Mated To My Alpha Stepbrother (A Sunwoo ff) ✓

Chapter Forty-Eight

˚₊໒🌙꒱Sunwoo₊˚

Her voice when she noticed her father stabbed Sunwoo in the heart.

It sounded like a little girl, one that felt abandoned, and was suddenly saved. The hope in her voice shattered Sunwoo's body.

Because he didn't trust the an sitting on his knees, trying to get to his mate. Sunwoo used his better judgment and motioned for the wolves to let her father up from the ground.

His spine stiffened as she raced over toward him, and fell into his arms.

Sunwoo hated how jealous his wolf was of the man that helped make his mate. It wasn't the father, daughter relationship that made him on edge, it was that he was a part of this group of rogues that was out to get him and his pack-mates.

Jacob glanced over his shoulder at Sunwoo and gave him a look. Sunwoo cleared his throat at the same time that Jihyo stood up and slapped her father across the face.

On instinct, Sunwoo launched forward and hauled her away from her father, who looked shocked as hell to have gotten a slap to the face from his daughter.

"You bastard!" she shouted. "I can't believe you've been alive this entire time. I've cried, I've hurt so deeply and you've been alive, hiding from me. From us. Your mate is marrying someone else! Do you even care?"

Her father stood up, keeping an eye on the wolves surrounding him. "Baby girl, it's bigger than you think it is."

Jihyo turned her head away from her father and into Sunwoo's shoulder. "Does Mom know?"

He slowly shook his head. "No."

"That's just great," she said, wiping her nose with her hand. "Now she can be dragged around like a ragdoll between her mate and her new man."

"We need to talk alone, Jihyo."

Sunwoo laughed. "You think I'm going to let her speak to you alone? You're a part of the group of rogues that is trying to take over my pack. Whatever you need to say to her, can be said in front of me."

Her father's gaze moved from Jihyo to Sunwoo and then skated down to the mark on his neck. "You've found your mate, Baby Girl? And we thought you didn't have one."

Jihyo didn;t turn around to face him, she kept her quivering body tucked into Sunwoo's arm. "Take him to the cells─actually no, don't. I don't want him with the other rogues. Take him to the conference room and keep him there until I get everything settled."

Sunwoo ushered Jihyo along toward the pack house. She was silently crying the entire way. Sunwoo's wolf was stuck in a whirlwind of emotion. Feeling Jihyo's heartache felt like drowning in sorrow.

They made it to their room, and Sunwoo swooped her up. She rested her head against his shoulder. "Are you okay?" he asked. "Is that a stupid question?"

"A little," she laughed. "I'm just shocked and hurt. I can't believe he's been alive all this time. Why? Why fake a death? I don't get it."

Sunwoo stroked his fingers into her hair. "I don't know either. Do you think he will talk to you honestly with me around?"

"He has no choice," she said, lifting up to look at him.

"Do you think he had something to do with the rogues?"

Jihyo pressed her mouth into a thin line. "I don't know what to think about him anymore Sunwoo. To be honest, he is a stranger. A rogue that pretended with me. Did he even love me? I don't know anymore."

"I could see on his face that he loves you, Jihyo."

"We need to tell my mother."

Sunwoo cringed. "I'm not sure how soon to bring her into this. My dad loves your mom, they are planning a life together, and then her mate just comes back into the picture."

"She'll eventually find out that he is here. She'll smell him. He said that she didn't know he was alive. Wouldn't she have felt if he died?"

Sunwoo hadn't thought about that. At all. "I'm not sure. I don't know of anyone that lost their mate. Maybe his absence hurt her, and she just thought he was dead?"

Jihyo shrugged. "It's all suspicious to me."

Sunwoo stood up and offered her his hand. "Are you okay enough to speak with your father, or do you want to wait until tomorrow─,"

She scoffed. "I wouldn't be able to sleep tonight if I didn't talk to him."

Sunwoo and Jihyo walked down toward the conference room where several wolves guarded her father. She had his hair and eyes. Oddly enough, she did look like him.

Though there was something in his eyes that didn't match Jihyo.

Experience? Wisdom? Something dark? Something... up to no good. Either way, it hadn't been passed down to Jihyo.

The wolves scattered outside of the room when Sunwoo gestured them out. Jihyo pulled a chair up several feet in front of her father and sat. Sunwoo stood a respectable distance from them and glared at him.

"You mated with an alpha," he said with a smile. "I'm glad it's someone that will take care of you."

"Like you did?" she asked, and Sunwoo could tell it was another slap to the face. "Sunwoo would never pretend to die, and abandon me."

He nodded. "No, he wouldn't."

Jihyo pressed her lips together tightly. "I want to know what the hell is going on, Dad."

He slid a palm down his face and sighed heavily. "I did pretend I died, Jihyo. I was afraid. I was trying to get out of the pack of rogues I was affiliated with. But I couldn't just leave. You don't just leave, because you know too much. So, I pretended to die in the war. I was afraid if I tried to leave that they would hurt you or your mother."

His gaze lowered to Jihyo's neck. "You still wear the necklace."

"Why did you come back?" she asked. "And here of all places?"

He cleared his throat. "Because I found out they were coming for this pack."

"How did you know we were here?"

Her dad leaned forward and braced his elbows on his knees. "Because I heard them talking about you. How many Jihyo's do you know? I had to make sure. I had to come and see for myself. I had to come and save you."

Sunwoo wanted to call him out on it. He wanted to reach over, grab his t-shirt, and pull him across the floor. Sunwoo didn't know the man from Adam, and apparently, neither did Jihyo.

"How do I believe you when you've been lying to me all this time, Dad?"

"I'll have to gain your trust," he whispered. "We don't have much time before they show up, but I will do whatever I need to gain your trust."

Jihyo became quiet and Sunwoo cleared his throat. "I'm having a room made for you. It will be guarded, from the outside and inside, but I won't put you in the cells... yet."

He nodded at Sunwoo when the conference room doors swung open, and Mrs. Lee stormed into the room.

"You bastard!" she shouted.