My Alpha Hockey Stepbrother

Sophie's POV I fought back the tears burning at the back of my eyes as I stared at my mother, disbelief clawing at the edges of my mind. No, she wouldn’t mean it. What she had just told me couldn’t be true, but no matter how desperately I wanted to dismiss it, I had heard her loud and clear. And her expression didn’t look like that of someone who was lying. It looked like someone who had already made peace with betraying me. “Mom…” I whispered, my voice trembling as I reached for her. But she didn’t respond. She simply avoided my gaze, as if the very act of meeting my eyes would prick at her conscience, if she even had one left when it came to me. For fifteen years since my father’s death, it had been just the two of us. Mother and I had lived peacefully, leaning on each other, breathing through each hardship side by side. We were each other’s family, each other’s strength. There was nothing we didn’t do together or secrets we kept from each other, well, except the fact that I kept my bullying a secret from her. But that had only been because I didn’t want her worrying excessively. And now she was suddenly telling me she was getting remarried? Not after months of preparing me for the news but the next day? Right after my graduation from the pack’s academy? “You promised me that we’d live our lives alone and together, didn’t you?” I choked out, my voice breaking into sobs I couldn’t control anymore. “Why are you saying all this now, all of a sudden?” “I’m getting remarried to the alpha tomorrow, Sophie,” she said flatly. “And there’s nothing you can do or say to stop it. I’m only discussing this with you now so you won’t be shocked. But as for the marriage, consider it done. We’ll be having a new addition to our family soon.” She said it casually as she went ahead with her baking. The cake I had assumed was for some new friend of hers, someone who adored the strawberry flavor she always used. But now I understood. The alpha of the pack was famed for his love of strawberry cakes. Suddenly, everything made sense. “You didn’t even ask me whether I was ready to have a sibling,” I whispered. “Oh, come on, Sophie,” she sighed. “This is for you too. Don’t tell me you wouldn’t want to see me happy just this once. I’ve sacrificed my life and happiness for you all these years since your father died. You’re now a graduate. Can’t you let me have this for just this once?” Something sharp and unbearable stung in the center of my chest. She had been waiting for me to graduate so she could finally chase her own happiness. So she could finally be free of the burden I apparently was. Yes, she had raised me. Yes, she provided a roof over my head, a table to eat at. But to her, that was all motherhood had ever meant. When I got a scholarship to Silverstone Academy, she hadn’t cried out of pride, she had sighed in relief because the financial weight had been lifted off her shoulders. When the bullying began and became unbearable in the first year, I told her I wanted to withdraw from the academy but she had refused. Even when my body was covered in bruises, even when I had stood before her shaking and broken, begging her to let me leave, she ignored it. She saw the bruises and pretended not to see them. After that, I knew better than to tell her how the bullying escalated. Because she didn’t care. My mother simply lacked such affection. Or maybe she had affection, but it had never been for me. And now, the head of the bullies, Ronan, the alpha’s son, was going to be my stepbrother. I was expected to live under the same roof as the boy who had made my life a living hell. A bitter, burning cold settled inside me as the thought burned, that Ronan was going to be my step brother, my new family. If this was happiness for her, then what was I to her at all? I didn’t know what hurt me more as she walked into the sitting room of our small apartment and began to admire the diamond rings and jewelry in a box that had been sent to her. Was it the fact that she was getting remarried tomorrow and she had chosen tonight, the eve of the wedding, to finally tell me? Or was it the fact that out of every man in this entire pack, she hadn’t found anyone else to get mated to other than the alpha? The same alpha whose world was light-years away from ours. Our backgrounds were hell-different, and she knew it. She knew how the pack members loved to gossip, how they talked about her, she had always been a well-known name in the rumors. When I couldn’t take it anymore and the suffocation of watching her try on those rings felt like a knife twisting slowly inside my chest, I stood up. Only one location existed in my mind. Only one place where I could silence the pain threatening to numb my heart completely. My mother wasn’t listening. She wasn’t going to listen. She was hell-bent on making this decision. And the worst part wasn’t even the stepfather I was being forced into accepting. It was the stepbrother. It was as if she knew I would refuse. And as if she had purposely kept this news from me until now, the eve of the ceremony, when she was sure there was nothing I could do to change it. ******* The neon lights of the bar I had run into flashed sharply in my eyes. I steadied myself, pulling my hoodie lower as I hid my face from the group of people I had just spotted across the bar. Reid’s place, my boyfriend’s, had been where I wanted to go at first. I needed him. I needed comfort after what my mother had just dropped on me like a bomb. But he wasn’t home as he was at our class’ alumni reunion party. I had opted out of attending. My classmates were highborns. Children of wealthy families. And I had never been one of them. I had been the easy target. The nobody, the wolfless freak. This was why I refused to go. Why I never wanted to see them again. But sitting here now and staring across the bar and realizing almost all of them were seated together at a long table, laughing and partying, panic tightened around my lungs. Of all the places in the pack and all the bars I could walk into, I had walked into this one. The same bar where the class reunion was happening. I hadn’t chosen this bar because of them. I hadn’t even known. I had only wandered down the road, desperate for air that wouldn’t crush my chest, and this bar was the first open place I saw. The music, the lights, the noise had pulled me in. Who would have thought that the very people I had avoided all day were now seated a few meters away from me? Quietly, I slipped off my chair. I placed a note on the table for the two glasses of alcohol I’d already downed and turned toward the opposite direction to take the back exit. But the moment I stepped into the hallway, a group of girls appeared, walking toward me in expensive designer clothes, every shimmer of their accessories screaming wealth. “Well, well, well, look who we have here,” one of the girls purred, removing her glasses and giving me a glare dripping with disgust from head to toe. “If it isn’t the wolfless mutt,” another chimed in and they all burst into laughter. “Oh, pathetic omega,” Katie, the Beta’s daughter purred. “What made you think places like this are meant for wolfless freaks like you?” I said nothing. I stared at them blankly, refusing to give them the reaction they wanted. This wasn’t new. This was nothing compared to what they used to do back at the academy. At least here, in public, they couldn’t drag me into some corner or shove my face into dirt. It was just their mouths and insults about how I didn’t belong, how lowlifes like me should be beneath them. And honestly? Nothing they said could cut deeper than what my mother had to me hours ago. Their voices kept rising, their insults growing sharper, until Katie noticed people passing through the back door. She hide her face as she didn't want to be seen by them. Instantly, she straightened her hair and walked away. Her minions followed behind her, like they always did. I exhaled shakily, relieved that it was finally over. But when I lifted my head again, I froze and was completely stunned by the sight before me.