All Chapters of Mated to My Rival Step Brother: Chapter 171 - Chapter 180

Alex's POV:I was leaning down toward him when my phone screamed to life from the side table.Both of us jolted hard. Blake's hand shot out and gripped my forearm on reflex and I was already pulling back, the mood evaporating in the single second it took for my brain to shift from one mode to another entirely. I reached across and grabbed the phone and looked at the screen.Rafe.My beta. Who knew better than most people alive when and when not to call me. Which meant if he was calling right now, at this hour, something was wrong enough that he didn't have the option of waiting.I accepted the call and brought it to my ear."Rafe."The first thing I heard was his breathing. Labored. The kind that comes from running hard or from fear or from both happening at the same time. Rafe was not someone who scared easily. He was built for pressure, trained for it, had stood beside me through enough situations that most people would've folded under. So the sound of his breathing uneven on the oth

Lyra's POV:She helps me back to the bed and settles me against the pillows with an efficiency that would impress the actual healers. Then she straightens and looks down at herself and seems to remember for the first time in several minutes that she is still standing in only Lyra's spare trousers and nothing covering her upper half. The navy blue lacy bra had been removed at some point during the shower and not replaced.She looks around for her shirt."It is wet," I say.She stares at it on the counter. "Right.""You can take something from the wardrobe," I offer.She waves a hand. "It is fine. I am not cold."She moves toward the edge of the bed and sits. Then she reaches back toward the med kit again. "The healer also left something for your shoulder bruising. The one closer to the surface. Rib one is yet to be inner healed.""I can reach that one myself," I say.She gives me a look."I genuinely can," I tell her."Show me," she says pleasantly.I lift my left arm and reach toward m

Alex's POV:It was not the first time I had run in this form. Obviously. I had shifted hundreds of times over the years, had covered more forest ground than I could measure. But there was something specific and unrepeatable about this particular run, at this particular hour, beside this particular wolf, and I was aware of it with a clarity that was almost inconvenient given the circumstances.I had dreamed about this.Not metaphorically. Literally. As a younger Alpha just learning what the mate bond meant and what it might eventually look like, I had imagined this exact thing. Late night forest. Full shift. Running beside the person who was mine in the most fundamental sense the universe had arranged. No audience. No expectation. Just the two of us and the trees and the dark and the speed.Blake did not know.That was the part that sat heavy and tender simultaneously. He ran beside me right now with no knowledge of what he was to me, no awareness that this moment I was carrying quietly

Alex's POV:Blake moved.I do not know if he heard me or felt the shift in the air or just had that particular instinct that some wolves are born with and cannot explain. He dropped sideways and the branch tore through the space where he had been standing and hit the ground hard enough to embed itself two inches into the dirt.The clearing went quiet.The large rogue looked at what it had done and then looked at us and made the calculation that most creatures make when the math stops working in their favor. It turned and ran. The two uncertain ones followed immediately. Just like that the fight was over except for the one remaining rogue who had been too slow to disengage and found himself with a Beta on each side and nowhere interesting to go.He stopped trying after about four seconds.Smart.Blake straightened from his crouch and looked at the embedded branch and then looked at me. He did not say anything. Neither did I. There was nothing that fit the moment so we left the moment al

Blake's POV:I slipped my phone into my pocket. "No. She is a grown woman. If she is getting closer to someone then that is her business and it is fine." I said it without defensiveness because I meant it without defensiveness. "She has been on her own for a long time, Alex."Alex's brow pulled in slightly. "What if that someone is not acceptable. What if it is complicated or not what people would expect."I looked at him.He looked back at me.I let a moment pass because what he was saying had edges on it that pointed somewhere neither of us was naming out loud, and I wanted to be clear."Nothing is unacceptable by definition," I said. "It depends entirely on how you look at it." I kept my voice level. Quiet. "Suppose I am into you. That is unacceptable to most of the world. Both our packs, the politics, everything surrounding us says it should not exist." I held his gaze and did not look away. "Does that change the fact that you have feelings for me? Does it change what exists on you