Isla 

I dialed the number of the Sheriff then hung up before the call connected.

I should report him. What Ryder had done was a crime. It was breaking and entering, simple.

But...

My mother was getting married to his dad soon.

It was the truth even though I hated thinking about it, because it suggested that such a man and I could be lumped together as family.

I dialed the number again and let it ring twice before I hung up.

He was an alpha and hierarchy was a big part of our lives as shifters.

But if alphas were allowed to do as they wanted then there was no reason for laws to be created, I reasoned to myself.

But this time I didn't try to call the Sheriff. There was no use lying to myself and pretending that I could actually go through with reporting on my future step brother. And it was not for any of the excuses I'd brought up in my head too.

The truth was I, Isla Adam, was a pushover. Or more plainly, a coward.

***

It was past mid day when I finally thought it wise enough to venture back home.

It was ridiculous that I'd waited in my car, outside my house to give a criminal who had broken and entered, privacy. 

But just this once I was going to look away. 

Surely he hadn't expected to be caught. He must've been embarrassed being discovered with his pants down-literally and figuratively.

But since he was going to be family soon, I'd go back home, change the locks and forget that this ever happened.

Decision made, I felt settled as I walked back home. 

My phone rang the moment I stepped on the front porch and I took the call.

It was Sheriff Goodman.

He was a beta who stayed away from pack politics to avoid conflict of interest but was well liked and respected in the pack.

I'd picked up to tell him that I'd called mistakenly when I heard movements.

My home wasn't empty like I'd expected.

I hung up after a quick excuse then tentatively followed the sound to the kitchen. 

Before I'd left for school mom had been planning to add a few modern fixtures to the space and judging from the sleek kitchen island and polished new cabinetry, she'd managed to do so before she had been swept off her feet by her future husband. 

But that wasn't what had stolen words from my lips. 

It was the man in the kitchen who, now standing, was taller than I'd expected. 

Easily over 6'5. At five-three, he towered over me. 

He was intimidating.

It also didn't help that he was half naked.

Gray joggers hung low on his hips, clearly dragged on as an afterthought since the drawstring still hung untied.

His naked upper body looked sculpted from stone.

Broad shoulders. Defined abs. Veins running along powerful forearms.

I suddenly understood why some girls sacrificed their sleep just to spy on half naked boys during track practice at the academy. 

And then there was the ink I'd glimpsed earlier.

This close, I could finally make out the tattoo. It began along the side of his torso, stretching across his ribs before sweeping down his arm. It was a bird frozen mid-flight, wings spread wide across his tanned skin.

It was beautiful.

And I was staring...

And now he was staring back, one of his eyebrows a dark slash.

I whirled around so quickly, I felt dizzy. My face flamed with mortification. 

"What are you doing here?" I managed to choke out, my head still turned away. "And where are your clothes?"

"Pick one question," he said with a lazy drawl. "I'm obviously hungry and making cereal. Hope you can cook?"

"Huh," I risked a glance over my shoulders. His shirt were still absent, so I covered my face with my hands immediately.

 "Why are you not going back home?" I asked, intentionally widening two of my fingers so I could risk another peek.

"What do you mean going back home?" He asked as he brought out a milk carton from the fridge. Organic. That definitely didn't look like what my mother would purchase.

That means...

"I live here." He added confirming my fears.

"How could you..." I spluttered. "This is illegal. You cannot live here, I live here!"

He shrugged. "We could live together." 

"Live together..." I stammered, then lowered my hands at the absurdity of his words, embarrassment forgotten. 

I couldn't live together with a male I wasn't mated to. It was unheard of. Unmated males and females stayed separate until they find their mates. 

And he dared to shrug while suggesting that I, an unmated female, live with him?  

"You have to learn how to share, Pip. Your mom didn't tell you, we are going to be siblings?" He yawned. "Your days of monopolizing things as an only child are over."

"Pip?" I squeaked, deliberately ignoring the rest of his sentence.

I was not going to regard this...this brute as my sibling!

"Peeping tom. You look nothing like a tom so I decided to make it cute, you're welcome." 

He had taken a seat on the stool by the counter and was now eating his food, while speaking conversationally to me like we were friends.

"Peeping tom?" I cried out. "You were in my mother's room, with that woman and you were behind her and..."

"You were intrigued." He interrupted. 

That damn shrug again. I clenched my fists at my side. 

He added airily, "Some people like to watch." 

