Mated To My Obsessive Stepbrother

KESTER.

The one thing the Moon Goddess had ever done right was chainingsmine to me with something she couldn't undo. Something she didn't choose and didn't have a choice in.

Fate.

I should worship the Moon Goddess for it. For once, she wasn't playing games. She gave me the one thing I ever wanted, the one thing that was mine.

And Kasmine... sweet, confused, little Kasmine... she still thought she had a say in all this.

I know exactly what's spinning in that pretty head of hers. She think the next step is rejection. She thinks that the bond we share is something she can sever with a few muttered words and teary eyes

That has to be the funniest fucking thing I've ever imagined. Because let the world split open, and the Draeger himself crawl out of the pit of hell to rule this earth-1 would never reject my fated mate

Fuck.

My, Fated. Mate.'

The sound of it made a dance erupt in my stomach.

I couldn't believe this was happening, in all honesty.

I didn't plan on telling anyone yet. We both had to decide when and how we would break the good news to everyone. I can't fucking, wait. I was too eager.

When she ran off with that fucker, I didn't even try to follow after that rickety piece of rusty bucket he called a car because I would

have caught up with them on foot.

Hell, I could've torn through that tin can with my bare hands and dragged her out by her hair if I wanted.

But I didn't.

Because the mate bond is a beautiful thing. It's more loyal than her mind and stronger than her fear. A wolf cannot stay away from their mate for long. It pulls, and It hurts. And she'll feel, that ache. Soon, she'll be begging to breathe in my scent again.

So I let her go for now.

I had more pressing matters to handle before I pulled her back into my arms and reminded her who she belonged to.

I pulled out my phone and dialed Norlan. He picked up on the first ring, voice

already spiking with surprise.

"What the fuck? I thought I misread your text!"

I leaned back into leather of my chair, staring at the ceiling with a smirk curling my

lips. "Oh, you read it right."

"Fuck. Where is she now?" He asked.

"She ran off with Jake," I replied casually.

"What? And you let her? She's carrying your child, dude. Why let herun off with another man?" He asked, obviously surprised at my nonchalance.

I'll get het. Don't worry." I replied.

There was a beat of silence. I knew what he was chewing on. He was thinking it too-what most people in my shoes would've done. Stormed after her. Dragged her back.

But I'm not like most people.

"What about June?" he asked finally, "What are you going to do about her? About your family? Are you going to tell them?"

"I'm certainly calling off the engagement soon. The contracts her father promised are signed, and the project has already broken ground. Wescor and Belinzo want to renew their contracts with me. As soon as we are done with the paperwork tomorrow, I'll drop June off like she never happened." I explained.

"That's... great," he said slowly, but I heard the hesitation crawling under his words.

I smiled. I could feel what this was.

"Will you shoot your shot after that?" I asked.

"What? What do you mean, Kes?" He chuckled nervously. And it was surprising. Norlan? Nervous? That amused me more than it should have.

Love is truly a dick..

"Stop with the pretense already. You think I didn't know all this while? You are in love with June," He didn't respond. I let the silence marinate. "You fucked her in college, dude. At your frat party. She was drunk. You took her virginity." "Kes... I... Fuck." He cursed.

I sat forward, resting my elbows on my knees, staring into the shadows pooling in my office.

"I always knew. And I let it be. Because I didn't care." I leaned back again. "Come on, fucker. You can have her," I said, almost laughing. "Like I said before, I never touched her." I paused for a moment, "Well... aside from that one time. Made her suck my cock. Just once. Just to get back at Kasmine for pissing me off."

"You didn't need to tell me that," He scoffed.

"Yeah, I do. Thought you should know." I shrugged as if he could see me.

"Thanks, man.

I knew Norlan. If I hadn't given him the go-ahead, he would've buried his feelings forever just to keep the peace between us. That's who we are. Brothers not by blood but by bone-deep loyalty.

A moment passed. Then I shifted gears.

"About the email," I asked, "Have you cracked it?"

And I heard the relief in his voice when he replied, "Yes. I have."

"Good. Tell me it was her," I asked, pouring myself a glass of whisky which had been sitting idle on my table.

"You're right. She was the one Norlan replied.

My guts never lied.

"She used a dummy relay server," he said. "Masked the IP through the locations. Germany, Indonesia, and some back alley connections in Lagos, Nigeria. Pretty clever, actually. Looked like a Bot blast on the surface-but when I dug into the metadata, 1 caught the signature string embedded in the header.”

He paused.

"And?" I asked, swirling the glass in my hand lazily.

"It was her. Karina. Same device ID from when she used to do backend work for your father's company before you took over. She forgot to wipe the MAC address. Rookie shit."

I grinned. "Sloppy bitch."

"Yeah," he agreed. "And she used her old password pattern. It was tucked under layers of junk data, but once aligned the timestamps with your system logs-boom. Match. I decrypted the rest with a modified brute-force dictionary. Took me two hours."noveldrama

"You always loved making puzzles bleed," I muttered.

He laughed softly.

"Yeah. Well, she should've known better."

I stood up, walking over to the window. The city blinked below me, "We can't leave anything behind,” I said, “Not a single fucking byte. I want every device she owns- or has ever touched-cleaned of anything that could incriminate me or my mate. Phones, backups, cloud drives. If there's even a whiff of photos or videos, I want it all gone. I don't care how."

"Understood," Norlan said immediately, "I'll ghost her entire network. Run a silent data kill across anything she's synced in the last twelve months. She won't even realize it's happening until it's done. And if she's uploaded anything to a third- party host or tried to leak it anonymously, I'll trace it and nuke the source."

I nodded slowly to myself. That's why he was the only person I trusted with this. Norlan wasn't just skilled. He was fucking dangerous when he wanted to be. "Good. As soon as you are done, let me know," I instructed, "It is time to send her to the same hell she sent me to eleven years ago."

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I knew it! she was the only one to figure it out and mentioned it to Kasmine.. but

how did she get a photo of them at the office when she wasn't in town???