Mated To My Step Brother

2

I woke up with the ceiling pressing down on me like a weight. It was painted white—too clean, too bright for how I felt inside. I rolled over, groaning as my muscles ached from a night of tense, dreamless half-sleep. The house creaked all around me. Groaned, even. Like it knew I didn’t belong here.

The air smelled different from home. No pine resin or moss. No bonfire smoke from the pack’s nightly meetings. Just soap, dust, and something darker—like burned wood and warm skin. Kalen. His scent clung to the walls like a stain, reminding me that I wasn’t alone in this house. Not really.

I sat up slowly, pulling my hoodie tighter around myself.

Then I caught sight of myself in the mirror across the room.

The girl in the glass stared back with tired eyes.

My hair, thick and wild, was a halo of chestnut curls tangled from sleep. No matter what I did, it never laid flat—it was like it had its own moods. Today, it looked as fed up as I felt. I reached up to tuck a frizzy strand behind my ear and watched my reflection do the same, noticing the smudge of tired purple beneath my eyes. Glasses slid down my nose—the same oversized round black ones I’d worn since I was thirteen, too stubborn to switch to contacts. They made my eyes look bigger. Sadder.

I pulled the hoodie tighter.

It barely covered me.

I was big—there was no hiding that. Thick arms. Wide hips. Heavy breasts that stretched the fabric in a way that made me feel painfully aware of myself. I wasn’t the kind of fat people called "cute" behind your back and "brave" to your face. I was the kind of fat that made people stare too long and then pretend they weren’t. The kind of fat that meant you had to work twice as hard just to be allowed in the room. The kind of fat that was a crime in wolf culture.

Wolves were supposed to be sleek. Lithe. Ferocious.

Not… me.

I used to try to hide it. Oversized clothes. Hunched shoulders. Trying to shrink myself like it would make me easier to love.

But it didn’t matter. No one saw past my body. Not even my mate.

Especially not Kalen.

I went downstairs an hour later, hoping—praying—that he’d be gone.

He wasn’t.

Kalen was in the kitchen, shirtless, of course, because of course the universe wanted me to suffer. His back was turned, muscles flexing as he reached up into a cabinet. His tattoos glinted in the soft morning light. One stretched down the curve of his spine like a claw mark. Another wrapped around his bicep in thick, twisting runes I couldn’t read. There was a scar across his shoulder blade, pale against golden-tan skin, and the same scent from the night before curled through the room like smoke.

He turned when he heard me, and our eyes met.

For a second, he didn’t smirk. Didn’t sneer. He just looked at me.

And then he dropped a bowl on the counter and said, “The fridge works. Shocking, I know.”

I blinked. “Wasn’t asking.”

“Didn’t say you were.”

Tension crackled between us like static.

I crossed my arms over my chest. Bad idea. His gaze dipped for a second—just a second—to where the fabric pulled tight, then flicked away. My stomach twisted. Heat burned beneath my skin, but I didn’t know if it was anger or embarrassment.

Probably both.

“You always this charming in the morning?” I muttered.

“You always this loud when you walk?”

I flinched.

He didn’t apologize.

I pushed past him toward the fridge, refusing to let him see the way his words landed. I’d survived worse. Hell, I’d been rejected by an entire pack. I wasn’t going to fall apart over one cocky Alpha with a history of calling me names in school.

I pulled out a carton of milk and poured it into a chipped mug I found in the cabinet. It wasn’t coffee, but it was warm. It was something.

Kalen leaned against the doorway, arms folded, eyes unreadable. “You’re staying long?”

“Why?”

“Trying to gauge how much suffering I’m in for.”

I turned to face him, the mug warm between my hands. “You don’t have to talk to me, Kalen. In fact, I’d prefer if you didn’t.”

A pause. Then something shifted in his face—his mouth twitched like he almost smiled. Not a cruel one. Not exactly.

“You’ve changed,” he said quietly.

I narrowed my eyes. “You haven’t.”

Another beat of silence.

Then, softer than I expected, “You smell different.”

I stiffened. “Don’t say it like that.”

“Like what?”

“Like I’m broken.”

He blinked once. “Didn’t say you were.”

But he didn’t deny it either.

I turned away, my wolf stirring low in my chest. She didn’t trust him. But she wasn’t disgusted either. That’s what scared me the most.

“Don’t pretend you care now,” I muttered.

“I don’t,” he said automatically.

But I caught it—the hesitation.

And that look he gave me last night? The one that lingered, like I was more than a ghost from his past?

I didn’t know what to make of it.

That afternoon, I wandered the woods behind the house alone. I needed space. Quiet. I needed to breathe in something that wasn’t Kalen’s smug smirks and old wounds.

The trees were ancient, thicker than any I’d seen near the packlands. They whispered secrets when the wind moved, and the air tasted like moss and earth and something older than wolves. Something watching.

I paused at the edge of a stream and looked down into the water. My reflection stared back—glasses askew, curls tangled, body strong and soft and scarred by silence.

Not a wolf.

Not a girl anymore either.

Something in between.

Something new.

And somewhere behind me, I swore I heard footsteps.