Rejected By My Alpha Stepbrother (Whispers of the Pack #1)

Prologue

Isabella’s POV

“You dare bring her into my home?”

I pressed myself against the wall outside the living room, my small suitcase clutched in trembling hands. Through the crack in the doorway, I could see them—the beautiful woman in the yellow dress and Uncle Asher.

“Maia—” Uncle Asher tried to speak, but the woman cut him off again

“After seven years, Asher! Seven years ago, you abandoned your pack, your son, and your duty as Alpha to be with Alicia and her bastard child. ”

“Her name is Isabella.”

“I don’t care what her name is!” Maia’s voice rose to a shriek. “A lowly human who seduced you, made you forget your responsibilities...I’m your Fated Mate, not that bitch! And now she’s dead, and you expect me to welcome the proof of your betrayal into our home?”

The words hit me like physical blows as I listened to this woman speak about me with so much hate.

“She’s a child,” Uncle Asher said, and I heard the exhaustion in every syllable. “An orphan. She has nowhere else to go.”

“Then put her in an orphanage! We’re not a charity for your whore’s offspring—”

“Maia!” The command in his voice made even me flinch. I’d never seen Uncle Asher like that. “Enough.”

And then a heavy silence fell. I dared to peek around the doorframe.

Uncle Asher moved to sit in an ornate chair, his hands pressed against his sides. Even from here, I could see the green veins spiderwebbing across his skin, the hollowness of his cheeks. He was dying. I’d known it for weeks, even though he’d tried to hide it.

Beside Lady Maia stood a boy—tall, dark-haired, devastatingly handsome in a way that made my thirteen-year-old heart stutter despite everything.

His eyes were the same warm brown as Uncle Asher’s, but there was nothing warm in the way he looked at me when our gazes locked through the crack in the door.

“Dimitri.” Uncle Asher’s voice softened. “Come here, son.”

The boy moved with fluid grace, stopping beside his father’s chair. Up close, the resemblance was unmistakable. This was Uncle Asher’s real child. His heir. Everything I would never be.

“Father.” Dimitri’s voice was measured, controlled. “Why did you bring her here?”

“Isabella will stay with us from now on.” Uncle Asher placed a hand on the armrest, as if needing it for support. “Her mother passed away recently. She has no other family.”

“Because you were too busy playing guardian angel to remember your real family!” Maia spat. “Watching them from afar, protecting them, while your own son grew up without his father! She doesn’t belong here,” Maia continued.

“She belongs wherever I say she belongs.” Uncle Asher struggled to stand, and Dimitri immediately moved to support him. “I am still Alpha of this pack, Maia. And I’m telling you—Isabella stays.”

“Over my dead body—”

“Then you’ll have your wish soon enough.” The words were quiet, matter-of-fact. Final. “The doctors give me weeks at most. And when I’m gone, you’ll do as I’ve asked. Both of you.”

The silence that followed was suffocating.

Lady Maia’s face twisted with fury, but she swept from the room without another word, her dress billowing behind her like storm clouds.

I immediately moved away from the crack in the door so she wouldn’t see me eavesdropping.

When she stepped out, she stopped, staring me down with a cold, resentful glare.

I put my head down, unable to look into her eyes until she walked away.

I wrapped my arms around myself and tried to remember what Mama had told me in those final days before the accident—before the drunk driver had swerved into her lane and stolen her from me forever.

Be brave for me, Isa. Even when it hurts. Especially when it hurts.

Uncle Asher’s gaze found mine where I stood frozen in the doorway. For a moment, his expression softened with a warmth that reminded me of Mama—of home, of safety, of everything I’d lost.

So, I sat on that bench, listening to the muffled voices rising in argument behind the door, and tried to be brave while I wished silently that I could change the course of the last five months, that I could bring Mama back.

But my thoughts traveled to that day at her funeral, the day I realized she was never coming back again.

Her casket sat at the front, and I was the only one there because Mama didn’t have friends in our small town near the Virginia border. She just had me, the farmers she bought vegetables from, and old Mrs. Liza from the corner store who’d sent a small bouquet.

I sat in the first row, hands folded in my lap, staring at nothing.

The accident had happened so fast. One moment, we were driving home from the market, Mama singing along to the radio. The next, there was the screech of tires, the sickening crunch of metal, and then…silence.

I’d woken up in the hospital with a broken arm. Mama never woke up at all.

“Isabella?”

I looked up to find a man standing beside me. He was tall and broad-shouldered, with kind brown eyes and black hair that was starting to gray at the temples. He wore a simple black suit and held a folded piece of paper in his hands.

“I’m Asher,” he said gently. “Your mother…she asked me to give this to you a long time ago, in case anything ever happened to her.”

My hands trembled as I took the letter, recognizing Mama’s handwriting immediately. I started reading.

My darling Isa,

If you’re reading this, I’m gone. I’m so sorry, baby. I’m sorry I couldn’t stay longer. I’m sorry I can’t be there to watch you grow up.

The man who gave you this letter is Asher Ravencrest. I trust him with my life, and more importantly, with yours. He’s been watching over us from afar for years—protecting us in ways you don’t understand yet. He’s the only person in this world I know who will keep you safe.

I know this is frightening. But trust him, Isa. Trust him the way I did.

I love you. Always.

Mama.

I read it twice before looking up at this stranger who was apparently supposed to replace my mother.

“I know this is frightening,” he said, kneeling so we were eye level. “But I made your mother a promise years ago. I will keep you safe. Always.”

I didn’t understand any of it. Why had Mama known this man? Why had he been watching over us? Who was he really?

