My Stepson, My Mate
He hated my gut!
I detested his arrogance!
I was supposed to be his ex-stepmother,but I hated pack politics and returned to the human community after Alpha Holt's death.
I was forced back to heal the wounds of the one that hated me the most, my stepson Adrian.
To the world he was the famous NHL golden boy of hockey and to the Frostfang pack, their feared Alpha.
But the moon goddess had another plan.
On the night he was crowned as Alpha, his father's mark faded from my neck and Adrian's mate bond burnt harshly on my skin. But fate wasn't done yet.
We were expected to team up to fight a common foe when we could barely stand each other.
Was our fate strong enough to overcome physical hatred?
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Chapter 5
Selena's POV
The hospital had that cold, sterile smell that felt like no life could exist here. Walking toward the morgue was like dragging stones through my chest. Jane... was gone.
I still couldn't believe it. Even after getting the message, even after asking for directions, I kept thinking it had to be some type of prank. No way in hell was I going to accept it until I saw her with my very eyes.
A police officer waited in the hallway wearing a grim expression.
"Miss Ward?" he asked as I approached.
"Y-yes."
"I'm Officer Daniels. I called you about Miss Jane. Her body was found on the side of the road, probably on her way somewhere. We were able to reach you because her phone was in her purse, and your number was the first one we found."
Grief-stricken panic saw me barely get the words out. "Please, I-I need to see her."
With a small nod, he guided me down the hall to a private room. A doctor stood by the body, gloves on, keeping a calm, professional demeanor.
"Miss Ward... I'm very sorry," he said gently. "I need you to confirm the identity. We've preserved her carefully."
Inching closer to the table, my heart was racing like crazy. Hell... there my roommate was, lying motionless, eyes open but blank. Her once fair skin was now pale and bruised. I felt my throat close as I reached out before I even realized it.
"It's... her," I whispered in a broken voice.
Officer Daniels cleared his throat. "Witnesses claimed they saw nothing, but... the wounds look unusual."
The doctor carefully rolled up Jane's sleeves, revealing deep, crescent-shaped bruises along her arms. Leaning in, my stomach squeezed as my hands hovered over the huge-ass bite mark on her neck.
"Animal attack?" the doctor asked. "Possibly a stray dog or... something wild. It looks like she was trying to defend herself."
Nodding outwardly, I let them speak, but inside, I was damn near losing it. This wasn't a stray dog. Hell no. The bite was too clean, the claw marks way too exact. My wolf instincts flared up.
Wolf.
I stayed quiet though. Humans would never get it. They couldn't see what I saw, couldn't grasp what I knew. We weren't supposed to reveal ourselves anyway.
"Yes... it's consistent with an animal attack," I said carefully. But rage embraced me under the surface. Rogue wolves. There was no other explanation. No wolf in their right mind would dare go against the laws and attack a human.
Officer Daniels's voice dragged me back to reality. "We'll need you to answer a few questions, Miss Ward. Anything you remember, any contacts Jane had this morning or last night... anything could help."
I answered him as best I could, keeping my voice steady, but my mind refused to cooperate. Thoughts ran wild, crashing into each other.
How could Jane just... be gone? She had no enemies. None that I knew of, anyway. Sure, she could be loud and reckless, but she was endlessly kind. I'd met her three years ago, while looking for a roommate, and somehow, she'd become like a sister.
Rogue wolves in the human world? Hell, that's dangerous. Reckless. Totally unforgivable. If they were out there now–hunting, attacking–someone had to put a stop to them before anyone else got hurt.
And there was only one person who could.
Adrian.
Even after everything between us, after how damn frustrating, arrogant, and infuriating he was, he was Alpha now. The pack obeyed him. If rogue wolves were out there, breaking the rules, he was the only one who could rein them in, make them pay for daring to defy the laws.
I clenched my fists, my hands trembling anyway. So much for walking away from the supernatural world.
***
The whole talk at the hospital ended up taking much longer than I could bear. Between the questioning, the paperwork, and the pity-filled stares, I felt like I was losing air. By the time I was done, I locked myself in the women's restroom and finally broke.
I'd tried to stay composed, goddess knows I had, but grief didn't care about strength. So I let it crash over me until there was nothing left.
After shedding enough tears to fill a well, I finally splashed water on my face and stared at my reflection. My amber eyes were red, swollen, and tired. Jane was gone, and no amount of crying would change that.
If I couldn't save her, then I could at least make sure whoever, or whatever, did this paid. That much, I owed her.
That's what led me back to the training facility.
It made more sense to find Adrian there than at the pack house. After what happened yesterday, he'd never let me past the gate. He'd probably have the guards toss me out before I even spoke.
The place was quiet when I arrived. The bursts of laughter and clashing sticks were gone; training had wrapped up for the day. Players were heading out with their bags slung over their shoulders, their breath visible in the cold.
