All Chapters of Initiated by my Alpha Stepbrother's Mark: Chapter 111 - Chapter 120

Kaireen's PovHe stepped into the room fully now, his hands loose at his sides, and the quiet authority he was carrying made the whole room feel smaller. "But right now, outside this building, there is a pack. There are wolves out there who lost people last night, who are standing in the ash of what used to be their homes, who are looking at every structure that needs to be rebuilt and looking at me to tell them how we start. That is what I have to walk back out there and do." He held her eyes. "Family will always matter to me. You know that. But if you want to make disowning your son the first decision of the day after surviving a war, then you go ahead. I'll be outside doing my job."The room held its breath.Celeste stared at him and something was moving across her face, the fury shifting, the hard edges of it crumbling somewhere underneath, and her mouth opened and closed once before anything came out."How can I—" Her voice broke, just barely, just enough. "You are my only son.

Kaireen's Pov "My whole life is a disaster," he said finally. Not dramatic. Just flat and true, the way someone said something they had been holding all day in the exact voice they used when they had finally run out of the energy to carry it upright. "Everything is a mess. The pack is half destroyed. My father is gone. My mother is in a hospital bed hating both of us. My uncle is in a dungeon. My beta is running on three hours of sleep managing three hundred displaced wolves and looking to me every five minutes for direction." He exhaled slowly. "And I am fine. Out there I am completely fine. I can be the alpha and say the right things and make the right calls and nobody can see anything else." A pause. "But I can't do that with you. I don't know why but I can't do it and I'm too tired to try. So just—" he turned his head and looked at me in the dark— "let me lie here. That's all. Just let me lie here and not have to be anything for five minutes."I looked at him.I wanted to stay

Kaireen's Pov The breakfast room was quiet except for the sound of silverware against porcelain and the low conversations of the pack members eating at the far tables. I sat alone near the window with a plate of scrambled eggs and toast that I was barely tasting, my phone face down on the table beside me, and I was trying very, very hard not to pick it up and check if Rhia had responded to any of my messages from last night. The eggs were good. Whoever was cooking for the pack now had gotten the seasoning right, just enough salt and butter, the kind of simple comfort food that was supposed to make you feel settled and at home, and instead I just felt restless and annoyed and like I wanted to be literally anywhere but in this dining room with wolves I didn't know stealing glances at me from the other tables. I picked up my phone. Put it back down. My wolf stirred slightly in my chest, restless and bored, her attention not on the food or the room but somewhere upstairs where Ro

Kaireen's PovRixon pushed through the door before the guards could react, his face tight with the particular expression of someone who had been standing outside listening to every word and had finally decided enough was enough. He was Ronan's third in command, tall and broad-shouldered with dark hair that was always slightly too long and a scar across his left eyebrow that gave him a permanent look of skepticism, and right now that skepticism was directed entirely at the scene on the floor.He moved to Celeste immediately, his hands careful as he helped her up from where she had fallen, supporting her weight as she gasped and clutched at his arm, her face pale and twisted with pain that I knew was real even if the cause of it was being wildly misrepresented."What happened?" he asked, his voice calm and measured, his eyes moving between Celeste and me and the walking stick on the floor several feet away."Call Ronan," Celeste said immediately, her breathing uneven, her fingers diggin

Kaireen's Pov"Please," he said again, and his voice cracked slightly around the word. "Please save him. He's my legacy. He's my son and he's all I have left and I know—" He stopped, his jaw working. "I know what I did to you. I know what I ordered. I know I have no right to ask you for anything, but I am asking. Please save my son and I swear to you, I will withdraw any threat to this pack. I will make reparations. I will do whatever it takes to make this right."I stared at him and I had no idea what to say because this was not the script I had been expecting, this was not the Lycan King I had built in my head, and the cognitive dissonance of it was making my brain skip like a scratched record."He insisted on getting a foreign education," The Alpha continued, his words coming faster now like he couldn't stop them. "I told him to stay, to train here, to be safe within our borders, but he wanted to see the world first, to learn from other packs, and I let him go be