Claimed And Marked By Her Stepbrother Mates - Chapter 487

Chapter 487: 487-Want Her Dead
Emmet:

“Maximus—,” I ran after him as he rushed into the woods. I couldn’t watch him look so sad and angry with me. I loved my baby brothers so much.

“No! You will stay away from me from now on. I’m done begging for your love and care. You’ve shown again and again that you don’t care about me,” he yelled, turning around to show me his teary eyes.

Seeing the tears in his eyes felt like walking on fire. The heat rushed from my feet to my head.

I would do anything to make him feel better. But what could I do? I was in love with Helanie—the only person I could love after losing my first love.

Helanie came into my life and became so important that the thought of losing her makes me want to stop living. And she loves me back.

If it were someone else, I might have left her for my brother. But it’s Helanie, and her love is meant for me. I can’t treat her like an object and leave her for my brother as if her own will doesn’t matter.

“You say you care about me—do you really?” Maximus yelled, the strong wind blowing his tears away.

“I do,” I said, trying to reach him, but he kept stepping back.

“Then reject her—leave her,” his words made me freeze and take a step back.

“What happened? You don’t want to prove your love to me? The minute I ask you to give something up, you’re scared?” Maximus yelled, stepping even further away.

“That’s not fair,” Norman’s voice cut into our stare-down.

“You don’t know what he has done for you,” he snapped at Maximus, who shook his head in disapproval.

“Of course you’d say that. That’s what you always do. You try so hard to make us like each other, to make us care about each other, when there’s no real love or care between us,” Maximus scoffed at Norman, waving his hand at him.

“This time I’ll tell you what you should’ve known from the beginning.”

As Norman stood beside me, I turned to him, gave Maximus my back, and shook my head at Norman, silently asking him not to tell him.

“Why? Why don’t you want to tell him? Why let him hate you when it hurts you so much?” Norman yelled at me, raising his voice past his usual level with me for the first time.

“What is it that you have to tell me?” Maximus asked, but there was bitterness in his tone.

“Something you should have known a long time ago,” Norman continued, even as I kept pushing him away, trying to take him with me.

“Let’s go,” I insisted, grabbing his arm, but he shrugged me off. I saw Kaye arriving, his eyes showing he could sense some drama unfolding.

“Tell me,” Maximus shouted.

In a brief moment of weakness, Norman said it all.

“Where do you think you were getting the blood from all those years? How do you think your strong and powerful brother kept ending up passed out in the hallway? You think it was just the alcohol?”

When silence fell, I slowly turned to look at Maximus. Norman shouldn’t have said anything. Maximus almost lost his balance, but Kaye rushed to hold him up.

“It’s true. While we were busy taking care of Maximus, there was one person who let you bite him and drink his blood—he never even stopped you. So no, he wasn’t passed out drunk when you needed him. He was there for you, and he passed out because you were drunk on his blood,” Norman continued.

The look on my little brothers’ faces scared me.

That look of guilt—something I hated seeing on them—was there.

“Why didn’t you tell us?” Kaye whispered, big tears rolling down his cheeks.

“You—,” Maximus reached out and gently pushed Kaye aside, struggling to stay on his feet.

“Why didn’t you—why didn’t you tell me? Do you know how small that makes me feel?” Maximus sniffled, tearing up instantly before he ran into my arms. He held onto me like a child would cling to his mother.

“You’re a bad brother, why would you do that?” he cried, stomping like a kid.

“Why?” Kaye asked the same question as he stepped forward and wrapped his long arms around us, pulling us into a group hug.

“Because it’s happening to me,” I muttered, and the two of them broke the hug. “I’m forgetting things. And having episodes now.”

“What?” Norman grabbed my arm to turn me around. “How bad is it?”

I knew he was upset because I had told him it wasn’t that serious.

“I even forgot about Helanie for a while,” I admitted. I guess that was enough for them to know it was pretty bad.

“What about us?” Maximus asked in a soft, careful voice.

“I haven’t forgotten you guys much—mostly because you’re always around me. But I’m scared… I’m losing my mind. I’m turning into something else—a creature, an animal,” I continued, watching their concerned faces. This was what I had avoided admitting for so long.

“There should be something we can do, right?” Maximus asked Norman, who sighed, looked down, and tried hard to think of a way to stop it.

“It’s a curse,” I reminded them.

“And every curse can be broken,” Norman reminded me, looking hopeful again—until Kaye spoke up.

“I… I think I’m losing my mind too.”

We all stared at him in confusion.

“I—umm—it’s strange because I never really thought about what my curse might be… until I looked at Helanie.”

He wasn’t making much sense.

“What do you mean? Just say it clearly,” Norman pressed. We all knew if there was anyone we could count on, it was Norman.

“What does Helanie have to do with your curse?” Maximus asked Kaye. We were all even more interested—and worried—now that Helanie’s name was involved.

“Because when I look at her—despite how much I love her—I want to kill her. Maybe that’s my curse. I’ll either want to kill my mate… or I’ll go crazy trying not to.”