1. IN LOVE WITH MY STEP BROTHER

**ISABELLA** 

I kept my head down, pretending to read the book in front of me, even though exams were over and the classroom buzzed with excitement. It was the last day of school life, a day meant for laughter, pictures, and bittersweet goodbyes. Not for me though. I was invisible. Just the loner in the back row, the one no one noticed.  I was Isabella Trevelyan.

“Bella”

The sound of my name broke through the chatter, startling me. I jerked my head up, my heart racing, only to find him. Maximilian. He had been standing at the door to the classroom, leaning against the frame as if he owned the entire world.

Every pair of eyes in the room turned to him. Of course, they did. He was the center of attention wherever he went, even when he didn’t ask for it. The sharp planes of his face, his tousled dark hair, and that maddeningly confident smirk…it was no wonder every she-wolf in the room hung on his every move.

Even mated she-wolves couldn’t resist him.

“What’s he doing here?” I thought, panic and confusion flaring inside me. 

The girls in the room began calling his name, their voices lilting with flirtation. He returned their attention with a lazy, playful smile, and the air buzzed with their excitement. But he didn’t stay with them long.

No, he started walking toward me.

Gossip erupted like wildfire and every eye became fixed on me. 

I wanted to shrink into my seat, to disappear entirely, but it was too late. He stopped in front of my desk, his arrogant expression only adding to the magnetism of his dominating aura.

“Why aren’t you answering my calls?” he raised an eyebrow, his voice casual yet commanding.

My heart raced, but I kept my eyes low, fighting the blush that threatened to rise to my cheeks. “My phone must’ve been on silent,” I lied, shoving my phone deeper into my pocket. 

The truth was, I’d been ignoring him on purpose. I knew he had plans with Lola after school. I had just been waiting for him to leave with her first so that I could leave for the pack. 

He tilted his head slightly, studying me, then shrugged. “Alright, let’s go home,” he said, twirling his car keys. “Dad called, he wants us back at the pack early for tonight’s full moon party,” he explained. 

I nodded quickly, scrambling to gather my things. The weight of jealous stares burned into my back as I hurried after him. The whispers followed me out of the classroom.

“She’s so lucky to be Maximilian’s stepsister!”

“Ugh, I wish I were her.”

I clenched my jaw, bitterness curling in my chest. Lucky? There was nothing lucky about being the stepsister of the prince of the school. If anything, it was a curse.

Maximilian walked ahead of me down the hallway, his commanding presence drawing girls to him like moths to a flame. Some even tried to stop him, their voices dripping with flirtation.

“Maximilian, do you have plans tonight? Let me come over,” one of them purred, batting her lashes.

“Not tonight. I’m kind of busy,” he replied with a wink, brushing her off with the ease of someone who had done it a hundred times before.

I recognized all of them. Some of them were from our pack, girls he’d been with at some point, girls who had warmed his bed but only once. Maximilian rarely repeated his conquests. 

By the time we reached the parking lot, I was suffocating under the weight of it all. Watching him with those girls was a special kind of torture, one I endured every day.

It was a living hell to see him with those girls when I had feelings for him! 

Yes, I was in love with my step brother, Maximilian Vance, but he did not know. And he definitely could not know it because…

“Get in,” he stated, nodding toward his car. 

I stopped, staring at his black expensive car. For the past few years, I rarely sat in his car to avoid being a third wheel in the car with his girls. But today the situation had strangely changed. 

“I’ll take the bus,” I muttered, already turning to leave. “You can go with Lola, like you planned.” 

I was actually surprised when he showed up to my classroom. Why had he come? 

“I broke up with her,” he said casually, unlocking his car.

I froze, his words cutting through my thoughts. Broke up? Lola was beautiful, confident, and perfect. Moreover she was a high ranking she-wolf from a reputed pack. She had lasted longer than any other girl in Maximilian’s life.

“Why?” I asked before I could stop myself. 

“She said she fell in love with me,” he replied with a chuckle, as if the idea were ridiculous. “Same old problem.”  

My chest tightened painfully. That was why I couldn’t let him know how I felt for him. Love was the line that he drew in the sand. The one thing he couldn’t tolerate. The moment anyone fell for him, he cut them off without a second thought.  

That was Maximilian Vance. Handsome, arrogant, untouchable. My stepbrother. The next Alpha of the Black Mountain Pack.

And still, I couldn’t help myself. I’d fallen for him.  

It had started when I was thirteen, an innocent crush blooming into something deeper over the years. Maximilian was always there, my shadow, my anchor. He made me feel safe in a world where I often felt out of place.

But as the years passed, things changed. He grew into a man strong, confident, and devastatingly handsome. And with that came the girls, one after another, each more beautiful than the last. Suddenly I realised that I could never be one of those women that he kissed or touched. His girls saw me as a hindrance, in their way. Slowly it made me realize that things could not be that way they used to be Maximilian.

Meanwhile, I became the joke of the pack when on my sixteenth birthday, my wolf never appeared. I was wolfless, a failure in the eyes of everyone around me. Maximilian shone brighter than ever, while I faded further into the background. 

He had so many people surrounding him that I automatically grew more and more distant. It was impossible to be with him so I began to pull away. I avoided him at school, avoided seeing him with other girls. 

I tried to distance myself, to escape the torment of being near him while knowing I could never have him. But it didn’t work. My heart refused to listen. Tomorrow, I will turn eighteen. And despite all my efforts, my love for Maximilian had only grown stronger.  

Sadly no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t stop loving him.

Now, with my eighteenth birthday just a few hours away, that love burned stronger than ever. It consumed me, suffocated me. And no matter how much it hurt, I knew I could never let him find out.

I climbed into the car, knowing that this was another mistake. But I couldn’t stay away because it might be the last time we stay together. 

My school life was over and the only reason to be together was too.