MY STEPBROTHERS, MY MATES

Engine Oil

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

JASON

I stopped at the foot of the stairs.

She was sitting on the floor with a book open on her lap, wrapped in an oversized shirt I recognized immediately as Jace's. She looked up fully at my face and her eyes dropped straight to my hands again.

She stood up. "What happened to you?"

I didn't answer. I walked past her to the kitchen and turned the tap on and held my arm under the cold water. The cut had stopped bleeding on the ride back but the skin around it was angry and dark.

The water stung immediately and I kept my jaw locked against it.

The house was completely silent. I could hear the water running and nothing else.

I reached up to the cabinet above the counter and pulled down my first aid kit. I opened it on the counter and found the methylated spirit, uncapped it and pressed the soaked cotton directly to the wound.

"f**k—" I hissed through my teeth.

Fucking Mario.

Mario had been one of Ironbound's senior members long before I ever joined. He had rank, influence, and the respect of most of the club. He was strong-headed, stubborn, and ambitious. More than anything, he wanted Rylan's throne.

Back then, Mario and Rylan were competing for the leadership position. If you'd asked anyone in the club who was going to win, most would've said Mario. The bikers thought Rylan was too soft to lead a club like ours. They wanted someone with an iron fist, someone feared enough to keep everyone in line. Mario fit that image perfectly.

I joined Ironbound shortly after my mother's death. I was a mess. My father had locked himself away in his own grief and left both of us with nothing. I was seventeen and was drowning in grief with nobody to lean on.

That's when Gelinda came into my life.

She started hanging around me almost immediately after I joined the club. At the time, I didn't know she was Mario's girlfriend. Nobody told me, and she certainly didn't. What started as casual conversations turned into something more.

I saw her as someone who needed company, and if I was being honest, I needed company too. She helped distract me from the pain, even if only for a little while. We spent more and more time together until eventually we started sleeping with each other.

Everything fell apart one night when Mario walked in on us making love to each other Before I could explain. Before I could even understand what was happening, he attacked me. One second I was trying to speak. The next, he grabbed a lamp and smashed it over my head.

Then everything went black. I spent a month in a coma. When I finally woke up, everything had changed. Rylan was the leader of the Ironbound.

Mario had been expelled. He'd started his own motorcycle club called YOUR NEMESIS.

Under werewolf law, my father had him locked up and brutally punished for attempting to murder an Alpha heir. Gelinda had come forward and told the truth. She explained that I hadn't known she was Mario's girlfriend and that I was innocent in the whole situation.

She admitted she had been the one who pursued me, taking advantage of a grieving boy who desperately needed someone beside him. But the truth didn't matter to Mario. Not really.

Ever since that day, he's made it his mission to come after me.

Every chance he gets, he provokes me, pushes me and tries to drag me into a fight.

And somehow, no matter how hard I try to avoid it, he always succeeds.

Tonight he'd found a new angle.

*Mind if I taste how sweet her p***y is.*

What the hell?

My hand tightened around the cotton.

"Do you need help?"

I came back to the kitchen. Violetta was leaning against the wall watching me. She'd moved from the stairs at some point without me hearing her.

"I don't need your help," I answered in a hard tone. "Leave me alone, after all you're the one who caused this."

Confusion clouds her face immediately, "How did I cause this?"

I looked at her. "Just leave me alone."

She didn't move.

I watched her look around the kitchen, look at me, and decide to stay anyway. She went to the fridge, poured herself a glass of water, walked over to the counter where I was working and leaned against it beside me. She looked at me over the rim of the glass.

I said nothing. She said nothing. A full minute passed.

"Do you want water?" she asked.

I raked my hand through my hair and exhaled through my nose. "You shouldn't be down here alone at this hour."

"I live here," she said. "I can be wherever I want."

"That's not what I mean."

"Then what do you mean?"

I looked at her and realised I didn't fully know. I always knew what I meant. I always had an answer ready before the question finished.

But right now I was standing in the kitchen with blood on my sleeve and Mario's words still ringing. I had nothing.

I shrugged. "The pack doesn't read humans the way they read each other. Late night habits in shared spaces aren't safe ones for you to build."

She looked at me for a moment.

"Thank you for telling me," she said.

Not sarcastic. Just thank you.

I looked at the bandage in my hand and started wrapping it. Then I glanced at the shirt. "Why are you wearing Jace's shirt?"

She looked down at it. "He gave it to me."

"He never gives anyone his shirts."

"Well." She shrugged. "Maybe he felt guilty he got me drunk and I'd get into a pool to shake it off."

My hands stopped and I looked at her. "You got drunk? How did you get drunk at home?"

She laughed. "No, I didn't get drunk at home. Jace took me to this party. We played flip the cup at the party." She leaned her hip against the counter. "I couldn't flip the cup so me and my partner, Alex kept taking drinks."

She paused and asked, "Do you know who Alex is?"

"Of course I do." A small smile spread across my lips. "Jace's annoying best friend and hockey team mate."

She nodded at me. "Right. So eventually, Alex rescued us. I saw the pool and jumped in."

I finished the bandage and pressed the end flat. "And then what happened?"

"Jace called me to come out but I refused. He got in a moment later. So we were both wet. When we got back he gave me his shirt to change into."

I nodded slowly. "Did you have fun?"

She clicked her tongue. "If fun means spending the whole night being careful about how I move because every set of eyes in the room was tracking me... then sure, I'd fun."

I put my hands in my pockets. "Go to bed."

She rinsed her glass and set it on the rack and looked at me. "Thanks for the boring chitchat, werewolf. Goodnight."

She went upstairs.

I stood in the kitchen after she left and stared at the counter.

She hadn't argued. Hadn't pushed back or stayed just to irritate me.

She'd said goodnight and gone. I'd been completely ready for a fight that didn't come and now I was standing in an empty kitchen feeling oddly off-balance.

Not my problem, I told myself.

I turned the light off and went upstairs.

I lay on my bed and stared at the ceiling.

My phone buzzed. Three messages from the club about tomorrow's route: pickup point, timing, who was riding which stretch.

I read through them and typed back the relevant answers and set the phone on my chest.

I thought about the route. The eastern stretch and the border point and whether Rylan's plan for the handoff was going to hold if Mario pushed again.

And then, against my intention, I thought about the way she'd said *thanks for the boring chitchat, werewolf* like it was an actual goodbye, like she meant it.

Like it wasn't strange at all that she'd stood in the kitchen at two in the morning with the Alpha heir's son —who supposedly hated humans—while he bandaged a knife wound and talked to him like a person.

I closed my eyes.

The thought was still there when I fell asleep.

That annoyed me too.