Help! Five Beast Alphas Want To Breed Me!!(BL)-Chapter 188: My Little Brother

Rhydian;

My mind wanders as our carriages roll out of the castle gates. Once again, my mind is trying to run to Elian, but I can’t... I don’t want to. Not right now.

It hasn’t in any way grown easier to remember my mistakes. But still, against my will, I remember them anyway.

"You’ve become too spoiled, haven’t you. I gave you a mile, and now you want to run all over me? I’ve been trying to respect you, and this is what I get?! I’m ashamed of you, Elian. You should be ashamed of yourself, too! I didn’t expect this from you."

My words replay in my head, and I shut my eyes.

"Funny how I think that fucker is doing this on purpose. He’s playing you! I can’t prove it, but I know it! And you’re too blind to see it! You’re too busy playing Superman to even take a moment to think things through!" Elian’s enraged voice rings in my mind, and I shut my eyes tighter.

He warned me. He told me his worries. Pointed out that Bram could be trouble. He tried so hard to make me see, and what did I do??

"Elián... how could you be so shallow? I thought it was simple jealousy at first... But maybe I misunderstood the type of person you are. You would let me leave him to suffer, just to protect your insecurities!?" My bitter words to him echo in the silence of my mind, and I kiss the roof of my mouth in irritation.

I said a lot to him. Way too much. He kept crying out to me. Trying his best to make me see, and at every time he reached out... I hurt him.

I remember the love that I used to see growing in his eyes. How he always smiled at me and was beginning to open up to me.

A delicate smile crawls onto my face as I remember his bright eyes and whiny complaints, but the smile drops, and my heart skips a beat when I remember the cold detachment that was in his eyes the last time we saw.

"Oh... Glad he could sleep." His broken voice loops in my head, and my fists clench.

I hurt him so much, and yet I have the nerve to embark on a journey to see him? To attend his wedding? I...

My thoughts are cut off when I suddenly feel a hand on my thigh, and I open my eyes. I find Zephan staring at me, and as our eyes meet, he smiles at me.

"Stop thinking so much. The night is beautiful. Appreciate it." He says, and I swallow.

He gives me one more smile before turning back to the window and repositioning his chin in his palm.

I stare at his face, and my mind instantly takes a new course of thought. His eyes have, as usual, regained that distant, unreadable mask that he wears when his mind is lost somewhere far away.

Somewhere no one can ever seem to reach. He has his own worries. But he never shares them. Maybe with Zethar he does, but I doubt it.

It’s strange.

I can still remember when he used to be all brightness and chatter. A little boy with ink-stained fingers and spectacles too large for his face. He always had his nose in books and always blabbed about theories and things most adults couldn’t even pretend to understand.

Back then, Zephan didn’t know how to hide what he felt. Every victory, every frustration, every pain... it was always right there on his face. Evident on his face and eyes that were windows to his pure soul.

And then one year... everything changed. Because of... me.

It was around the time he turned twelve. The year I broke him...

It was the year of the Howleroot Summit. All the council members and rulers of BeastHeaven had summoned Father for some emergency regarding the southern packs. Although Father had been called there unexpectedly, it wasn’t a meeting he could refuse.

Zephan had fallen ill again... just as he always did around that same time each year. He was pale and weak, and I remember thinking he’d caught some terrible fever and might die.

When Father decided to take both of us along to Howleroot, I didn’t understand why he didn’t trust leaving Zephan behind. He never left him alone when my brother fell sick.

I didn’t know, back then, that what plagued Zephan wasn’t a sickness anyone could treat. It was something more painful... too painful for a boy as innocent as Zephan to handle.

It was something I had no business seeing... but I did anyway.

I remember the night vividly. The smell of herbs burning in the lamps, the low hum of the healers’ chants from down the hall... and the way my skin crawled as I made my way to his room. 𝐟𝐫𝕖𝗲𝘄𝚎𝗯𝕟𝐨𝕧𝐞𝚕.𝕔𝕠𝐦

Father had warned me not to go near Zephan’s chamber under any circumstances. He told me Zephan was very weak and didn’t want any of his brothers to see him like that. He needs rest, he’d said, his tone firm in that way that left no room for argument.

But I was young and foolish and, Light forgive me, too curious for my own good.

I was told not to go... but I went anyway. I snuck past the guards and made my way to my brother’s room.

The door was slightly open, so I peered in. I was expecting to see my little brother sleeping... but what I saw instead remains forever burned into my memory.

Zephan was on the bed, half-covered by blood-soaked clothes. His skin... the parts that weren’t blistered... shimmered faintly under the crystal lights, as his scales seemed distorted. There were patches of raw, cracked flesh across his arms and neck, and his fangs glinted wetly as he gasped for air.

I remember the fear I felt. Just staring at him, I could feel his pain. Horrible, wicked pain that no child should have to endure.

There was a maid beside him, her hands trembling as she wiped his skin with some sort of silver-laced cloth. She kept whispering, as though to calm him, but Zephan wasn’t really there. He was writhing, shaking, as if his own body were rejecting him.

And then Father walked over to the bed.

I remember that most... the way Zephan stopped thrashing the moment Father touched his shoulder. How his breathing evened out, how the pain seemed to drop as though soothed by some invisible force.

It was the first time I saw Father’s pheromones in action... the power of an Alpha so strong it could reduce the biting pain of Zephan’s transformation.

That’s what it was. It wasn’t an illness. It was Shedding. Zephan had severe shedding issues since he was born... And that was what he was battling that night.

Zephan looked up, his eyes glassy and wild, as they met mine. I could see his heart drop the moment he realised I saw everything. Too afraid to wait behind, I ran.

I bolted like a coward, and since that moment, everything about Zephan and my relationship shifted.

By the next time we saw, the light in his eyes... that gentle, curious glow that used to make him seem so open... it was gone.

He’d sealed it away.

From that day on, Zephan became something else entirely.

Composed. Cunning, and the most unreadable of us all. He grew into his brilliance like armour... sharp, unbreakable, calculated.

Where there used to be teasing and brotherhood between us, distance took place... a quiet, invisible wall of space and restraint.

Now, years later, staring at him in front of me, sitting there so effortlessly calm, so damn untouchable... I can still see the faintest flicker of that boy who once clung to Father’s hand in pain. The boy who never wanted me to see him weak.

All this composure... all this perfection... is it his way of making sure I, nor anyone else, ever see his weakness again?

I wish I could tell him he doesn’t have to be perfect around me. That he doesn’t have to hide every scar behind wit and poise, and that I don’t think less of him for what I saw that night.

I wish I could tell him that I’m not ashamed of him... that he’s my brother, and I think him to be incredibly brave to have faced and handled all that at such a young age.

However, Zephan doesn’t do well with sympathy. He’d brush it off with a joke, or worse... that cold, knowing smile he always gives when he wants to end a topic.

I wish, for once, we could just talk. Without the crowns. Without the titles. Without the damn barrier of pride that’s grown between us like an unspoken law.

I wish I could have my brother back.

Just Zephan.

Not the genius.

Not the composed strategist.

Just the boy who used to fall asleep against my shoulder during Father’s meetings, muttering about how boring politics was.

I miss my brother, and it may be wishful thinking, but maybe one day... when all this is over... We’ll find our way back to each other.

Maybe someday he’ll forgive me for seeing him like that.

And hopefully, I’ll get my little brother back.