"Hey, Doc," one of them greeted, offering a small, tired smile.
I returned it weakly, scanning the area. "You seen Adrian?"
"Yeah," He adjusted his bag. "Still in the men's locker room. Stayed back to shower. Should be done any minute."
My throat went dry.
Out of everything he'd said, the word 'shower' kept running through my head along with impossible images of his naked body covered in soap.
My heart started beating fast, and the liquid that should've gone down my throat felt like it was running between my legs instead. Last night flashed in my mind–his hands on my boobs, his deep voice, that godlike body pressing down on mine.
"Damn it," I muttered under my breath. Heat. It had to be the damn heat. That, and the stupid mate mark on my neck that wouldn't stop pulsing every time I even thought about him.
Taking a steadying breath, I thanked the player and waited until the last of them left.
Now alone, I was at a crossroads.
I could remain waiting for him like a normal person. Or I could just... check. Just to see if he was done. That was all. Nothing else.
Right.
My heat-fogged brain apparently didn't get the memo because before I knew it, my legs were already carrying me toward the locker room.
The warm air inside reeked of soap, sweat, and musk. The locker room led straight into the shower area with rows of benches leading into a tiled corridor where the sound of running water echoed faintly.
"Adrian?" I called softly, cautious.
No response.
"Adrian," I tried again, a little louder this time.
Still nothing. Just the sound of water. Okay. He was still showering. I should go.
I spun to leave, but every muscle in my body froze when a low, rough grunt cut across the sound of the running water, followed by my name, breathless.
"Selena..."
That wasn't the voice of a man simply washing off a long day. That was the sound of a man lost in pleasure.
And he had just moaned my name.
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9.2
At the absolute summit of her pop-star career, the stage collapsed beneath Catherine's feet, plunging her into a mechanical black hole.
When she opened her eyes, she wasn't in a hospital, but a savage, primitive forest.
Before a fire-breathing beast could tear her apart, a massive black snake crushed it with a single strike.
The terrifying serpent then transformed into Amon, a towering, heavily scarred man with golden slitted eyes, who swore his life to protect her.
He brought her to his tribe, but instead of safety, they were met with ravenous hunger and disgust.
The tribe's males stared at Catherine's fragile human body like a rare breeding prize, while treating Amon like garbage.
"He's a cursed, cold-blooded freak! His rut will tear you to pieces!"
The Chief sneered, pointing a thick, accusing finger at Amon.
"By tribal law, you must mate with our strongest tiger and bear shifters to give us powerful cubs!"
Humiliated, Amon's broad shoulders slumped, his fists trembling in suffocating shame as he prepared to back away.
Catherine's heart pounded with fierce, burning anger.
When she was about to be eaten, Amon was the only one who bled for her.
Where were these arrogant bullies then? Why should she let them treat her savior like a monster?
As the tribe's strongest warriors swarmed forward to claim her, Catherine stepped directly in front of Amon's lethal claws.
"I don't need any of you," she declared, her voice cutting through the chaos.
"I will mate with Amon and take his beast mark today!"
9.2
Clara was drowning in student debt and barely making rent when she downloaded a fantasy mobile game to escape reality.
Inside the game, an exiled prince named Alex was freezing to death. Pitying him, she spent her last few dollars on microtransactions to fix his shelter and cure his poison.
But the game was far too real.
Every time she paid, the prince reacted. When she complained aloud about going broke, the in-game army suddenly halted, as if the prince had heard her voice.
Then, the terrifying real-world consequences hit.
Clara woke up to find her water glass and a box of Kleenex had vanished from her locked bedroom overnight.
She frantically searched the tiny apartment, her heart pounding in her chest.
She thought she was losing her mind. Had she thrown them out in her sleep? Was there a stalker hiding in her home?
How could physical objects just disappear into thin air behind a deadbolted door?
Until she looked at her nightstand.
Sitting exactly where her missing items used to be was a glowing, weightless crystal cup that defied all logic.
And on her laptop screen, the exiled prince was carefully holding her Kleenex box, offering a mountain of real gold on an altar.
She hadn't just downloaded a mobile game; she had opened a cross-dimensional trade route with a desperate future king.
7.1
The captain is dead to the world. And I'm the only one holding the kill switch.
Ethan Carter, the "Glacier of Silvercrest," was the most feared Alpha to ever step onto the ice. Now, he's nothing but a shell-a broken, comatose legend trapped in his own body.
My life? It was supposed to be simple. Graduate, survive the pack's bottom-tier status, and pay off my father's ruinous blood-debts. Instead, the pack elders handed me a contract soaked in cold, hard malice: I am the designated "Stabilizer." My only job is to touch him, scent him, and keep his wolf from flatlining.