"You're going to leave now..." I said, not sure I could stand any more word from his mouth. My voice trembled, even as I tried to infuse all the courage I didn't have into my next words. "Else..."

"Else?" he repeated, looking bored. 

"I'd tell the alpha. And I recognized that woman. I'd seen her before... smelt her rather. She is the wife of one of the council elders. I... I'd meet her husband..."

His movement was so fast that even as a wolf shifter, I barely saw it happen. That should be impossible yet one second he was across the kitchen eating his cereal. 

The next, his hand was around my throat, pinning me against the countertop.

An embarrassing squeal left my lips. 

 "I think you don't understand what is going on here, little Pip." His voice was terrifyingly calm, roughened by what sounded like a growl. "I'm only staying in this dump because your mother turned my house into some suffocating little love nest."

His grip tightened. My eyes widened as I choked on nothing. 

"Not only do I find your house a terrible substitute, I also didn't sign up for a little blabber mouth." he snarled, a vein popping on his forehead. 

"Now you can either shut the fuck up and just share like I advised or you can go stay with your mother and enjoy the upgraded lifestyle she worked so hard to provide you with." He paused. "But if I hear about who was on my bed from anybody," His eyes deliberately dragged slowly over my body making me grab the edge of the counter behind me as my knees threatened to give out.

His gaze felt like ice slithering down my spine. "I'd put an end to your mother's little fairytale. And I just might enjoy doing it," He rubbed his jaw thoughtfully as his eyes remained on my chest. "Don't put ideas in my head, Pip."

When I was sure that I might die out of shortness of breath, he released me and casually slid a hundred-dollar note on the counter. 

 "Now go and buy something you could cook for us to eat, housemate. I'm starving."

Then he walked away. 

I waited till I could no longer hear him before I allowed my buckling knees to give out completely. I slid to the floor.

This summer was going to be a nightmare.

Isla

"Ryder, Ryder... fuck... just like that; don't stop."

I turned putting my pillow over my head, groaning. It was another voice. 

I didn't expect him to be faithful, but three girls in the space of twenty-four hours in a small town like ours?

I didn't want to call my future step brother, a man whore. But with each hour I spent having a very audible display of his sexual romp in the sheet, the glass shoe was fitting a bit too well. 

"I'm coming... I'm right there."

I rolled my eyes. Well, try to do that more quietly, preferably without a public announcement? 

Giving up on the idea of getting another hour of sleep, I reached for my phone on my nightstand with my eyes close.

I closed my hand around it and when I retrieved it, I hated the way my stomach sank when I saw the lack of notification.

Me: You know how I told you that the fries and tacos in the cafeteria are unbelievably good? Like out of this world good? Well, the lunch lady is leaving. On the upside, she is opening a restaurant so that's good news for her, on the downside, there goes my tacos!

Me: School has been stressful lately but nothing I can't handle. Guess what will make my day better, a call from you or even a text. Kisses!

Me: Jason, are you there? Please text me back. I'm getting worried.

Jason: Busy.

Me: I understand. I'm also busy preparing for my midterms but try to drop a text or two.

Jason: OK

Me: Sooo... I'm having a hard time picking a shirt for this little party Bianca my dorm mate invited me to. My blue knitted top and olive green cotton button up are my strongest contenders.

Jason: Sounds good.

Me: Decided to go with olive green. You always preferred me in green because of my eyes.

Me: I got 97 in AP Biology! Can you believe it. Where did my 3 marks go? My new professor is just evil.

Me: My mom is getting married, Jason. I don't know what to do. Please call me.

Me: Exams are almost over and it scares me, I don't know what to expect. She said I could go back to our house if moving in with the alpha is still too sudden. How do I tell her that it would only uncomfortably remind me that she is gone?

Me: I'm coming back tomorrow. I've missed you. This long distance is crazy. Happy that we are just mere weeks from imprinting on each other and then you'd be my mate that I picked for myself, acknowledged by the elders and my family.

Me: I'm BACK! Can't wait to meet you.

Me: So our cafe this morning. 8am? 

Just like my other messages, Jason had read it and had not replied.

We had gone from texting each other about every minuscule detail of our lives, to him reading my messages and ignoring them. When he did reply, it was always a lackluster monosyllable.

I'd thought once I was back, I'd realize that the sudden distance on his end was all in my head and it would become a thing of the past.

But the fact that he had not replied to my recent message about me being home filled me with fear.

Something wasn't right. My eyes involuntarily went to the mixed media photo collage pinned to the wall of my pastel painted room.

