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287. Belonged to Us

Author: Nightingale
last update publish date: 2026-06-11 23:28:40

Blake's POV:

The east wing suite was quiet when the door closed behind us, but the bond between us was anything but. It hummed, warm, alive, insistent. Maya’s flowers were everywhere: white roses and deep blue night-blooming jasmine arranged in low vases that caught the soft lamplight. The bed was turned down, the sheets impossibly soft, the kind of luxury that felt almost too gentle for what was about to happen.

Alex turned the lock with a quiet click. When he faced me, his eyes had already go
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  • Mated to My Rival Step Brother   287. Belonged to Us

    Blake's POV:The east wing suite was quiet when the door closed behind us, but the bond between us was anything but. It hummed, warm, alive, insistent. Maya’s flowers were everywhere: white roses and deep blue night-blooming jasmine arranged in low vases that caught the soft lamplight. The bed was turned down, the sheets impossibly soft, the kind of luxury that felt almost too gentle for what was about to happen.Alex turned the lock with a quiet click. When he faced me, his eyes had already gone dark.“Come here,” he said, voice low.I crossed the room slowly, letting him pull me in by the hips until our chests met. His mouth found mine immediately, hungry, not careful. The kiss tasted like the champagne from earlier and something sharper: need.“You’ve been thinking about this,” I murmured against his lips.“Every second since you said you wanted me inside you without anything between us.” His hands slid under my jacket, pushing it off my shoulders. “You have no idea what that did t

  • Mated to My Rival Step Brother   286. Send Off

    Blake's POV:The reception had the specific energy of people who had been through something enormous together and had arrived somewhere worth celebrating and were not going to waste a single moment of the arrival.The Silver Mansion dining room had been transformed. Long tables. Good food. The kind of noise that built when everyone present had history with each other and the history was mostly good and the parts that were not good had been resolved or were in the process of being resolved.Alex sat beside me at the main table and his hand was on the table between us and I had my hand over his and neither of us was performing anything for anyone.The bond was warm between us.That was the thing I was still adjusting to. The specific warmth of it sitting in my chest, present and constant, not demanding attention but available, the way good things were available, there when you reached for them and not requiring you to reach.I could feel Alex's contentment through it.He was happy.Actu

  • Mated to My Rival Step Brother   285. Both Directions

    Blake's POV:The wedding was not supposed to be large.That was what we had said when we planned it. Small. Meaningful. The people who mattered and nobody else.Somehow the people who mattered turned out to be a considerable number of people.The Silver Mansion ballroom had been opened for the first time in years and the staff had done something with it that made the high ceilings and the old stone walls feel warm rather than formal. Flowers from the estate grounds. Candles rather than the overhead lights. The particular quality of a space that had been prepared with genuine care rather than obligation.Pack representatives from both Silver and Thorne were present because this was not only a personal event but a political one and we had accepted that rather than fighting it. What happened today would reshape the formal relationship between our packs and the people with standing in both deserved to witness it.But at the front of the room where it mattered it was just us.Lyra standing

  • Mated to My Rival Step Brother   284. Thirty Years

    Selene's POV:The morning of the wedding was quiet.I had asked for quiet specifically. Not a production. Not the formal Silver pack ceremony with the full attendance and the traditional procession and the pack representatives in their formal colors and all the weight of what a Silver Luna's wedding was supposed to look like.That was not this.This was thirty years of finding our way back to each other across every obstacle that had been placed between us and the ceremony that marked the end of that particular journey deserved to be small and real and attended only by the people who understood what it had cost.I sat at the window of the Silver Mansion guest room in the early morning light and looked at the grounds below and thought about the first time I had seen Gregory Thorne.Academy. First year. He had been in the training grounds and I had been crossing to the library and he had looked up and our eyes had met across the distance and I had looked away because he was Thorne and I

  • Mated to My Rival Step Brother   283. What Gregory Said

    Maya's POV:The medical wing had a particular quality in the mornings.The light came in at a low angle through the east windows and sat on the white walls in a way that was neither harsh nor warm but simply present and I had spent enough mornings in this room over the past two weeks to know every variation of it. The early grey. The pale gold that followed. The full morning light that arrived around eight and stayed until the window angle shifted at noon.I knew the ceiling very well.I knew the pattern of the beams and the small irregularity in the third panel from the left where the wood had been replaced at some point with a slightly different grain. I knew the sound of the morning healer's footsteps versus the afternoon healer's footsteps. I knew that Lyra arrived seven minutes before the shift changed every morning without fail.I was getting better.Not quickly. The right side was slower than the left which the healers had explained was related to the rib involvement and the sp

  • Mated to My Rival Step Brother   282. Every Breath

    Lyra's POV:I did not leave her side.Not in the forest. Not during the carry back. Not in the medical wing when the Academy healers took over and I stood at the edge of the room watching them work and translating everything they said into what I already knew from the texts I had read and the knowledge I had built over years specifically because knowledge was the thing that did not fail you when everything else became uncertain.The claw wounds were deep.Both sides of her chest. The ribs on the right had taken the worst of it, two of them compromised, and the tissue damage on both sides was significant enough that the lead healer had looked at me when she arrived and said she is strong and I had said I know and neither of us had said the other thing that was in the room.I knew the other thing.I had known it the moment Maya went down in the forest and I had covered the distance between us in the specific time of someone who is not thinking about distance but only about the person at

  • Mated to My Rival Step Brother   124. A Plan for His Smile

    Blake’s POV:I sit on the stone bench behind the academy building where no one usually comes.The training field is loud somewhere far behind me, but here it is quiet. Only the sound of leaves moving in the wind. I lean forward, elbows on my knees, staring at the ground like it will give me answers

    last updateLast Updated : 2026-03-29
  • Mated to My Rival Step Brother   128. The Things That Break in Silence

    Alex’s POV:Night is the worst.Daytime is loud. Training. Voices. Orders. Footsteps. I can hide in that noise. I can act like nothing touches me. But now I am inside my dorm and the walls are too quiet. The bed looks too big. My head will not stop.I sit on the edge of my bed and stare at the door.

    last updateLast Updated : 2026-03-29
  • Mated to My Rival Step Brother   126. The Weight She Carries

    Maya's POV:The room feels too warm tonight.I sit on Lyra’s bed, pretending to scroll through my phone while she talks about decorations for Alex’s birthday. Her voice is light, excited, soft in a way that makes people feel safe. She is sitting cross legged on the floor, papers and ribbons around

    last updateLast Updated : 2026-03-29
  • Mated to My Rival Step Brother   130. The Slap of Rage

    Alex’s POV:My chest hurts.I am still on the floor, knees pulled close, hands shaking. Tears keep falling even though I try to stop. I press my palm over my mouth to silence the sound, but my breathing still comes out broken.Why does it always hurt more at night?When I see his face in the Academy

    last updateLast Updated : 2026-03-29
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