Bullied By My Alpha Stepbrother

Chapter 54

Hardin’s POVContent rights belong to NôvelDrama.Org.

“You look like you could use some sleep.” Alex said when I entered the boy’s locker room to change for our evening practice and I merely grunted, too exhausted to answer.

My father had traveled out of the pack for a meeting that was going to last for one week and had automatically made me interim head, whether or not I was willing to accept the role.

I had almost been moved to ask him to make his Beta interim head instead but when he had spoken, I had known that this was a test. He wanted me to prove to him that I was capable of being a leader and a part of me wondered what would happen if I failed to keep things in order by the time he returned.

“Being Alpha looks like it sucks, bro.” Sandro quipped and even though I agreed, I didn’t answer. I was born to lead. There was never any doubt that I would one day come into power. And with the way the elders and my father were insistent on me finding a mate, I knew that I had to step up my game. It was now or never.

Heading to the field, I realized that I hadn’t seen Jasmine in school. Did she not come to school today?

I had been so busy these past few days that I had hardly seen her. I was sure she would like that my bothersome ass had been too busy to look for her.

There was still the issue of finding who had tried to kidnap her and even though we had not heard any news yet, I knew that we were not in the clear. In fact, it felt like this was the calm before the storm. Because we still did not know the perpetrators. And we had to continue to live knowing that they were still out there, probably waiting for another opportunity to strike.

Sending a text to one of the pack guards to help me make sure that she was in the house, I pocketed my phone and reminded myself that I was not doing this because I cared for her, but because she was my father’s stepdaughter and like everything else and everyone else that he had left under my care, she was mine to protect.

I ignored the voice that whispered that I was lying to myself about my motives and by the end of practice, I felt like I was hit by a truck.

Dragging myself to the house, I groaned when my phone pinged, a reminder that I was supposed to make a call to the neighbouring pack and wrap up the conversation that the Alpha was having with my father. Heading to the bathroom first, I walked into my father’s study and sat in his chair, reaching for his business phone that I had dropped here before leaving for school this morning.

It was not lost on me that in a couple of years, I would no longer be running these errands for my father but it would be my full responsibility.

The call was brief and straight to the point and I sighed in relief as I closed the door to my father’s office, about to head down the stairs to find something to eat when I heard cries down the hall.

That voice was unmistakably Jasmine’s and before I could think about it, I was moving towards the sound and it led me into Camila’s bedroom, the one that also doubled as an office for her books that she had separately from my father because she didn’t like staying alone in their shared room.

When I entered the room, I paused at the door, the scene before me pulling at the heartstrings that I thought had died a long time ago.

Because Jasmine was weeping as she held her mother’s hand.

Camilla was laying on the bed, her eyes closed and trembling. And as I walked into the room, Jasmine finally turned her attention towards me, her eyes red and swollen from probably crying her eyes out.

The pack doctor was attending to Camila and when he finally noticed me, he stopped briefly to bow in greeting before he continued.

“What is going on? Why didn’t you call me?” I asked Jasmine and even though my voice didn’t mean to be harsh, it came out like that but Jasmine was probably too tired to react to that.

“I sent you a message.” She whispered and when I brought out my phone, I realized that she had indeed sent me a message.

Moving closer to the bed, I looked at the doctor.

“What is wrong with her?”

“Right now, we cannot say but I am trying to break her fever and then we will take her to the clinic to run some tests.” He answered and I was about to ask how long it was going to take for that to happen when my eyes landed on something that made me freeze.

There were red bumps all over her skin and I had seen those bumps before so I was not mistaken about it.

It couldn’t be. Could it?

“What is it?” Jasmine asked when she noticed how wide my eyes were and I shook my head, taking her hand and leading her outside the room.

“Allow him to do his job. I want to ask you something.” I said when she tried to withdraw her hand.

Outside the door, I fought the urge to panic but it was hard not to allow the dark memories to drag me down. It was hard to see those red bumps and not remember my mother.

Because they were the same identical bumps I had seen on my mother once.

“Tell me everything that happened.” I asked Jasmine and she opened her mouth to speak, her hands shaking and more tears trickling down her cheeks but nothing came out.

She held her chest and I realized that she was having a panic attack.

It was so sad because it felt like deja vu. Like I was watching what had happened to me repeat itself again in slow motion but to someone else.

Grabbing her face, I forced her to maintain eye contact with me.

“Breathe, Jasmine. Breathe!” I ordered and I watched as she took one shaky breath after the other until she stopped gasping for air.

Leading her to the chair in the hallway, I sat beside her and held her hand. I was an asshole but I completely understood what she was going through now and knew that I needed to try to be nice.

“She was fine last night. And just this morning, as I was about to go to school, I followed her to the kitchen because she wanted to pack lunch for us and she suddenly collapsed. She woke up some minutes later and said she was fine, that it was just exhaustion but I couldn’t go to school because I was worried. Just an hour ago, she started to feel feverish and by the time I called the doctors, she was like that. Like the way you saw her.”

I hated how my heart tightened in horror because I remembered vividly how my mother had died. And what led to it was still fresh in my mind. Those red bumps especially were too identical to my mother’s to just be coincidence.

“Have you called my father yet?”

“No. I wanted to wait for you. The pack doctor said the same.”

Because my father’s instruction was that I was Alpha and that I had the final say on everything until he returned.

“You did good, Jasmine. Calling the pack doctor was smart. We will make sure that she’s okay.”

“I can’t lose her, Hardin. I won’t survive it. I can’t” She whispered, sobbing again and I hugged her, caressing her hair softly because no one deserved this. No one deserved to lose a loved one.

Remembering that there was something I could do about it, I pulled back and cleaned Jasmine’s face.

“Listen to me, Jasmine. I’ve seen this case before and there is a herb that can help provide her with relief but I have to go to the forest to get it.” I refrained from telling her that it was my mother for two reasons. One, I wasn’t ready to talk about my mother’s illness or her passing. Secondly, I didn’t want Jasmine to panic and think her mother would not survive because even though a part of me still hated them for having the happily ever after that my mother never got, I didn’t want Camila to die.

“What about your father? Will you call him?” She asked and I nodded.

But I would do it after I had come back from the forest. There was no point worrying him when she wasn’t even stable. I could help and I wanted to.

But if there was one thing that I had gathered from all of this, it was that my mother had not died a natural death like I thought she had and whoever had been responsible for her death was also responsible for what was happening to Camila.