In love with my StepSon

MelissaI have loved Kelan since I was a five-year-old girl who stood crying at the ice cream booth, as the vendor had just sold the last vanilla cone to the Alpha’s son. I remembered looking at the boy with envy until he walked over and handed the cone to me without a second thought. That was the moment we became inseparable, and our parents began teasing about a wedding that would unite our families and secure the pack’s future.Those plans were the only thing that kept me going after the fatal accident that took my parents’ lives during my junior year of school. I went from being a socialite daughter of the pack to living hand to mouth with my Aunt Leyla, who was married to the pack’s omega.I had to learn how to survive without the luxury I was born into, but I blended in nicely because I had my best friend Kelan by my side.Today was June sixteenth, and it marked my eighteenth birthday, the day I might finally find out if Kelan felt the same way I always had. I tried not to let m

MelissaThe convoy of black SUVs screeched to a halt in front of a sprawling stone fortress that looked more like a prison than a home. I barely had time to process the sheer size of the structure before the door was yanked open. Alpha Draven reached in and gripped my arm with fingers that felt like steel bands. He pulled me out onto the paved driveway without hesitation. I stumbled slightly in my heels but regained my balance as I looked up at the group of men waiting for us.They stood in a rigid line at the bottom of the grand staircase, wearing expensive suits that screamed wealth and power. Draven dragged me forward, and the men bowed their heads in a synchronized motion that made my stomach churn."Welcome home, Alpha Draven, and welcome to our new Luna," the man standing at the front announced, stepping forward with a practiced grin. "I am Beta Luther, and on behalf of the council and the elders, we are honored to meet the woman who will stand by our Alpha's side."I looked at

Kelan "Pick up. God damn it!" I pulled the phone from my ear and stared at the screen as the voicemail recording clicked on for the ninth time. Mellisa’s name sat there on the screen like an accusation I could not shake. I ended the call and typed another message, watching the blue ticks refuse to appear, and I knew she was not just ignoring me, she was burying me. I had called her a friend. I had called her my person. I had stood on that stage and chosen Cindy believing Melissa would understand eventually, believing she would come around the way she always did, but that was three days ago and the silence from her end was the loudest thing I had ever heard. My phone buzzed and I snatched it up thinking it was her, but it was just Cindy sending me a picture of herself holding up two different wedding gown sketches with a caption that read "which one makes me look like your queen?" I locked the screen and dropped the phone face down on the desk as I paced continuously around my cha

Melissa Draven's phone rang before I even set my fork down, and he had it pressed to his ear before the second buzz. "Hold them off till I arrive," he ordered into the receiver, already pushing back from the table. He stood and straightened his jacket with the calm efficiency of a man who had spent decades making violence look like administration, and then he turned to me with eyes that left absolutely no room for interpretation. "You will stay put till I return," he told me. I said nothing. He turned to Briston next, pointing at the chair his son had already begun to rise from. "Sit back down." Briston's jaw tightened but he lowered himself back into the seat without a word, and Draven walked out of the dining hall with his entourage trailing behind him like obedient shadows. The silence he left behind was thick enough to suffocate in. I looked across the table at Briston and decided that sitting across from another person in complete silence was more unbearable than the risk

Kelan "It is a few weeks before your coronation and we are under rogue attacks, what is your solution?" Elder Henry's voice hit the ceiling of the council chamber and came back down twice as loud. Every man seated around that table turned to look at me with the particular expression of people who had already decided the answer before asking the question. I stood at the head of the table and kept my face completely still. The chamber was full, every elder and council member present, which meant someone had organized this before calling me in, and the fact that I was the last to arrive to a meeting about my own pack told me everything I needed to know about how this was going to go. "The rogue activity at the southern borders has been escalating for three weeks," Elder Henry continued, spreading a map across the table with his thick hands. "Three small communities have been hit, livestock taken, two families displaced, and one of our border guards is still missing. Your response has