Desired By My Alpha Stepfather

A dance

Nina's POV

Knock!

Knock!

Knock!

The insistent rapping on the door was a jarring intrusion into the silence that had settled over the house.

Mom's words still echoed in my head. I dragged myself off the threadbare sofa, feeling like I was wading through mud. Reaching the door, I braced myself for another verbal assault, another jab from Mom.

Instead, a dazzling smile met my gaze.

A woman stood on the doorstep, her skin the rich color of dark chocolate, her eyes sparkling with a mischievous glint. Her hair, a riot of cascading black curls, framed a face that could launch a thousand magazine covers.

"Nina? You must be Nina!" the woman exclaimed, her voice as warm and inviting as a rainstorm. "Vince raved about you. I'm Jasmine, his cousin."

I blinked, momentarily stunned by this unexpected visitor, that I didn't even take the time to process her words. Did she just say...?

Jasmine's charisma was a huge contrast to the emotional bomb Mom had just dropped. I felt a feeling of warmth in her prescence.

"Uh, hi Jasmine," I stammered, stepping aside to allow her entrance. "Come in."

Jasmine glided into the house. Her rich and infectious smile filled the room, pushing the shadows of Mom's words into the background.

"This place is...well, it has quite the character," Jasmine said, her gaze sweeping over the lavishly furnished living room. There was a hint of something in her voice I couldn't quite place.

I offered a weak smile. I stole a glance at Mom who had just made her way into the house. "Mom, this is Jasmine," I introduced, gesturing towards the visitor. 

A curt nod was Mom's only response.

Jasmine, however, seemed unfazed.  She approached Mom, her smile widening – but it didn't quite reach her eyes.  Something in her demeanor shifted, sending chills down my spine. 

"Sarah, I presume?" Jasmine inquired, her voice losing its earlier playful lilt.  

"Yes, that's me. We're delighted to have you here." Mom replied, a wide smile on her face.

Jasmine offered a tight smile, a mere ghost of her earlier enthusiasm. "Vince has told me so much about you," she said, her gaze lingering on Mom for a while longer than necessary. 

Instead of engaging, Jasmine strutted away abruptly. "Well, that's one way to put it," she said curtly.

"Come, have a seat, Jasmine. Can I offer you something to drink?" Mom said.

Silence.

Jasmine didn't respond. I guess Mom took that as a cue to get her anything, anything at all.

As Mom disappeared into the kitchen, I stole another glance at Jasmine. The woman's smile had vanished entirely, replaced by a guarded expression.  An awkward silence settled in the room, broken only by the distant clatter of ice cubes in a glass.

"So, Nina," Jasmine said finally, her voice regaining some of its earlier warmth, but it still didn't quite ring true.  The shift in Jasmine's demeanor towards Mom was a subtle but I still noticed it.  I couldn't help but wonder what lay behind it. Did they have a certain history that I was unaware of?

"Tell me all about yourself," Jasmine continued, leaning forward with a forced smile.  For a moment, I almost believed her, almost saw the genuine interest in her eyes.  But the memory of Jasmine's brief coldness towards Mom lingered.

I hesitated, unsure how to respond. 

Sensing my hesitation, Jasmine chuckled, a sound that lacked its earlier infectious quality.  "Don't worry, darling," she said, her voice dropping to a light whisper.  "Vince might play the responsible cousin card, but trust me, he has a few skeletons in his closet too.  We can be partners in crime, you and I."

I forced a smile for the sake of politeness.

Skeletons? Well, that seemed intruiging.

****

I shut Jasmine's door with a sigh, the cheerful floral wallpaper doing little to soothe the knot tightening in my stomach. Jasmine had been a torrent of questions for the past hour, a human Labrador puppy sniffing out every detail about her cousin's new stepdaughter. It was endearing, her eagerness to connect, but under the surface, a low-grade panic simmered.

"So, are you excited for tomorrow? Big plans for Vince's birthday?" Jasmine's bright and curious voice had pierced through my polite responses about my favorite color and least favorite school subject.

Pause.

Stefather's birthday?

My mind blanked for a moment, a record scratch screeching to a halt on my train of thought. My brow furrowed as I tried to remember.  "Birthday?" I stammered, the question tumbling out before I could filter it.

Jasmine's brow furrowed in return, a shade of confusion flickering in her bright eyes. "Yeah, your dad's birthday? Isn't it tomorrow?" It was a rhetorical question.

Dad? A bath of dread washed over me. Vince. His birthday. My mother had mentioned it the at the market, earlier today, squeezed between a backhanded compliment about me being a Nosey Parker and a scathing critique of my existence.

