Fated To My Stepbrother After My Mate Betrayed Me

"Push his tongue down your throat, Jax!"

A chorus of shrill laughs echoed across the bleachers.

"Show her what an Alpha does!" someone else bellowed from the perimeter of the track.

The small velvet box in my palm dug into my skin. Inside was a silver signet ring, engraved with the initials I had traced over a dozen times during third-period study hall. It was our six-month anniversary.

I took three steps past the equipment shed, and the noise of the crowded field slammed into my ears. Whistles cut through the chatter.

There, pressed flush against the chain-link fence by the five-yard line, was Jax.

His fingers were tangled deep in a girl's blonde hair, tilting her face up as he crushed his lips against hers. His jacket—the varsity leather one I had washed for him on Sunday—hung open, brushing against her bare midriff.

"Look behind you, Jax!" a sophomore shouted, pointing a finger directly at me. "Your shadow just arrived!"

Jax didn't jump. He didn't flinch.

He broke the kiss with an audible smack, dragging his sleeve across his glistening lower lip before turning his head toward me. The blonde giggled, adjusting her skimpy cropped tank, her gaze raking over my sneakers.

"Oh," Jax said, his voice flat, completely untroubled. "Hey, Maya."

The air left my lungs in one hollow rush. "What are you doing?"

"What does it look like?" the blonde chimed in, curling a strand of hair behind her ear. "He was busy. You're interrupting."

"Shut up, Chloe," I snapped, though my voice wavered on the edges. I fixed my eyes on Jax. "Jax, what is this?"

"Don't cause a scene," Jax warned. He stepped away from the fence, shoving his hands into his pockets. "Everyone's watching."

"You're the one kissing another girl in the middle of fifth period!" I took a step forward, holding up the gift wrapped in navy ribbon. "Today is our anniversary. You told me to meet you behind the track."

A boy in the front row snorted loudly. "She brought a present! Look at that, boys, she brought him a little prize!"

"Is it a collar?" another voice mocked. "Put a leash on him, Maya!"

Laughter rippled through the circle of thirty-odd students, sharp and humiliating.

"Maya, chill," Jax muttered, glancing around as if my very presence embarrassed him. "I told you we'd talk later. Go back to the library."

"Talk later?" Heat rushed to my face, scalding and prickling behind my eyes. "You said we were mates. You swore the pull was real the day we met at the freshman bonfire!"

"People say things," Chloe purred, stepping up beside him and resting her palm flat against Jax's chest. "Right, Jax?"

Jax didn't shrug her off. In fact, his fingers lightly tapped the side of her hip.

"It was a temporary spark," Jax said, his tone indifferent, like he was discussing the weather. "You jumped the gun. You assumed a slight buzz in your chest meant the Moon Goddess carved our names in stone."

"You told me you felt it too!" My knuckles turned white around the box. "You begged me to be your girlfriend! You told me I was your future!"

"Because you were convenient," Jax said, cutting me off without blinking. "And let's be real. Having an Alpha like me on your arm was the only reason people stopped staring at you like a stray."

The circle fell dead silent, drinking in the slaughter.

"Ouch," someone whispered.

"Jax..." My voice cracked. The chill in my fingers spread all the way to my shoulders. "How could you say that to me?"

"Because it's the truth," Jax said. He tilted his chin up, sneering down his nose at me. "You're too intense, Maya. You cling. You act like you own me just because our wolves didn't bite each other on sight. But look at you. You don't have pack status, and you barely have a family."

"Leave her alone, man," an unfamiliar Beta murmured from the fringe of the crowd, but Jax ignored him.

"What are you going to do?" Jax challenged, taking a half-step closer. "Run home and complain to your big, bad stepbrother? Go ahead. Tell Kael. I'm sure he'd love to hear all about your pathetic teenage drama."

A snicker broke out among the lacrosse players.

"Yeah, right," Chloe laughed. "Like Kael Ward gives a damn about her. He doesn't even acknowledge she lives in the same house."

Her words hit harder than Jax's betrayal.

Because it was true.

At home, Kael was a ghost who refused to haunt the same rooms as me. He was the apex Alpha of our academy, a senior whose sheer presence made teachers hesitate and bullies scatter. When our parents married three years ago, I thought I might gain an older brother, someone to make our cold house feel like a home.

Instead, Kael walked out of any kitchen I walked into. If I sat on the couch, he went upstairs. If our hands brushed at the dinner table passing the salt, he pulled back as if my touch carried poison. He hated me. He had made that crystal clear with his stony silences, his icy scowls, and the slammed doors that rattled my bedroom walls.

I had been so desperate to escape that suffocating rejection.

So when Jax had grabbed my wrist at the bonfire six months ago, when that electric prickle of a fated-mate recognition surged between our skin, I had wept with relief. I thought fate had finally handed me someone who would choose me. Someone who would stay.

It had all been a lie.

"Take your box," Jax said, gesturing toward my hand with a dismissive flick of his wrist. "Go throw it in the dumpster behind the gym. We're done."

"Jax, please," I whispered, the words tumbling out before my pride could stop them.

"Don't beg," he spat, his lip curling in disgust. "It looks disgusting on you. Get lost."

"You heard him!" Chloe smirked, looping her arm through his elbow. "Shoo."

Laughter erupted again, deafening and merciless. Phones were out now; red recording dots blinked like vicious little eyes in the sunlight.

"Look at her face!"

"Post that to the pack thread right now!"

"Total psycho girlfriend meltdown!"

My cheeks burned as if slapped. Tears threatened to spill over, but I bit the inside of my lip until I tasted iron, refusing to give them the satisfaction of a breakdown.

I shoved the crushed velvet box into the pocket of my sweater.

"I hate you," I said, my voice dropping to a harsh, trembling rasp. "I hate you, Jax."

"Feeling's mutual," he fired back, turning his back on me to pull Chloe against his side once more. "Now clear out."

I spun around.

"Move!" I choked out, ramming my shoulder into a tall sophomore who blocked the path.

"Watch it, loser!" the boy snarled, but he stumbled back.

I kept my chin pinned to my collarbone, ignoring the jeers, the mocking hoots, and the snap of phone cameras following my retreat. My legs moved blindly across the grass, my heart hammering against my ribs like a trapped bird beating itself to death.

I just needed to reach the side doors. I needed to hide in an empty stairwell, wash the stink of humiliation from my skin, and disappear.

I rounded the corner of the brick fieldhouse at a dead sprint, my vision swimming with unshed tears.

Suddenly, my forehead collided with a wall of rock-hard muscle.

The impact knocked the breath from my chest, sending me stumbling backward onto the gravel.

A large, calloused hand shot out, catching my wrist in a vice-like grip before I could hit the dirt.

"Where the hell do you think you're running?" a deep, gravelly voice demanded from above.

I froze, looking up through my blurred sight into a pair of stormy gray eyes that looked ready to tear the world apart.

It was Kael.