All Chapters of MY ALPHA STEPBROTHER IS OBSESSED WITH MY SECRET IDENTITY : Chapter 21 - Chapter 30

🌸VIOLET🌸 The hospital smelled like antiseptic and something colder underneath it, sterile air prickling against my skin, and I sat perched on the edge of the exam table with my knees pressed tight together, my whole body still buzzing with leftover adrenaline from the walk over. Dorian's hand had hovered near my elbow the entire time without ever quite landing, close enough that I could feel the warmth of it, careful in a way that told me he already understood exactly how close I was to snapping at the first person who tried to touch me without asking. "I need you to take off the hoodie, sweetheart, so I can check your ribs properly." The nurse, gray-haired, brisk, set a metal tray of supplies down with a clatter. "Sir, if you could step outside—" "He can stay." The words left my mouth fast, before I'd fully thought them through, some instinct overriding whatever part of me should have cared about modesty in that exact moment. Dorian's eyebrows lifted, surprised, but he didn't a

🌸VIOLET🌸 Dorian ended up driving in circles longer than either of us needed to admit out loud, some detour past a lookout point over the pack's northern border that he swore was worth seeing at sunset, and it was, the sky bleeding orange and pink over the tree line while we sat on the hood of his car with the last of the ice cream melting soft in its cups. We talked about nothing important. His terrible taste in music, blasting some song through his speakers that I refused to admit I secretly liked by the third chorus. Small, easy things that didn't cost either of us anything to say out loud. By the time he finally pulled through the estate gates, the sky had gone fully dark, and something in my chest felt lighter than it had all day, loose in a way I hadn't expected after everything that morning had put me through. He walked me to the door instead of just dropping me at the curb, hands shoved in his pockets, grinning when I told him for the third time that I could have found my o

♣️XAVIER♣️ "I'll give it to you, I'll give it to you right now, please—" He nodded so fast his head nearly snapped, both hands still pulling weakly at my wrist. "Just let me go, I swear, I'll find it." I released him and he stumbled backward hard against the desk, catching himself on the edge, his hands shaking as he straightened his shirt with trembling fingers. He dropped into a crouch behind the counter a second later, yanking open a filing cabinet drawer, muttering something under his breath that I didn't bother listening to, flipping fast through folders until he found what he wanted. He scanned it once, grabbed a scrap of paper, and scrawled something across it in handwriting so shaky it barely qualified as legible, holding it out toward me without once meeting my eyes. The office door swung open before I could take it from his hand. A dancer stood frozen in the doorway, still in full costume, dark hair pulled back tight against her scalp, and the second her eyes landed on t

🌸VIOLET🌸 My phone buzzed against the nightstand before I'd even fully opened my eyes, the vibration rattling loud against the wood in the quiet room, and I lay there a second longer than I should have, dread already pooling low in my stomach before I'd even reached for it. The screen lit up bright against the dim morning light filtering through the curtains, a wall of notifications stacked one on top of another. Six missed calls from Marisol. Three texts from Lydia, each one shorter and more panicked than the last. One missed call from Denny himself, which had never happened once in the years I'd worked under him, not through raids, not through slow nights, not through anything. I sat up too fast, my head spinning, the room tilting slightly at the edges. My thumb hovered over Marisol's name for half a second before I pressed it, my heart already climbing into my throat. She picked up on the first ring, like she'd been sitting there the entire night with the phone gripped tight in

🌸VIOLET🌸 I can't shift. The words looped hard behind my ribs while the instructor's gaze swept past me toward the next recruit in line, and I stepped forward anyway, my mouth already moving faster than my mind could keep pace with. "Sir." My voice came out thinner than I wanted, and I hated how small it sounded against the silence of the clearing. "I took a hard hit yesterday. My ribs are still not—" The scream cut me off before I could finish. I spun toward it on instinct, my whole body locking rigid, and found one of the male recruits a few feet away doubled hard over the ground, his spine arching at an angle no human back should bend. A wet, tearing sound ripped through the still forest air, something I felt more than heard, deep and low in my own chest like a struck drum. His shirt gave first, seams splitting along his back, and then his skin followed, stretching taut and pale before splitting too, fur pushing rapid and uneven through patches that looked nothing like the s