My Sister Stole My Mate, And I Let Her

Chapter 534: Chapter 534 AFTER (BONUS Chapter 1)

SERAPHINA’S POV

"I’m just saying," Daniel said, pushing his green beans around his plate with more focus than they warranted, "if I leave now, I’ll have more time to practice my starts."

"You have two hours."

Two hours until the horn sounded and the pack gathered at the tree line for my second-ever pack run.

I could already feel anticipation humming through my veins, the same restless energy that had been building all week—an itch beneath my skin I couldn’t quite scratch, a warmth pooling low in my belly.

"Two hours isn’t that long, Mom,” Daniel said with the weary patience of someone explaining something painfully obvious to a particularly slow student. “I need all the practice I can get.”

I rolled my eyes. “You’ve spent the last month practicing nonstop.”

Ava had beaten him at the race they’d had at the last pack run, and Daniel had spent the following month in what could only be described as a training montage—sprints across the pack grounds, unsolicited stretching demonstrations in the middle of the living room, and even managed to recruit Gavin as a "professional running coach."

“And it hasn’t been enough,” he sighed. “I must regain my honor.”

“Ava beat you by three seconds, hon.”

“Exactly!” He threw his hands up in the air. “Do you know how humiliating that is? Do you know how awful the last month has been? Every second of every day, she won’t let me forget it. I have to beat her tonight, or I’ll die, and Nightfang will be without an heir, and it’ll all be your fault because you didn’t let me practice.”

I nodded solemnly. “You’ll be missed. I promise to visit your grave every day. What kind of flowers would you like?”

He shot me a look that was pure Kieran—flat, unimpressed, entirely too dignified for a ten-year-old with barbecue sauce on his chin.

“Let me go, Mom, please?”

"Finish your dinner, and you can run all the way across the country if you want."

He huffed in defeat and stabbed a baby carrot like it was the sole cause of every tragedy in the world.

I shook my head, laughing softly. Ava’s presence in the pack had brought out a new competitive—a little irrational, honestly—side to my son, and I would be worried if I wasn’t so thoroughly amused.

But all the mirth left me the moment Kieran walked in.

He’d come from the training grounds, his shirt clinging damp to his shoulders, sleeves shoved up his forearms, dark hair pushed back like he’d run his fingers through it one too many times.

I froze as his scent reached me, and every rational thought in my head dissolved into static.

Cedar and rain and something darker underneath, something that had always belonged only to him, but tonight it hit...differently.

Tonight it wrapped around me like a hand closing around my throat, and my whole body responded before my mind caught up—the warmth in my belly turned to searing heat, my skin was suddenly too tight, my breathing turned low and heavy.

I gripped the edge of the counter.

"Sera?" Kieran’s brows furrowed as his gaze found mine across the kitchen. "Baby, you okay?"

No. Not remotely.

"Fine," I managed, my voice coming out strangely husky.

"Can I—" I cleared my throat, aware of Daniel shoveling carrots and green beans into his mouth two feet away, like that was another race he was determined to win. "Can I borrow you for a second? Privately."

Something flickered across Kieran’s face—a flash of understanding, quick and startled, gone almost before I registered it.

“Sure,” he said, his voice level.

He ruffled Daniel’s hair as he passed. “Be right back, bud.”

Daniel barely acknowledged him, shoving a whole chicken thigh into his mouth.

One moment, I was standing on shaky feet, my heart slamming against my ribs and my whole body lit up like a live wire.

The next, I was shoving Kieran against the wall of the Alpha wing corridor, fisting his shirt in both hands as I pulled him down to me.

He made a low, rough sound as he kissed me back, and for several glorious seconds, there was tongue and teeth and heat and electricity and the intoxicating rush of being with my mate.

Then I felt his restraint kick in, felt him gentling the kiss even as I tried to deepen it and drag him closer, my hands already reaching beneath the hem of his shirt for skin.

"Sera." His voice came rough against my mouth. His hands closed around my wrists, not pushing me away, just anchoring. Steadying. "Sera, wait."

"I don’t want to wait." I pressed closer, chasing the heat of him, my lips finding his jaw, his throat, the spot on his neck where the scar of my mark rested.

“I need you now.”

"I know." A harsh exhale left him, and I felt how little restraint he had left in the way his fingers dug into my hips, in the low growl he couldn’t quite bite back.

"Believe me, I know. But Daniel’s right down the hall."

"He’s eating."

"He’s fast and has the worst timing of any child alive." A strained laugh escaped him even as his hands betrayed him, sliding up beneath the back of my shirt, thumbs tracing the ridge of my spine like he couldn’t help himself.

"Sera. Your heat—it’s the marking. Alina’s power is—” He groaned when I bit down on his mark and struggled to finish his sentence.

“...the stronger the wolf, the stronger the pull. You’re not in your right mind."

"Instead of mansplaining my own heat to me, why don’t you just shut up and fuck me." I caught his mouth again before he could argue further, and the last of resistance cracked.

I gasped as his hand fisted in my hair, tilting my head back, his mouth finding my throat like a man starving.

Heat poured through me at the first drag of his lips against my pulse, at the tortured sound he made against my skin, half-groan, half-surrender.

My fingers dug into his shoulders. His hands weren’t gentle anymore—they slid underneath my shirt, and every place he touched lit a fire within me, sharper and hungrier and more intense than anything I remembered feeling before.

There wasn’t finesse in what came next.

It was hushed and frantic and desperate—his breath ragged against my ear, my name breaking rough and low from his mouth, the wall cool at my back and his body searing everywhere else, the two of us moving together with a hunger neither of us could quite control.

I was lost in it, in him—in the scent of him thick in my lungs, in the low, wrecked sound of my name against his mouth, in the delicious stretch of him filling me up—

"Mom? Dad?"

Daniel’s voice floated down the hallway, muffled. Still in the kitchen, thank the Goddess, but close enough that both of us went rigid at once.

"Yeah, bud?" Kieran called back, his voice remarkably steady for a man who was still pulsing inside me. His heart was hammering so hard I could feel it against my chest.

“I’m done eating, can I go now?”

“Sure!” I answered, mortified to hear how breathless I sounded. “Be careful!”

“Finally!”

Then there was a rush of footsteps and the slamming of a door.

Silence settled between us, thick with adrenaline and lingering heat. Then Kieran let out a long breath as he dropped his forehead against mine, laughter shaking loose from his chest.

“Holy shit, Sera.”

He pulled back enough to look at me, eyes bright with a mix of wonder and horror. "That was too fucking close.”

"I’d apologize,” I said, squirming against him, already chasing more friction, more heat, “but I’m not really sorry."

Kieran groaned, and I felt him harden inside me all over again.

He pressed a soft, lingering kiss to my forehead, then another to my temple, his voice dropping to something warmer.

"We need a plan, before we accidentally scar our poor kid for life."

I nodded, tightening my legs around his waist, shifting my hips impatiently. “Yeah, yeah, a plan. We’ll figure that out later. Just keep fucking me.”