It was hand made. A gift from my mom on my thirteenth birthday. She had layered on it dried flowers, an inspirational note and a birthday card.

It was filled with tons of picture of the both of us, with the first being me at nine and him at ten. While the last was our most recent one, a selfie we had taken a day before I'd left for school. He was smiling while I leaned into him, my cheeks flushed from him kissing them seconds before the picture was taken.

It was one of the things I loved most about my room apart from the floor-to-ceiling window that allowed for a beautiful view of the rocky landscape our house was erected on.

I needed to see him soon. Possibly today.

But first, I needed to make breakfast since I had a growling housemate to feed after all.

With a plan in mind, I felt more settled as I made my bed, changed from the tank top and shorts I had slept in to something more decent, put my hair in a lazy bun and headed to the kitchen. 

I grabbed a pan from the lower cabinets and then turned on the stove. I was hoping to make breakfast and leave for Jason's before Ryder came out of his room.

The lesser interactions I had with him, the better it'd be for both of us. 

I turned on my iPod, connected my earbuds and within minutes, Pony by Ginuwine was all I could hear.

I hummed under my breath, shaking my head as I grabbed what I needed for breakfast from the fridge: bacon and eggs.

Quick and easy. It'd have to do.

I dropped the bacon into the sizzling pan and started cracking the eggs. 

I was still waiting for the bacon to be crisp and brown just how I like it, when one of my earbuds were rudely tugged out of my ears.

I turned. He was standing so close behind me, it made my mouth go dry.

His blonde hair which were short on the side, with a pile of lazy waves on top were disheveled, his eyes were half open and his face was in a frown that seemed to be a summary of his foul personality. 

Yet... yet, I understood why his fuck rotation worked. My stepbrother was good looking. Not easy on the eyes, good-looking, no, the striking type. 

The stop whatever you're doing and gape type of good-looking. Those full lower lips, and the unreal proportion of his cheekbones and jawline without even taking into account his tanned and toned body, could get most girls sold.

That was until he opened his mouth.

"I was talking to you, little Pip," he frowned and stared at my earbud, "And what were you even listening to?" 

Anticipating his intention, I was already reaching for my iPod to switch off the music, but the earbuds were in his ear before I could reach it.

He stood stock still in confusion for a minute or two, before he slowly removed the earbud and looked up to watch me like this was the first time he was seeing me. 

I paused the music and grabbed my earbuds from him.

"Does your mom know that you love it when he tears off your clothes?" He asked, his eyes glinting with amusement, as he quoted the lyrics of Sweat by Zayn.

"Shut up," I weakly retorted then letting my black curls act as a curtain for my flaming face, I busied myself with fixing a plate of food for us. "It is just music." 

He grabbed a bottle of water and gulped it straight from the can and even though it bothered me, I decided that I wouldn't risk being pinned to the counter a second time because he was allergic to cups. 

"It is erotic music. You don't look like the type," he commented.

I begrudgingly handed him a plate, hoping it'd shut him up while I made a run for it. But the moment I turned to leave his hand was on my shoulders like he had anticipated it.

I turned, "I'm inviting friends over, go up and change into something less drab," he said his eyes pointedly on my oversized comfy sweatshirt. "We are going grocery shopping."

"I have plans." I croaked out.

"Postpone it."

***

"You know you could offer to carry a bag or something," I said with an eye roll, breathless as I held the two huge shopping bags. I wondered why he had bothered to ask me to cook when almost everything in the bag was alcohol.

I was still mad that he had intercepted my plan to leave for Jason's. 

"Why?" He asked, his hands in his pocket as he walked at my side. "If I'm paying for the food you should learn to pull your weight with house chores."

I gritted my teeth. "I didn't ask you to pay for the groceries. I've money too."

"Really?" he drawled. "So your hand me downs are a fashion choice? Bold."

I didn't bother to tell him that the blue knitted top I had on was in fact not a hand me down, but I've always been more comfortable with clothes that were more on the bigger side after I'd hit puberty.

I doubt he would get it.

Because as he passed, people stared but he looked unfazed like he had a lifetime to get use to the attention that came with his looks. 

Well, I didn't. One minute I was just a child playing with rocks and climbing trees and the next, my chest were all men could stare at when they talked to me, even though my eyes were way up. 

He sighed and then grabbed a bag, that were mostly filled with vegetables and food stuff hence lighter. "I don't have all day to match your turtle like pace. Hurry up." He said then doubled his pace. 

I glared at his back as I jogged to meet his long strides. Jerk.