I thought I was just a glorified nurse. I didn't realize the Alpha was listening.
When Ethan finally wakes, he isn't the hero the Kingdom of Valeria remembers. He's a starving predator with amber eyes that burn holes through my defenses and a temperament that makes the frost in the mansion seem warm. He hates the bargain, he hates the pack, and-most dangerously-he hates the way his scent turns wild whenever I'm near.
He wants me out of his sight. I want to be out of his reach.
But in a pack built on secrets, someone is still trying to finish the job they started on his life. Now, the man who wants me gone is the only one who can protect me. And as the rink turns into a battlefield, I'm realizing the most dangerous thing about the Alpha isn't his temper... it's the fact that once he claims a mate, he doesn't know how to let go.
Frozen hearts are meant to shatter. But in the fire of this pack, we're both going to burn.
9.0
I traded my innocence to my fated mate, the Alpha King, just to get a stalk of Moonlight Grass to save my dying brother.
But after a night of agonizing physical connection, he didn't mark me. Instead, he tossed me a single, useless dried leaf and a credit card, treating our sacred bond like a cheap transaction.
When I refused his insulting offer to be his secret, nameless mistress, he choked me against a wall and banished me from his lands forever. I fled to the human city, only to watch from the shadows a week later as he publicly escorted a pure-blood noble female, preparing to make her his Luna. Meanwhile, I was forced to sell herbs in the lawless black market just to survive, where I was cornered by a gang of violent rogues.
I didn't understand. We were chosen by the Moon Goddess. When our skin touched, the mating sparks nearly blinded us both. Why did he look at me with such cold disgust? Why did he throw me away like trash, only to parade another woman as his queen?
Running for my life from the rogues, I tripped and fell onto the asphalt, right at the feet of a convoy of black SUVs.
The man stepping out was the Alpha King who had sworn to kill me if he ever saw me again.
But as the rogues demanded I be handed over, his eyes darkened with a terrifying, primal fury.
"She's mine."
7.4
Cadence, a modern botanist, woke up to a glaring sun and massive, alien purple leaves blocking the sky. She was stranded in a terrifying, primal world.
Before she could process the metallic smell of blood in the air, a white tiger the size of an SUV crushed a giant boar's neck right in front of her. The beast locked its piercing blue eyes on her hiding spot. But instead of tearing her throat out, a blinding flash of silver light erupted, and the monster transformed into a towering, heavily scarred naked man.
He was Harlan, a shifter who immediately claimed her as his mate under tribal law. Dragged back to his primitive village, Cadence faced a brutal reality. Unbonded females were targets, and she was expected to take multiple mates just to survive. The tribal women mocked her fragile frame, calling her useless. To make matters worse, her foreign scent attracted a rogue serpent-shifter who violently ambushed her in the river.
The icy shock of the serpent's attack plunged Cadence into a deadly, burning fever. The tribe's Shaman tried his healing magic, only to shake his head and abandon her.
"She lacks primal fortitude. She will rely entirely on her own weak vitality. I can do nothing."
As Harlan held her shivering body in despair, Cadence felt a deep sense of desperate injustice. Was she really going to die in a filthy stone hut in an unknown universe, killed by a simple cold?
No. She remembered her grandfather's strict survival lessons. Forcing her heavy eyes open, she grabbed her terrified tiger mate's hand. She didn't need their failing magic; she had science.
"I need specific plants to live. I need white willow bark. And a spicy, ginger-like root."
She rasped, preparing to show this savage world the true power of a modern survivor.
7.1
The night before her wedding to Wall Street billionaire Everette Baird, Deliah Quinn stood happily in her haute couture gown.
Then, her younger sister Arvilla walked in, handed her a drugged glass of champagne, and slammed an ultrasound on the vanity.
"I'm pregnant with Everette's child," Arvilla sneered.
Before Deliah's paralyzed body could react, Arvilla dragged in a canister of industrial gasoline, soaked the bridal suite, tossed a lighter, and locked the heavy oak doors from the outside.
To escape the roaring inferno, Deliah smashed the glass balcony and threw herself into the freezing, violent waters of the Atlantic Ocean.
For five agonizing years, everyone believed the Quinn heiress was dead.
Deliah returned to New York entirely reborn—a top architectural designer and a single mother, having scrubbed her past clean and forgotten the people who destroyed her.
She only wanted a peaceful life with her five-year-old genius son, Leo.
But she had no idea her son was secretly hacking airport security cameras to find himself a wealthy stepdad.
Leo deliberately bumped into a terrifying, cold-blooded tycoon, spilling scalding coffee on his custom suit to get his attention.
When Deliah frantically rushed over to protect her son and apologize, the air in the terminal vanished.
Everette Baird stared at the exact face he had obsessively mourned for five years, his eyes turning pitch black as he crushed his phone in his bare hand.