpha needs a strong wolf to be by his side to rule. A luna cannot be weak. A luna must be able to handle the pack. Be a mother to all- a protector… not a pathetic weakling who needs protecting herself.

But since Kai pushed us together, Moros seemed to have lost his mind. He seems to want to cuddle up with her. He even wanted to skip practice today to visit her, whining and telling me that Sloane must be so lonely at home alone.

As soon as practice was over, we raced to her place.

The apartment is warm tonight, yellow light spilling softly from the kitchen while rain taps steadily against the windows again. Black Shadow has been drowning in storms for nearly a week now, and the weather matches the tension crawling beneath my skin perfectly.

Sloane sits curled into the corner of the couch beneath a blanket, laptop balanced across her thighs.

"You’re late," she mutters without looking up.

Moros rumbles low inside my chest at the sound of her voice. ‘Mine.’

'No.' I shove the instinct down hard enough to make irritation flicker beneath my ribs. ‘Kai’s.’

That word has lived buried beneath my tongue for years now.

I toss my truck keys onto the counter. "Practice ran over."

The lie comes easily. Practice ended thirty minutes ago, but I spent nearly fifteen minutes sitting in my truck outside her building trying to remember how to breathe normally before coming in.

It didn’t work.

Nothing works around her anymore. Especially now. Because before this, I had distance. Space and rules.

Now I step into her apartment every day and watch her walk around in oversized shirts and tiny shorts while pretending she belongs to me.

The Goddess clearly enjoys torment.

Sloane shuts the laptop slowly before peering at the paper bag in my hand. "What did you bring?"

"Food." I’d ordered it during practice, so by the time I was done there, the pickup was easy.

"Wow, how romantic."

Ignoring her sarcasm, I move into the kitchen and unpack containers while she watches me carefully from the couch.

She’s been studying me, testing me. Probably wondering why her boyfriend was so distant with her.

"You know," she starts casually, "for someone who apparently dates me, you sure spent years glaring at me like I keyed your car."

I pause because I had been wanting to kiss her, but I felt as if I was betraying Kai. After all, he was not only my beta-to-be, he was also my best friend, and this was his girl.

Her eyes narrow slightly when I do not answer immediately.

Damn it.

Most people assume silence means indifference. With me, silence is restraint. Because the truth is ugly.

The truth is, I watched her for years because I could not stop. When Sloane first arrived at the pack house, she was twelve and painfully quiet. Too thin. Too polite. Always flinching before someone even raised their voice. I remember watching her carry laundry baskets bigger than her body because she wanted to earn her place there. She thanked everyone for everything. Every meal, every ride, every scrap of kindness.

Back then, I thought it was calculated, and I believed every ugly thing people whispered. A girl from nowhere attaching herself to the future Beta family after tragedy handed her an opportunity.

Social climber, stray, and eventually a gold digger.

Then one winter night, I found her asleep in the laundry room. Curled against the dryer with textbooks spread around her because she had been too afraid to fall asleep before finishing her chores.

Fourteen years old and exhausted. Still trying to make herself useful enough to deserve staying.

That was the first c***k.

The second came months later when one of the elders cornered her during a gathering and implied she should feel grateful the pack tolerated her existence at all.

Sloane bowed her head and apologized. Like she genuinely believed being alive inconvenienced everyone around her, and I hated her for making me think of her when I should have been focused on my future.

Something ugly twisted inside my chest that night.

After that, I started noticing everything. The way she avoided eating the last portion of food because she worried someone else might want it. How she stitched tears in her own clothes instead of asking for new ones. How she smiled before she cried… and how Kai looked at her like sunlight.

And how she looked at him like salvation.

The more I saw, the worse it became, and my wolf fought me every step of the way every time my heart softened towards her. I almost died when she and Kai began dating, and then I said some nasty things to her- things I wish I hadn’t said.

Even Moros was shocked at my words. Because she was never what I accused her of being.

Sloane did not want power, but safety.

My contempt rotted into guilt so slowly I barely noticed it happening.

Then one day, I looked up and realized I knew the sound of her laugh better than my own. And by then it was far too late because the Moon had chosen her mate, and it was Kai.

"Sooo..." Sloane drags the word out from the couch, pulling me back into the present. "You’re staring at soup like it personally offended you."

I exhale slowly. "Eat before it gets cold."

