My Brother My Mate

A Burning Challenge

Mariam's POV

What the hell was happening!

Anthony was back to being the same jerk as always and had just tripped one of the kids from the chess and math club.

Anger took over every fiber of my being.

How was I going to assure the kids going to the party that the bullies wouldn’t bother them if they were being harassed right here in the school cafeteria?

And why was Anthony doing this right after he had... locked me in the empty classroom?

And now he was with that... who was she and why was she with Anthony, sitting next to him, laughing at what he had just done?

What the hell was happening!

I stood up and looked at Anthony like I had never done before, in all the nine years we had known each other, since the orphanage.

He felt my gaze, thick and cold, so full of anger, that he was forced to turn around.

I knew it then.

We were sharing some kind of bond, but... why?

"Anthony, what are you doing!" I shouted, drawing everyone's attention around me. Suddenly, a hundred eyes were watching me. I never would have believed I was capable of something like this, but something was changing... in me.

He stood up and confronted me with his gaze. It was hard, but not as hard as mine, and he gave in, although he kept his eyes on mine.

"Don't get involved in this... nerd." He said it. The miserable bastard said it. He called me 'nerd' after we... had been alone in that classroom.

He was a miserable jerk, incapable of changing.

I had to convince myself of that.

"You’re the one who shouldn’t mess with my friends," I exclaimed, feeling the anger coursing through my body.

Before I could say anything else, the murmurs reached my ears.

"They're the St. Claire siblings..."

"Are they fighting? Really?"

"Wait, she's the nerd and he's the popular one? They don't look like siblings..."

Anthony was as tense as I was. Our gazes fixed, heated, full of anger. He felt confronted and had to preserve his dignity. He couldn’t lose this battle or, from now on, he’d be the laughing stock, but I wasn’t willing to give in. I also had an image to protect, that of the protector of the 'nerds', my friends, those who had trusted me to attend my birthday party safely that afternoon.

"Don't let it happen again," I warned before the silence between us became unbearable.

"What will you do if it happens again, nerd?" Anthony said.

It was an open challenge.

And the worst part...

Public.

I started to get nervous. It never would have occurred to me to confront Anthony in this way. He was my terror, the boy I avoided in the hallways, took a long detour through the orphanage garden, or spent hours hiding in a bathroom, waiting for him to leave. I had never thought of confronting him; for me, the only possibility was to avoid him, to evade him, to flee from him, but everything had changed, suddenly, since I started feeling so attracted to him... and him to me, because the feeling wasn’t one-sided.

It was mutual.

I knew it.

And it was to that feeling, or rather, the bond that had begun to form as a consequence of that feeling, that I turned to in that moment of desperation.

I looked into his eyes, buried my gaze in his, pierced them with the hope of feeling something, of perceiving anything, whatever, just as I had been aware of his gaze in Spanish class; then I knew.

I looked towards the backpack next to him and confirmed it.

He had been accepted onto the football team and was proud of it, forgetting that he got in because of the trick I had proposed.

And now he was challenging me.

How miserable he was.

Well then, he would pay in kind.

Still with my eyes buried in his, which were watching me without even blinking, I let him know, through that same mental bond we had begun to form without yet having our wolves, that if he didn’t retract at that moment, I would let everyone know how he got onto the football team.

It worked!

I saw how, in those few seconds when I tested my mental bond, his face contorted into something very similar to fear. It was also the first time I had seen Anthony scared.

But my joy didn't last long.

Immediately, Anthony lunged at me, covering the nine feet between us in a second and, with his massive body, pushed me, grabbed me by the arm, and dragged me out of the cafeteria in two more seconds.

I was terrified.

Had I pushed the rope too far?

Had I overstepped with him?

What had I done?

Now he would take revenge, I was sure of it.

I had just hurt his pride in front of the whole school.

He wouldn't forgive me.

“What the hell was that!” he asked after cornering me against a wall in the hallway, which was empty at that moment. “You, threatening me?”

Though he whispered, his voice was firm and authoritative.

I was terrified, surprised, and at the same time horrified by what I had done.

“I…” I stammered, barely managing to control my breathing.

Anthony was going to finish me off.

“You are my slave, you’re the one who will do my homework for the rest of the year, you’re the one who obeys me, do you understand? If I was going to be more compassionate with you, now you’ve convinced me otherwise, do you get that?”

My heart was shrunken and I nodded to everything he said, praying only for that terrifying moment to pass as quickly as possible and that Anthony wouldn’t get more creative. For what I had just done, he would surely tear my skirt, plant gum in the middle of my head, or scratch my glasses’ lenses with permanent marker, as he had done once before.

I was about to beg for forgiveness when I realized something.

It was a spark, a very slight one, but enough and, again, provoked by that bond that had formed between us.

I knew that Anthony was beginning to feel sorry for me, but not pity, no, it was more like a feeling of regret and wanting to take me in his arms, put my head against his chest, and beg me for forgiveness for what he was doing to me.

He was… feeling compassion for me.

I read his feelings as if they were an illustrated book.

I looked up and saw that his eyes were glossy.

It hurt him immensely what he was doing to me and he wouldn’t dare to hurt me more, not even to threaten me with it.

But it wasn’t just that…

His body, pressed against mine, was beginning to get excited.

“Kiss me, Anthony. Please. I want you to kiss me.”

We were in the middle of the school hallway, exposed to anyone who might pass by at that moment.

We were supposed to be siblings, twins, biological children of the same parents, born on the same day and the same year, the offspring of the Alpha couple that ruled the Green Valley pack.

And yet, we kissed.

Had anyone seen us?