MY BULLY STEPBROTHER IS A HOCKEY ALPHA

"You didn't have to knock," Damien always said. "This is basically your second home."

I used to love that. The way he said it like I belonged somewhere real. Like out of every girl in school, every wolf girl with her perfect shift and her pack rank and her place in the hierarchy, he had looked at me and decided I was worth choosing.

Two years I held onto that.

Today was our anniversary. I'd been awake since six, mixing vanilla batter, waiting for the cake to rise, tying the ribbon on the bracelet box until the bow sat exactly right. I even wrote him a card, a full page, front and back, because that was the kind of girl I was. The kind that meant every word.

The drive over, I was smiling so hard my cheeks hurt. His front door was unlocked, same as always. I stepped in holding the cake box in both hands, the bracelet tucked into my jacket pocket, already rehearsing the look on his face when he saw it.

The house was quiet, too quiet. I told myself that was fine. He was probably napping after morning practice. I'd wake him up with cake and a kiss and it would be one of those moments we'd talk about later.

I started up the stairs. Halfway up, I heard it. I froze, hand on the railing. The sound was muffled but it was there, and something low and instinctive in my chest went cold before my brain caught up. Like some part of me already knew. Like something beneath the surface of my skin had always known and had been waiting patiently for the rest of me to find out.

I kept moving anyway. I told myself I was being paranoid. I told myself don't be that girl, Selene. Don't ruin a perfectly good anniversary with your insecurities.

I pushed open his bedroom door.

The cake box hit the floor. I didn't feel it leave my hands. Damien sat up fast. Bianca pulled the sheets up. Both of them stared at me and the room went completely silent except for the sound of my own pulse in my ears.

My best friend. In my boyfriend's bed. On our anniversary. Bianca was the first one to speak. She let out a short breath that turned into a laugh, almost like she was relieved. Like she'd been waiting for this exact moment and was glad it had finally come.

"Selene," she said. Just my name. Like that covered everything.

"What is this." It didn't come out as a question. My voice was flat, which surprised me, because inside I was anything but flat.

Damien dragged a hand through his hair. He looked tired, Not guilty nor panicked, Just tired, the way you look when you've been caught doing something you knew was wrong but couldn't bring yourself to care about enough to stop.

"Don't make this a whole thing," he said.

Something cracked open in my chest. I laughed, and it came out broken. "Don't make it a whole thing. Damien, I brought you a cake. It's our anniversary. And you're in bed with Bianca."

"Oh, stop." Bianca sat up straighter, completely unbothered, settling against the headboard like she was getting comfortable for something she'd been looking forward to. "You've been his charity case for two years. Did you actually think he was building a future with you?"

"Bianca.."

"No." She cut me off cleanly, her voice dropping to something almost sweet. "I'm doing you a favor. You don't have a wolf, Selene. You never shifted. Eighteen years old and nothing. You think an Alpha takes a wolfless girl as his Luna? In front of his pack?"

I looked at Damien. Waiting for him to deny it. To say something.. Just Anything.

He held my gaze for exactly two seconds, then looked away.

"She's not wrong," he said quietly.

Those three words hit harder than anything Bianca had said, because Bianca was cruel on purpose. Damien said it like it was just a fact. Like he was stating something so obvious it barely needed saying.

"You knew I didn't have a wolf when we started dating," I said.

"I know." He picked at a thread on the sheet. "I thought maybe it would come. Most late bloomers shift by sixteen. You're eighteen, Selene."

"So this is my fault."

"I didn't say that." He finally looked at me again. "I'm saying I can't keep holding on to something that was never going to work. You're kind and you care too much. But I need a mate who matches me. Someone with a wolf. Someone my pack won't question."

"He used to cringe when people saw you together," Bianca added, and her voice had gone back to pleasant. Like we were having a normal conversation. "He told me himself. Said it made him look weak, showing up to pack events with a wolfless girl on his arm."

I waited. Gave him the chance to deny it.

He didn't say a word. I reached into my pocket. Took out the velvet bracelet box. Set it on the dresser by the door, very carefully, because my hands were shaking and I refused to let either of them see that. Then I walked out.

I don't know how long I drove. At some point I stopped in a parking lot and sat with both hands on the wheel while the tears came. Slow ones first, then the kind that made it hard to breathe.

He was embarrassed by me. Two years of thinking I was chosen, and the whole time I was something he was too polite to get rid of sooner.

Somewhere around nine I found myself inside a club on the edge of town. I didn't plan it. I just drove until the road ran out and the music was loud enough to drown out the replay in my head. I sat at the bar and drank until the edges went soft and the ache in my chest became something I could almost breathe around.

That was when I saw him.

He was sitting at the far end of the bar alone. Jacket open, jaw sharp, arms crossed loosely on the counter. He wasn't talking to anyone and didn't look like he wanted to. There was something almost deliberately still about him, like the noise around him was happening at a distance he had chosen and could revoke at any moment.

Every wolf in the room was angled slightly away from him. Not obviously. Just enough. The way wolves did around Alphas without realizing they were doing it.

I didn't make a decision. I just stood up and walked toward him, because I was tired of being the girl who was careful and quiet and chose the right thing and still ended up with a cake on the floor.

I stopped in front of him. He looked up.

And I kissed him.

He went rigid immediately.

Two seconds. Maybe three. Then his hand closed around my wrist, firm and sudden, and he pulled back hard. His eyes found mine and they were glowing.

Bright green. Like something wild had come to the surface and hadn't decided yet whether to go back down.

His grip tightened, not enough to hurt, but enough to make clear I wasn't going anywhere until he was ready to let me.

"Who the hell are you?"