She studies me for another second before standing carefully. Her injuries healed quickly because of her wolf, but I still catch her wincing sometimes when she moves too fast.

The protective instinct inside me has become unbearable lately, especially after seeing Kai with Judy.

The entire campus saw them, with hands all over each other. Her sitting in his lap inside the student union. His mouth against her neck while people laughed around them.

No one mentioned Sloane once.

Not one person.

As far as Black Shadow University is concerned, Kai Rhodes dumped his omega girlfriend and upgraded to a cheerleader with bigger t**s and less emotional attachment.

My wolf wanted to rip his throat out.

Instead, I punched a locker hard enough to dent steel after practice.

"You’re glaring again," Sloane murmurs while taking the bowl containing the soup I took out for her from me.

I force my shoulders to loosen. "Sorry."

She freezes slightly at the word- probably because I never apologize. Not to anyone. Especially not softly and not to an omega.

The apartment falls quiet afterward, except for rain and distant television noise, while we eat together.

This has become dangerous too- the domesticity of it. Her sitting cross-legged beside me, stealing fries off my plate. I mumble that the soup is for her, not the fries, and she grimaces.

In all the years we have known each other, not once have we ever shared a meal until her accident.

Conversations drifted lazily between us late into the night, with me fixing the blanket around her legs without thinking, while she took note of what we covered today from me.

Pretending. Every second of this is pretending I have to keep reminding myself. Then midnight comes, and my favorite part of the day begins.

Goodbye Kiss.

I stand near the front door while Sloane folds her arms tightly across her chest. My wolf stretches lazily beneath my skin, already anticipating her scent, wanting her wolf to make her presence known, but she does not.

‘Mine.’

‘Kai's,’ I reply to Moros, and he whimpers.

“I feel so terrible that you take care of me when I can buy my own stuff. At least let me buy you dinner tomorrow, Xavier, since you refuse to let me repay you.”

"How can I let my girl pay for stuff? I have to take care of you, Sloane." I say the words with such warmth that I feel like a tool. Take care of her? She could barely make ends meet right now. I have seen her kitchen cupboards. Bare.

I checked her phone- bank account nil. How is she even alive?

“Come on, give me some sugar so I can leave already,” I playfully say.

Sloane glared at me, and then she rose onto her toes slightly and pressed a quick kiss against my cheek. God, she looks so cute when she blushes.

I'm a despicable man. I wanted to get more out of playing Sloane's boyfriend. So I lied. I told her that after we started “dating,” we’d kiss every time we said goodbye.

At first, she was skeptical of me. However, after I insisted, she hesitantly gave me my first kiss.

I stared intently at her beautiful lips. My heart is racing inside me, Moros spinning in circles in my head. “That doesn't count, Sloane.”

Sloane mouths back, “I don’t- feel-”

She’s going to tell me she does not feel comfortable.

“I’m your boyfriend, Sloane, and this is not how we usually kiss.” I caught her waist before she could pull away, and her breath hitches instantly. Her eyes look like a deer caught in headlights. I lean down slightly, my voice roughening before I can stop it. "Try again."

For one second, I think she’ll argue. Instead, her fingers curl slowly into the front of my hoodie, on the tips of her toes again.

Warm mouth, soft inhale, vanilla from the wafers she just ate, but then her lips are on mine, and my restraint snaps violently. I drag her fully against me and deepen the kiss instantly.

Sloane gasps against my mouth when my tongue slides against hers, tentative at first before hunger takes over completely. My hand spreads across the small of her back, pulling her flush to my chest while hers clutch my shoulders hard enough that her nails bite through the fabric.

Fuck.

My wolf surges forward so aggressively that I nearly lose control. ‘Mine. Mine. Mine.’

The thought pounds through me with dangerous force, and I want to agree with him, but Kai is my brother… even if I am technically betraying him at this moment.

Sloane makes a soft sound against my lips that nearly destroys me entirely, and I walk her backward until her spine hits the wall gently. Then I kiss her harder, years of restraint unraveling all at once.

Finally!

I have wanted this for years.

Desire burned low in my stomach while her fingers slide into my hair, and my mouth trails down her jaw slowly. Every nerve ending lit up instantly, my heartbeat turning uneven beneath her touch - hers too beneath my lips when I ghost my mouth across her throat.

"Xavier..."

My name leaves her breathless, and the sound nearly makes me feral. I bite gently beneath her ear, and her body arches against mine before she catches herself.