Chapter 3: My New Stepbrother

The mansion did not look like something people actually lived in.

I stood on the front path with my suitcase and looked up at it. Three stories of stone and glass, the kind of house that wasn't built to impress. It was built to remind. To make sure that anyone who stood where I was standing understood exactly what kind of family lived behind those doors and exactly how far outside of that world they were.

I already felt it. That pressure in the air that pack land always carried, that low hum of Alpha territory that made the back of my neck prickle even though I had no wolf to respond to it. I always felt it. I had never understood why, since wolfless girls weren't supposed to be sensitive to those things. I'd stopped mentioning it years ago because nobody had an explanation that made sense.

My mother was already at the door. Victor Blackwood opened it before she could knock, and the warmth on his face was immediate and genuine. He was tall and broad with grey at his temples, the kind of man who had been carrying authority for so long it had become part of his posture.

"Evelyn." He said her name like he'd been looking forward to it all day. She smiled at him in a way I hadn't seen from her in years. Something settled and certain.

He turned to me and extended his hand. "Selene. I've heard so much about you. This is your home now."

I shook his hand, The moment I did, something strange happened. His eyes moved to mine and held there for just a half second longer than normal. A small line appeared between his brows, barely visible, gone almost before it formed. Like something had registered that he hadn't expected.

He covered it immediately with a smile. "Come in. Both of you."

Inside was worse. High ceilings, long hallways, the kind of quiet that money bought. Pack crests on the walls. The Blackwood wolf carved into the stone above the main fireplace. Everything in this house was a reminder of what this family was and what it meant to carry their name.

I stood in the entryway with my suitcase still in my hand while Victor led my mother further in, their voices drifting away. The pressure on my skin hadn't eased. If anything it was stronger in here, like the whole house was saturated with Alpha territory in a way that should have meant nothing to me.

I told myself it was just anxiety. Then I heard footsteps on the staircase. Slow and Unhurried, Each step even and certain, the footsteps of someone who had never in their life felt the need to hurry because everything had always waited for them.

I looked up. My stomach dropped straight through the floor.

Jaxon Blackwood stood at the top of the stairs in grey sweats and a plain t-shirt, hair still slightly disheveled, a water bottle in one hand. His eyes found me immediately, the way they had at the bar, like he had some internal compass that located things of interest and pointed without being asked.

For three full seconds, neither of us moved. His jaw tightened. The water bottle stopped halfway to his mouth.

I watched him recognize me. Watched it move through his expression in layers. Surprise first, almost invisible. Then something harder underneath it. Then the cold, flat certainty of someone who has identified a problem and is now calculating what to do about it.

He came down the stairs anyway. Slow and even, like he refused to let the situation have any more of his reaction than he'd already shown. He stopped at the bottom and looked at me the way you look at something that has arrived in your space without permission and shows no sign of leaving.

Victor came back into the entryway with my mother beside him. "Jaxon. Good, you're up. Come meet Selene."

"We've met," Jaxon said. Perfectly flat.

Victor raised an eyebrow. "Oh?"

"School," I said quickly. "Same school. We've crossed paths."

Which was one way to describe it.

My mother beamed. "How wonderful. So you already know each other a little."

Jaxon looked at her and said nothing. When his eyes came back to mine, the word wonderful nearly made me laugh.

Victor put a hand on Jaxon's shoulder. "I know this is a big change. But Evelyn is family now, and that makes Selene family. I'm going to need you to make her feel welcome here."

I watched Jaxon look at his father's hand on his shoulder. He breathed in slowly through his nose. His nostrils flared slightly, and something moved across his face that he controlled before it became readable. His wolf, reacting to something. I didn't know what. I only knew that whatever it was, he didn't like it.

"Of course," he said. Perfectly even.

Victor nodded, satisfied, and guided my mother down the hallway to show her the rest of the house. The second they turned the corner, everything in the entryway changed.

Jaxon looked at me.

Up close, without a crowd around him, without the bar and the dim lighting and four drinks making everything softer, he was more than just good looking. He was the kind of person who took up space without trying to. The Alpha aura was quieter now, more controlled, but it was there underneath everything, steady and heavy, pressing against my skin in a way I felt but couldn't explain.

"Say whatever you're going to say," I told him.

"You planned this," he said quietly. Not an accusation. A statement.

"I found out the same time you did. My mother told me yesterday morning. I swear." I held his gaze. "I didn't know your last name until she said it."

Something shifted in his expression. Not softening, not quite. More like he was recalculating.

"You live here now," he said slowly. "You go to my school. You sit at my table. You exist in my territory." He said each one like a separate problem he was tallying up. "You understand why that's an issue."

"I understand you don't want me here," I said. "You've been very clear."

"Good." He stepped back. "Then we understand each other."

He turned toward the hallway. Then he stopped, just for a moment, shoulders tightening slightly like something had crossed his mind that he didn't want to give attention to. He didn't turn around.

"You're the last person I ever wanted living in my house."