"Your stepfather's birthday's coming up soon, you know," she'd sneered, making "soon" sound like a vague threat rather than a date on the calendar. Apparently, "soon" meant tomorrow.

Just fantastic. How in the world was I supposed to face Vince after everything that had transpired? I'd been actively avoiding him since the whole mate-bond fiasco, employing a series of increasingly elaborate maneuvers to make sure our paths never crossed. Today, for instance, involved sprinting to the bathroom the moment I heard his car pull into the driveway, narrowly escaping a near-miss encounter that would have required more mental gymnastics than a Cirque du Soleil performer.

But birthdays have a way of felling carefully constructed walls of invisibility. Ignoring him would be a declaration of war, and facing him... well, facing him was a whole different kettle of fish entirely.

The whole concept of fated mates was a joke, right?

I buried my face in my pillow, muffling a groan. This couldn't be happening. Maybe, just maybe, I could fake a sudden illness. A convincing case of something serious... but Mom would probably see through it, accuse me of attention-seeking dramatics.

With a defeated sigh, I surrendered to reality. Avoiding him wouldn't solve anything. I had to face him, even if it felt like walking into a den of hungry lions armed with nothing but a shred of hope for a semblance of normalcy.

Taking a deep breath, I squared my shoulders. Nina, you can do this. It'll be awkward, yes, but you have to try. Besides, Jasmine seemed sweet, and you wouldn't want to make things weird between you on her first visit.

****

The insistent buzzing of my phone vibrated against my nightstand. It was such a rude awakening on what I'd hoped would be a blissful Saturday morning. It wasn't the phone itself that jolted me awake, but the caller ID flashing "Mom" in angry red letters.  With a groan, I fumbled for the receiver, already bracing myself for the verbal onslaught to come.

"Nina ! What in tarnation are you still doing in bed? Don't you know what day it is?" Her voice crackled with a fury.

"Saturday?" I mumbled, my voice groggy with sleep.

A humorless scoff came through the receiver. "Saturday? Don't play dumb with me, girl. It's Vince's birthday, and you haven't even started getting ready yet!"

Vince's birthday. The words hit me like a bucket of ice water, instantly banishing any lingering drowsiness. 

I scrambled out of bed for something, anything, birthday-worthy. But nothing seemed right. Everything felt either too casual, too dressy, or simply not good enough. 

Despair threatened to engulf me. Maybe I could fake an illness? A convincing case of the sudden, debilitating flu? My mother, however, had a sixth sense for detecting even the most elaborately constructed charades. She'd see through it in a heartbeat.

Just as I was about to give up and resign myself to a day of hiding under the covers, the door creaked open and Jasmine peeked in, her youthful face graced with a smile.

"Hey, everything okay? You look like you just saw a ghost."

I forced a smile, the gesture feeling brittle and unconvincing. "Just... getting ready for the, uh, party downstairs." The words tasted foreign on my tongue.

Jasmine's brow furrowed. "Party? But you're just in jeans and a t-shirt."

Heat crawled up my neck. "Yeah, well, I haven't found anything to wear yet," I mumbled, my voice barely above a whisper.

"Is it supposed to be a fancy dress party?" Confusion clouded Jasmine's usually bright eyes. "I thought it was just Vince's birthday?"

"It is," I croaked, feeling a wave of helplessness wash over me. All I wanted was to crawl back into bed and bury my head under a pillow.

"Then why don't you have anything?" Jasmine questioned.

Shame burned my cheeks. How could I explain the awkward situation, the sheer impossibility of finding an outfit that wouldn't scream "awkward" in a million different ways? 

Sensing my unspoken struggle, Jasmine surprised me by taking charge. "Come on," she said, her voice firm but gentle. "Let's see what you have. Maybe we can put something together."

A flicker of hope ignited within me. Jasmine seemed genuinely interested in helping. But even as she rummaged through my wardrobe, doubt gnawed at me.

"There's nothing here," She finally admitted, defeated.

Jasmine stopped, a thoughtful expression on her face. "Wait a minute. How about borrowing something of mine?"

I hesitated. The idea of wearing someone else's clothes felt... wrong.  As if sensing my reluctance, Jasmine added, "Come on, we're practically the same size. Besides, it's just a birthday party. It doesn't have to be a fashion show."

Her words held a truth I couldn't deny.  With a sigh, I agreed.

Ten dolled up minutes later, I stood before the mirror, adorned in a simple yet elegant dress borrowed from Jasmine's closet.

It did the trick.

It more than did the trick. It was a whole magic show.

