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097. Their Funny Pain and Bull Aka Liam

Author: Nightingale
last update publish date: 2026-01-21 23:58:46
Blake’s POV:

Alex keeps staring at his phone like it might explain itself if he looks long enough.

The screen is dark now. The call is over. But whatever his father said did not end with it. I can see it in the way Alex’s shoulders are tense. In the way his jaw tightens, not angry, but heavy. Like someone just placed a weight on his chest and walked away.

I shift slightly on the bed so I am facing him better. The blanket slides down my waist, but I do not bother pulling it back up yet. The room
Nightingale

Hi Readers, Are you loving the simple chapter? But what exactly might be bothering Alex? Can anyone guess it?

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  • Mated to My Rival Step Brother   270. Always Loved You

    Alex's POV:I had not planned to cross the floor.That was the honest version. I had been standing in the competitor observation area watching the scoring board and when the final aggregate came up with Blake's name at the top something in my chest had done something that bypassed every calculation I had and I was already moving before I had decided to move.The arena was loud and full and none of that was relevant.He was standing at the finish marker with Liam and Leo and Lyra and Maya around him and he was looking at the board and the particular quality of him in that moment, the specific realness of it, Blake Silver who had climbed a broken platform twelve meters above the forest floor and activated a beacon and descended and run three hundred meters and won, hit me somewhere that had no name except necessary.I crossed the floor.He saw me coming.His expression did not change into the managed version. It stayed exactly what it was which was open and warm and carrying the thing i

  • Mated to My Rival Step Brother   269. Silver Wins

    Blake's POV:My right hand held.That was the only thing that mattered for the next three seconds. My right hand held and the platform swung and I found the rhythm of the swing instead of fighting it and waited for the arc to bring the surface back toward me and when it did I drove my left hand into the gap where the handhold had been and locked it.Held.I breathed.Then I climbed.The last four meters were the hardest four meters of the entire competition. The platform shifted with every movement and the broken rope meant the weight was uneven and every reach required recalculating the balance before committing to it. I moved slowly where I wanted to move fast and I trusted the slowness because fast would have put me back on the forest floor twelve meters below in a way that would have ended the competition permanently.My hand found the beacon.I activated it.The light that went up from it was visible from the arena. I knew that because I had seen the test beacon during the briefi

  • Mated to My Rival Step Brother   268. Five Layers

    Blake's POV:The arena was different this morning.Not in the physical sense. The stone floor and the high windows and the observation tiers were exactly what they had always been. But the quality of the air inside was different. Denser. More intentional. The kind of atmosphere that built when something had been prepared carefully and was waiting to be revealed.Every seat was full.Not just students. Pack representatives in the upper tiers. Senior faculty along the east wall. Faces I recognized from political contexts rather than academic ones. People who had traveled for this specifically.I found my position and stood and felt the weight of the room settle onto my shoulders the way weight settled when it was legitimate and you had earned the right to carry it.Rolf was already at his position.He looked at me across the floor with those pale grey eyes and the expression that had not changed since the first day he walked into this Academy. Settled. Measuring. Carrying everything his

  • Mated to My Rival Step Brother   267. Five More Minutes

    Blake's POV:The morning arrived the way good mornings arrived when you had not expected to sleep well and had slept well anyway. Slowly. With the particular quality of light that came through a window when the day outside had decided to be gentle about announcing itself.I was awake before Alex.That was not unusual. I had always been an early waker and Alex ran on a different internal clock, one that required more convincing before it committed to consciousness. I lay still and did not move because moving would wake him and he needed the sleep and also because I was not ready to give up the specific configuration of this moment yet.His head was on my shoulder where it had been since somewhere around midnight.His arm was across my ribs.The room was warm and the window was showing the pale early light and the Academy outside was quiet in the way it was quiet before six when the day had not yet made any demands on anyone.I looked at the ceiling.Silver Luna.He had said it last nig

  • Mated to My Rival Step Brother   266. Silver Luna

    Blake's POV:Alex stood up from the chair and said he was getting food and I did not argue with that because the afternoon had been chips and soft drinks and the evening required something more substantial and also because Alex deciding to do something and doing it was one of my favourite things about him that I had never said out loud.He came back twenty minutes later with two containers from the kitchen building, the good ones, the ones that required knowing which window to knock on after hours and apparently Alex Thorne knew which window to knock on after hours which I filed under things that did not surprise me.He set them on the desk and we ate there, him in the chair and me sitting on the edge of the bed pulled close, and the food was warm and real and considerably better than the treehouse provisions from the previous night."You knew about the kitchen window," I said."Rafe told me in first year," he said. "He knows every operational shortcut in this Academy.""Of course he

  • Mated to My Rival Step Brother   265. Can He?

    Alex's POV:The dorm room was quiet when I closed the door behind me.I stood in the middle of it for a moment without moving. The evening was settling outside the window and the Academy was doing its usual thing of continuing regardless of what any individual inside it was processing and I stood in the quiet and let the day land on me properly for the first time since it had started.Semifinal. Lost.Rolf and Blake in the final.The forest task and Maya moving under Rolf's direction and the look Rolf had given across the clearing and everything that look contained.And then the afternoon in Maya's room. The film and the chips and the energy drink and Blake's shoulder four inches from mine for two hours and neither of us moving away from it.I sat on the edge of my bed.The thing I had been not thinking about directly moved to the front now that the room was quiet enough to let it.Alpha heir.That was what I was. That was what I had been trained toward since before I could properly a

  • Mated to My Rival Step Brother   110. The Order From Home

    Alex's POV:The academy feels strange that morning.Not loud. Not quiet.Just waiting.I stand in the main hall with the rest of the students while Coach Vega reads the announcement board. The air smells like metal and morning dew drifting in from the open windows. Everyone is restless after the tri

    last updateLast Updated : 2026-03-27

  • Mated to My Rival Step Brother   109. The Quiet Before Teeth

    Blake’s POV:The academy should feel loud tonight.It is not.That is what makes it worse.I stand near the dorm window, looking down at the courtyard. Usually there are students moving around, talking, laughing, arguing about training. Tonight the paths are almost empty. Lights are on, but doors ar

    last updateLast Updated : 2026-03-27

  • Mated to My Rival Step Brother   099. Eyes That Watch

    Blake’s POV:I look around to find the source of the whisper.I stop walking.The hall is empty.The academy at this hour feels different. The stone walls hold sound longer. Lamps flicker slightly. Shadows stretch in places they should not. I turn slowly, scanning both ends of the hall.Nothing.No

    last updateLast Updated : 2026-03-26

  • Mated to My Rival Step Brother   100. The Kiss to Calm the Wolf

    Blake POV:The forest does not feel the same tonight.It is quieter. Too quiet.The kind of silence that presses against the ears instead of resting around them. Even the leaves seem to pause as Alex and I step into the clearing. Moonlight filters through the branches in pale strips, cutting the gro

    last updateLast Updated : 2026-03-26
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