But something about him had felt…right. Safe.

So, I nodded and let him take my hand, let him care for me.

But barely three months later, his sickness began, and now it had gotten to a terrible stage where even the doctors couldn’t do anything about it.

That was why he had brought me here. To Ravencrest mansion.

Because soon, he was going to die, and I was going to be all alone in the world.

Uncle Asher wasn’t my real father. My real father was probably out there somewhere—who knows?

Mama had never bothered to reach out or look for him.

When I asked, she said he was a deadbeat, someone she’d been with for just one night.

“It wasn’t supposed to lead to anything,” she always said, “but it brought you into this world, and I’ll never regret that. ”

“Isabella?” Uncle Asher called, pulling me out of my thoughts.

He’d come out of the living room and was standing beside me.

The dark-haired boy was beside him, his expression carved from stone.

Our eyes met as he walked out. The noise of the house—the shuffling feet, the whispering staff—faded into nothing.

I couldn’t read his expression, but one thing was certain: his gaze held me there, caught between wanting to look away and not being able to.

“This is Dimitri. My son,” Uncle Asher said. “You’re going to stay here with Dimitri and Maia.”

“What?” Panic clawed up my throat as I stood. “No. No, I want to stay with you—”

“I can’t, Isa. I’m sick. Too sick to take care of you the way you deserve.”

“I don’t care!” Tears spilled down my cheeks. “I’ll take care of you—”

“Isabella.” His voice broke on my name, and suddenly, there were tears in his eyes, too. “I’m dying.”

The world stopped spinning.

“You’ll be safe here,” he continued, his voice raw with emotion. “Dimitri has promised to look after you. To protect you.”

I looked up at the cold, beautiful boy who watched us with shuttered eyes. He didn’t look like someone who wanted to protect me. He looked like someone who resented my very existence.

Then Uncle Asher reached for Dimitri’s hand, his grip strong despite the faint tremor in his fingers.

He took my own fingers and laced them around Dimitri’s.

My hands were small in his grip. His skin was warm, his touch firm but fleeting—like he wanted to make it clear he didn’t want the contact to last. Yet beneath the deliberate brevity, an involuntary spark leaped between our palms, a low thrum that raced up my arm and lodged behind my ribs, unfamiliar and electric.

And I saw his brows drew together in a sharp, puzzled frown.

Hesitation flickered across his face like a shadow, then twisted into something darker—disgust, raw and unguarded—before he smoothed it away.

“Dimitri is going to be your stepbrother. He’s going to protect you.” Then, Uncle Asher turned to Dimitri.

“Promise me, son,” Uncle Asher said quietly, turning to Dimitri. “Treat her as you would a sister.”

It’s like he wanted me to hear Dimitri promise. Like that would give me reassurance.

Dimitri’s jaw tightened. For a long moment, he didn’t speak. Then, finally, he nodded.

“Yes, Father,” he said. But the words felt wrong.

When his gaze flicked to me, there was no kindness in it.

But Uncle Asher believed in him.

And I believed in Uncle Asher.

So, I nodded, even as my heart splintered into a thousand pieces.

Three weeks sped by like the days had wings. I was huddled outside Uncle Asher’s bedroom door, listening to the ragged sound of his breathing.

He was dying. Everyone said it. Ever since the start of the week, he hadn’t been able to get out of bed, and they said it was only a matter of time.

I pressed my ear to the crack in the door.

“Promise me.” Uncle Asher’s voice was weak, barely a rasp. “Promise me you’ll protect her, son. She’s innocent in all this. Don’t let her suffer for my sins.”

A long silence. Then Dimitri’s voice, low and reluctant. “I promise.”

“Swear it.” Each word seemed to cost him. “On the pack. On your honor as the future Alpha of Garnia Pack.”

“I swear,” Dimitri said, stronger now. “I will look after her. Protect her. You have my word.”

“Thank you.” Uncle Asher’s relief was palpable. “Thank you, my boy. I know I don’t deserve your mercy, but—”

“Rest, Father. Save your strength.”

“There’s no strength left to save.” He coughed, the sound wet and rattling. “Now I can leave this world knowing I can count on you, and on your promise.”

There was a long pause between them, and when Dimitri spoke again, his voice was curious and ragged with hurt. It was the kind of hurt that made my heart sink, because it was my mother who had caused it.

He asked, “Why, Father? Why her? You had a Mate, a family. Yet you left us for a woman who isn’t even one of us. Was it worth it?”

I could hear the smile in Uncle Asher’s voice—the same soft one he always wore whenever he talked about Mama.

“One day, you’ll understand,” he said. “One day you’ll know what it means to love completely. And when you do, you’ll understand why I cherished it…why I chased it, even to the ends of the earth.”

Then I heard it: the long, final exhale and the terrible silence that followed.

“Father?” Dimitri’s voice cracked, all his cold composure shattering.

But there was no answer.

There would never be an answer again.

And in that moment, I felt loneliness creep in.

My knees buckled, and I slid down the wall until I sat on the cold floorboards, arms wrapped tight around my ribs as if I could hold the breaking pieces together.

The tears came silently at first, then in choking, soundless sobs that shook my whole frame.

Each breath dragged in the scent of medicinal herbs and the faint cedar smell of Uncle Asher’s cologne.

The grief came in waves—Mama’s laugh echoing in a kitchen that no longer existed, Uncle Asher’s hand ruffling my hair the night he taught me to read the stars. Gone. Both gone.

I’d lost my mother and the man who cared for me like a father would. Now I was left in the care of his ex-wife and son, who all but hated me.