IN LOVE WITH MY MATE'S BROTHER

“Grief is a strange thing. It sharpens the edges of silence and blunts the sound of your own heartbeat. You think it will break you, but it buries you alive in the stillness of what you’ll never get back.” That's how Akira feels right now. She knelt beside her father’s lifeless body with her hands trembling against the polished oak casket carved with the ancient sigils of the Waterfall Pack.

Her fingers brushed over the deep lines of his father's weathered face, the lines she had memorized, not just out of love but out of need. He had been the only one who ever looked at her like she mattered. Now he stared into nothing but a still doll and the silence between them was permanent.

A sob swelled in her chest but died in her throat. The grief clawed too deep and guilt roared behind it like a beast unleashed.

“It should have been me,” Akira thought to herself.

Alpha Aurora had always said she had the fire of an Alpha but fire without control burned everything.

“Get up,” Lyra’s cold voice pierced her thoughts like a shard of ice but Akira didn’t move, her thoughts were consumed with grief of her father's still form.

“I said, get up. You’ve been kneeling there like a stray for hours. It’s unseemly.” Her stepmother snapped again.

Akira clenched her jaw but rose slowly as the weight of her father’s death keep pressing down on her like a second spine. Her knees ached from the stone floor, but pain felt appropriate.

Her eyes flicked to Lyra, dressed in elegant black lace and feigned sorrow. Not a single tear had touched her powdered cheeks. Brynhild stood beside her, draped in velvet mourning robes and thinly veiled smugness. Her perfect golden curls framed a face that bore none of the weight of loss.

Akira didn’t bother to speak. The housemaids had cleaned every corner of the mourning hall. Dozens of pack members stood in respectful silence. Some genuinely grieving while others only present to secure their places in the new hierarchy.

The great Alpha Aurora, leader of the East District, was dead, and with him, any protection Akira had ever known.

Later, as dusk bled into the sky, the funeral began beneath the sacred waterfall that gave their pack its name.

The silver waterfall flowed below the twilight moon, its scent of wet stone blended with incense. Akira stood apart folding her arms tightly across her chest watching as the pyre was lit. Her father’s body, cloaked in the crest of his ancestors, was slowly consumed by flames.

The crackling fire echoed the storm inside her. Then, a couple of eyes and voices muttered behind her.

“She doesn’t even cry. Strange girl.”

“I heard she’s not even Lyra’s blood. Probably why he never let go of her.”

“She’s strong, though. I saw her beat Beta's son in the last trials and barely broke a sweat.”

“She was his favorite… now she's gone”

The whispers trailed away like smoke but they burned all the same.

Lyra turned slightly, catching Akira’s eye and smiling escaping her mouth, a kind slash smile like a poisoned silk.

“Try not to look so hopeful, dear. He’s not coming back.” She muttered.

Akira looked at her lightly but she said nothing. She remembered the nights her father came home after council meetings, how Lyra would soften her voice just enough to pretend she cared and how Brynhild would press kisses to his cheek, pretending to be the perfect daughter. And Akira, always in the background, scrubbing marble floors, setting tables, folding laundry, hiding bruised palms in her pockets.

And yet once, he caught her sparring alone on the rooftop terrace, her fists wrapped in linen with sweat dripping from her brow.

Aurora watched quietly for a moment before saying to his Beta; “Akira has the fire of a true Alpha and if she keeps going, I'll name her as heir.” and Akira heard while Lyra was at the kitchen with her.

They both listened and Lyra's look that day was like something vile had awakened behind them. She never said a word but from that night on, the punishments worsened. More chores, less food, crueler whispers, smiling in public and pitting venom in private.

But Akira endured. She told herself it would end. That one day, her father would name her before the entire pack and she’d rise above them all. But now he was ash and memory. By nightfall, the whispers shifted from grief to speculation.

In the corner of the great hall, Betas gathered in hushed circles, dressed in ceremonial leather and silver embroidery.

Tamsin, one of the older Betas with sharp eyes as obsidian, sipped from a goblet and leaned toward her companion.

“I heard him say it once. Before the last moonfall. Aurora meant to name Akira. Not Brynhild.”

The other Beta frowned. “She’s strong, yes. But she's not favored. Not by Lyra.”

“Lyra doesn’t decide who inherits the Alpha’s crest, the pack does. The moon does. And that girl, she’s endured more than anyone. If that’s not strength, what is?” Tamsin said dryly.

Lyra, eavesdropping just a few feet away behind a tall floral arrangement, she clenched her fists beneath her gown and her nails dug into her skin but she kept smiling.

“I won't let this happen.” Lyra thought to herself.