After I Married into the Vampire Court, My Alpha Foster Brother Went Mad with Regret

On the night I gave up confessing to Cyrus, I lit the first cigarette of my life.

It was a rough thing, grass leaves rolled into a cylinder, bitter and sharp on the throat. It made my eyes water. I crouched at the window of the highest level of the stone fortress, blaming the smoke for every tear.

My name is Aelia. Foster sister to an alpha. A girl who had fallen hopelessly in love with her own foster brother.

My story, I suppose, begins six years ago.

In the autumn of my twelfth year, a sudden inter-clan raid burned my home to the ground.

My father had been a guard at the Silver Moon Clan's outermost watchtower; my mother, a weaver who made hide clothing for the clan. That night, the wolf pack of the neighboring Black Fang Clan crossed the border river. Flames swallowed three of the outer settlements. My father died beneath a collapsing watchtower. When they found my mother's body, her arms were still frozen in the position of pushing me into the cellar.

It was the then-Alpha — Cyrus's father, the old Alpha Graysen — who personally dug me out of the rubble with his own hands. He carried me, covered in ash, back to the main fortress, and said to Cyrus: "This child is your little sister from this day forward."

Fourteen-year-old Cyrus crouched down in front of me, unclasped his own hide cloak, and wrapped it around my shoulders. "Aelia, don't be afraid. From now on, I'll take care of you."

That cloak smelled faintly of blood and pine smoke.

From that day on, Cyrus became my only anchor in the world.

Less than a year after my father died, old Alpha Graysen was also killed in an ambush. Cyrus was fifteen and not yet of age — he couldn't formally take the seat. A regent council of his uncles and elder clansmen took temporary control of clan affairs.

Everyone watched the fifteen-year-old boy, waiting to see how quickly he'd be devoured. Those uncles sat at the stone table in the Elder Council Hall, tearing at venison, their eyes circling him like hyenas.

They thought a child couldn't last long.

They were wrong.

Cyrus endured for three years. From fifteen to eighteen, he worked in the shadows, reclaiming hunting grounds and salt mines that had been seized by his uncles one by one, drawing back the loyal warriors from his father's old guard.

On the night of his coming-of-age ceremony at eighteen, a full moon hung over the peak of Crestfang Mountain. Before every elder present, he completed his first full shift — a massive silver-white wolf, far larger than any common wolf, the moonlight running across his fur like liquid silver. Every elder in attendance dropped to their knees.

He was formally recognized as the Alpha.

I sat on the stone steps at the edge of the ceremonial altar, watching his silhouette from a distance in the moonlight. Whether in human form or wolf form, the sight of him standing there made my heart pound.

I was the Alpha's foster sister. My purpose was simple: live quietly, cause no trouble.

But I couldn't control my heart.

I couldn't remember which exact moment it had started. Maybe it was when he stood before the bonfire for the first time as the new Alpha, and spoke to the clan.

Maybe it was earlier. Maybe it was all those times he protected me.

The inside of his left arm carried an old scar — running from the crook of his elbow to the midpoint of his forearm, left there when he was fourteen.

That year, I had been taken by rogue wolves. Three wolves who had broken from their pack dragged me deep into a mountain valley, into an abandoned mine shaft. Cyrus came in alone after them.

His eyes were terrifying. I knew he was furious.

When he grabbed my hand and ran, the largest of the rogue wolves lunged. Its claws came for my throat. He blocked with his left arm.

Blood dripped a trail all the way out.

I sobbed so hard I could barely breathe. He carried me on his back through the mouth of the mine, gritting his teeth, saying over and over: "It doesn't hurt. Stop crying."

That scar never faded. Whenever anyone asked about it, he'd tug his sleeve down and say it was an old wound, that he couldn't feel it anymore.

I knew he was lying. When the cold came, he'd unconsciously grip his left arm with his right hand, a barely-there crease appearing between his brows.

How could I have missed something like that?

Once, when I cried again over what had happened, Cyrus pressed a kiss to my forehead and carefully wiped away my tears. "My little wolf, stop crying over the past. None of it was your fault."

The feelings I harbored for him grew quietly. But I never dared to cross the line.

He was my family. I didn't want to lose him.

There was one thing I could never understand.

By the time I was eighteen, girls my age were excitedly talking about feeling the pull of their destined mates.

I felt nothing.

The clan healer, Elder Erma, brewed me a tonic every month — a thick, dark brown liquid with a bitter, herbal smell. I'd grimace and force it down every time. She told me my constitution was unusual, that I'd been fragile since childhood and needed long-term care.

"Elder Erma, why can't I sense my destined mate? Am I really a Null Wolf?"

She turned her gaze away and took the empty bowl. "Everyone's timing is different. Don't rush."

I believed her.

Many years later, I would learn the secret hidden in that tonic. But by then, it would already be too late.

Then one night.

I got up for water, and as I passed Cyrus's bedroom, the hide curtain over the door hadn't been pulled fully shut — it left a narrow gap.

And then I heard it.

His muffled, ragged breathing. The faint sound of hide blankets clenched in a fist. And a name — bitten off and spat out again and again, over and over—

"Aelia… Aelia…"

It took my brain a full ten seconds to process what was happening.

Heat flooded my face all at once. I spun on my heel and fled back to my own room, shut the door, and sank to the floor with my back against the cold stone wall.

Cyrus. The Alpha before whom every soul in the Silver Moon Clan bowed. Moaning my name in the dark of the night.

Now I knew. He was the same as me.