Mated To My Alpha Stepbrother.

Chapter 15.

JEREMY

“Hey, babe.” The words tasted wrong the second they left my mouth.

“Hey, you!” Iria's voice came through bright and bubbly. “It sounds windy. Where are you?”

“The training grounds.” I turned my back to the fence, to the girl gripping the wooden rail like it had insulted her. “What's up?”

“Mom wants you for dinner tonight. Dad will be there too. He wants a word about the Council.” She paused. “And bring Elaine.”

I frowned. “Elaine?”

“I feel awful about the party. Mom says the poor girl didn't even get to meet anyone properly.” She giggled softly. “Besides, I want to see you two getting along. She's your family now.”

Family. Right.

“I'll ask her,” I said.

“Jeremy?” Her voice dropped, and the sparkle vanished. “Promise me something?” “Anything.”

“Keep Ben away from her. Please. Gary's birthday is next week, and every time I see Ben's face, I just...” She sniffed. “I can't breathe.”

My chest tightened. “He won't come near you. I promise.”

“I love you.” I hesitated half a second too long. “Me too,” I said, and hung up.

I stared at the phone like it might bite me.

Iria wasn't a bad girlfriend. That was the problem. She was kind and loyal, and she'd waited eighteen months for me to come back from Europe without a single complaint. Two weeks after Gary's funeral, she'd kissed me in the rain behind the Council Hall, shaking and crying, and I hadn't had the heart to stop her. That was a year ago. I still hadn't found the moment to end it.

Somewhere along the way, I had confused being needed with being in love.

I'd flown home a day early, told no one, and wandered into a human club just to remember what it felt like to be a nobody. I'd promised myself I'd end things with Iria the next morning. Then a girl with a flushed face and a drink in her hand said, “To freedom,” and I forgot my own name.

And the next morning, I woke up alone, with the key still in the door.

Goddess, what a mess.

Behind me, I heard the scrape of sneakers on dirt. I glanced over my shoulder. Elaine was at the fence, practicing the wrist turn over and over, twisting out of an invisible grip, her brows furrowed in concentration.

Good girl, I thought, and then immediately wished I hadn't.

Because the memory was already there: her hands in my hair, her breath against my ear, the way my c**k reacted to her tricks. And now that name came with a title. Stepsister.

I could still hear Dad's voice announcing the wedding two months ago. Mom had been gone since I was ten. Adeline. A fever took her in a week, and Dad buried himself in pack duty until I was old enough to stand beside him. When he told me he was marrying a woman from the human world, I'd expected to hate her. Meredith turned out to be gentle and a little guarded, the kind of woman who watched the door too often.

Her daughter turned out to be the one girl I couldn't stop thinking about. The universe had a sick sense of humor.

I forced my eyes back to the training field, where I'd once taught a skinny twelve-year-old to throw a punch. Gary had followed me around like a shadow. He'd been a good kid, loud and clumsy, always asking questions. He'd been fourteen when he died.

Everyone thought Ben did it. Or at least that Ben let it happen, which in a pack was almost the same thing. They'd sat in judgment for weeks while Dad refused to banish him. I'd never understood that, not until I started digging.

I'd told Elaine I didn't know why there were no guards at the edge that night. That was only half true.

I knew exactly why. The guard rota had been changed two days before the attack. I'd found the page in Dad's office after I came back from the academy. The signature at the bottom had been scratched out, and the ink was still dark where someone had pressed too hard. Someone had wanted that area empty and the envelope in my wardrobe held the only copy.

Ben wasn't a monster even though everyone else was convinced he was. He was a coward at worst, a scapegoat at best. But he knew something. I'd seen it in his eyes every time he looked at me, like a man pressing his hands over his own mouth. Whoever had scared him into silence wouldn't think twice about hurting anyone who got close to him.

That was why I'd growled at him in the forest, and why I'd nearly torn his throat out at the party. It wasn't because I thought he'd hurt Elaine. It was because of who might come looking for her if she got too close to him.

I couldn't tell her. Not yet.

“Jer.”

Duncan's voice was low. I turned and found him standing a few feet away, hands shoved in his pockets, his scholarly face unusually pale. He glanced at Elaine, then back at me.

“Can we talk?”

We stepped away from the fence, out of her hearing. Well, out of normal hearing. I kept one ear on her heartbeat out of habit.

“We found another one,” Duncan said quietly. “Near the eastern border which is the same spot as last night.”

“Rogue?”

“And dead. But it's not like the last one.” A lump went down his throat. “Jer, it was wearing a metal collar. Fused into the skin, like it had been there for years. There's a number stamped on it.”

A cold shiver ran down my spine. “A number?” I repeated. “Forty-one.”

I stared at him. Rogues didn't wear collars. Rogues didn't have numbers. Rogues were wolves who had lost their packs, wild and desperate. Nobody counted them.

“Has anyone else seen it?”

“Just Mitch and me. We got there before the patrol did and covered it.”

“Good. Keep it that way. Don't tell the Elders yet.” I hesitated. “And not the Beta or the Gamma either.”

Duncan went still. “You're asking me to keep this from my father.”

“I'm asking you to wait.” I kept my voice low. “I'm not saying he did anything. But someone scratched a name off that guard rota last year, and the Beta and the Gamma both have access to it. Until I know who, I can't tell who talks to whom.”

“Mitch's uncle is the Gamma,” Duncan muttered. “He won't like hiding things from him either.”

“Then we keep it short. A few days.” I held his gaze. “Please, Duncan.”

A muscle worked in his jaw, but he nodded. “A few days. Then I tell him.”

“Deal.”

His brows furrowed. “The Elders called you out there last night, Jer.” “I know.” I rubbed my jaw. “And I think one of them knows more than he's saying.”

I thought of Elder Bram standing in that corridor, his scarred face gone gray as he stared at Elaine. And of Elaine, who had lied to me in the car in a voice that was just a little too light, her heartbeat spiking like a drum. Welcome stuff, she'd said.

Sure.

“Where are you going?” Elaine called as I started toward the car.

I turned. She had her arms crossed over her chest, her wind-tossed hair falling around her face, her eyes narrowed with suspicion. She looked like trouble in a black crop top.

“Pack business,” I said with a shrug.

“And you've been saying that a lot lately.” “And you've been lying a lot lately.” I smirked when her mouth fell open. “Welcome stuff, Kitten? Really?”

Color flooded her cheeks. “That's... it's none of your business.”

“Fine.” I opened the car door. “Then we're both entitled to our secrets.”

“Fine!”

“Fine. Oh, and Iria invited you to dinner.”

Her expression flickered. Just for a second, something raw crossed her face before she locked it away.

“I'll pass,” she said stiffly.

“Not an option, stepsis. You're going.” I got into the driver's seat, and she scowled at me through the windshield for three full seconds before climbing in, slamming the door so hard the whole mustang rattled.

I started the engine, hiding my grin.

Seven days ago, I'd have said I knew exactly who I was. A future Alpha, a loyal son, a decent boyfriend, and maybe a better liar than I should have been.

Now I had a dead rogue with a number on its neck, a girl in my passenger seat who wouldn't look a

t me, and a secret that was getting heavier by the hour.

And somehow, her slender neck was the only thing I could think about.