I was elegantly adorned.

****

The closer I got to the hall, the more the air seemed to thicken, turning into a suffocating syrup that clung to my lungs.

Every creak of the floorboard, every murmur of conversation, echoed in my ears like a cymbal crash. My borrowed dress now felt like a gaudy costume under the harsh glare of reality.

"Hey, you okay?" Jasmine's voice cut through the fog of my anxiety. I forced a smile, but it felt more like a grimace.  "Yeah, just... nervous, I guess." Nervous was an understatement.  My stomach churned with a cocktail of emotions.

"It's alright to be nervous," Jasmine said, squeezing my arm reassuringly. "Birthdays can be stressful, especially big ones like this."

Big ones? This wasn't just any birthday party. It was a social minefield, a room full of people who had no idea about the tangled mess that was our family. My mother, who treated me like a stray cat that had overstayed its welcome, would be there, her judgmental gaze a constant thorn in my side. And then there was Vince, my stepfather – also, oh so inconveniently, my fated mate.

Just the thought of him sent a shiver down my spine. We hadn't spoken since the day I had asked him to reject me.

We reached the heavy oak doors to the hall. Jasmine took a deep breath, then pushed them open with a flourish. It was like stepping into a scene from a dream, one that quickly turned into a nightmare.

The room was a bash of sound and light – balloons bobbed like colorful jellyfish, streamers snaked across the ceiling, and the combined chatter of dozens of people filled the air.  All eyes turned towards us as we entered, the silence that followed the door's creak even more deafening.

My cheeks burned under the scrutiny. I felt like a bug pinned under a magnifying glass, every imperfection magnified a thousandfold.  Then, my gaze met Vince's. It was like being struck by lightning. His eyes were clouded with a darkness I didn't recognize.  A shiver ran down my spine, a wave of unwelcome warmth pooling in my lower stomach. My inner wolf growled.

This was wrong.  He was my stepfather, for crying out loud! I had to remind myself, to build a wall of logic around the forbidden attraction I felt. But logic seemed to have taken a vacation, leaving me adrift in a sea of confusing emotions.

I drifted from conversation to conversation, offering polite smiles and shallow answers. Food tasted like cardboard in my mouth, and every stolen glance towards Vince sent a jolt through my system.  He remained distant, his interactions limited to polite hellos and curt replies.

The only bright spot in the evening was Jasmine. Her easygoing nature and genuine smile offered a much-needed distraction. As the night wore on, I felt a sliver of normalcy returning.  Perhaps, I thought, I could get through this whole fated-mate thing without imploding or starting a fire.

Just then, the lights dimmed and the music changed to a slow, romantic ballad.  A hush fell over the crowd as Vince stepped into the center of the room, a microphone clutched in his hand.

My heart hammered against my ribs, my hands growing clammy. What was he going to say?  Was he going to announce something... about us?  Panic clawed at my throat, threatening to choke me. 

Taking a deep breath, I forced my gaze towards him.  His eyes met mine.  And suddenly, the birthday cake and the decorations seemed to fade away, leaving only Vince and me.

My knees felt like jelly as Vince took center stage, the microphone casting a harsh spotlight on his broad frame. The room had fallen into an expectant hush, the murmur of conversation replaced by a collective indrawn breath. My heart slammed against my ribs.

What was he going to say? Was he going to announce something, anything about the mess that was our secret? My wolf whimpered inside me. A single word, a single misstep, and our house of cards would come tumbling down. In this social hierarchy, I, the Omega, wouldn't stand a chance against him, the Alpha. The blame would fall on me. I would make such a convenient scapegoat for his transgression.

But then, something unexpected happened. Vince's gaze swept the room, finally landing on my mother. A slow smile spread across his face. Relief flooded my system pushing back the churning anxiety.

"There are many important people here tonight," he began, his voice warm and rich, "friends, family, all of whom have played a role in shaping who I am today. But there's one person, someone truly special, who deserves a little extra recognition."

My mother preened under the attention, a self-satisfied smirk twisting her lips. Of course, she thought it was about her. Classic Mom.

"For years," Vince continued, his voice dropping to a husky timbre that sent shivers down my spine despite myself, "I felt incomplete, like a puzzle with a missing piece. Then, she came into my life and filled that void."

My breath hitched. He wasn't talking about Mom? Who –

"I'd like to ask the love of my life, the woman who made me whole again," Vince's gaze finally landed on me, "to have the first dance with me."


Thee room exhaled a collective sigh. My own confusion warred with a flicker of relief. He wasn't asking me to dance in public. But the way he'd looked at me, shook me.