My Sister Stole My Mate, And I Let Her-Chapter 416 ALPHA BABYSITTER

JACK’S POV

Lucian didn’t flinch when I smiled at him like I meant to draw blood.

“I hear you’ve become a lackey for my parents,” I said.

Anyone else would have bristled, or snapped, or at least let the insult register in the tension of their shoulders.

Lucian only watched me.

Calm. Measured. Unmoved in a way that felt less like restraint and more like indifference.

“That would be inaccurate,” he said, his tone as even as it had been before.

I huffed a quiet laugh, circling him, pressure coiling tighter under my skin with each step.

“What title would you prefer?” I asked. “Errand boy? Servant?” I chuckled. “How does it feel to be an Alpha at someone else’s mercy?”

His gaze tracked me without turning his head, as if he had already calculated every movement I could make before I made it.

“I would argue that between you and me right now, I’m not the one at someone else’s mercy.”

Something sharp twisted low in my chest.

“The fuck is that supposed to mean?” I snarled.

Behind him, the forest seemed to hold its breath again, the others keeping their distance but not their attention.

I could feel it—every flicker of awareness, every instinct telling them something was about to snap.

Lucian cocked his head as if he were studying me. “You need something, don’t you? I understand that if you don’t get it quickly enough, things get...uncomfortable for you.”

The pressure under my skin surged. My fingers twitched at my sides, nails biting into my palms as something feral reared up, demanding release.

“You think you understand this?” I asked.

“I understand enough.”

“Do you?” I took a step closer, close enough now that I could see the faint shift in his pupils, the way his body adjusted—not retreating, but preparing.

“Do you understand what it takes to hold this together without losing control?”

“Trust me,” he said. “I know more about control than you can ever know.”

“Then you should know better than to push me,” I said.

“I’m not pushing you,” Lucian replied. “I’m challenging you. No one ever did that, and that’s why you grew up to be such a brat.”

That did it.

The surge broke through.

The world sharpened at the edges, sound thinning, focus narrowing to a single point.

I moved—

Lucian’s hand came up and pressed flat against my sternum.

I froze in place. For a second, nothing happened.

Then—

Pain.

Not the kind that came from impact or injury.

This was deeper, like something had slipped past bone and muscle and gone straight for whatever was coiled underneath.

I dragged in a sharp breath as the pressure inside me exploded, slamming against the intrusion like a caged animal.

“What—”

“Enough,” Lucian said quietly.

Something moved through the contact point, subtle but undeniable, threading into the chaos under my skin with cold, surgical precision.

I staggered back a step, more from the sensation than the force.

“You—” My teeth clenched as another wave hit, sharper this time, dragging a low sound out of my throat before I could stop it. “What did you do?”

Lucian lowered his hand, watching me with that same steady, infuriating calm.

“The same thing she does,” he said.

No. Not the same.

I could feel the difference immediately.

Catherine’s energy had always been controlled. Not gentle, but tempered.

She guided it, smoothed the edges, dampened the worst of it so it didn’t tear me apart while it was being forced back into place.

This was raw. Unfiltered.

Like someone had taken the mechanism and stripped out every safeguard.

My breath quickened as the sensation deepened, cold threads winding through the chaos, constricting, crushing it inward.

It hurt like something was being compressed into a space too small to hold it.

I laughed, the sound breaking unevenly. “You’re—”

Another wave hit.

My vision flickered at the edges, the forest tilting for a fraction of a second before snapping back into place.

“You’re—” I dragged in a breath, forcing the words through clenched teeth. “You’re doing it wrong.”

“No,” Lucian said. “I’m doing it efficiently.”

The distinction was glaring.

Catherine eased.

Lucian forced.

Where she would have softened the edges of my awareness, dulled the pain just enough to make it bearable, Lucian did nothing.

He let me feel all of it.

Every shift.

Every compression.

Every moment of the thing inside me being dragged back into alignment.

“You could numb it,” I gritted out.

“I could do that,” he said, and then shrugged. “Too bad I don’t want to.”

The next wave came without warning.

Brutal.

It tore through me, ripping a sound out of my throat that I didn’t recognize as my own.

My knees hit the ground before I realized I had moved.

The forest spun again, slower this time, like it was being pulled out of focus piece by piece.

Somewhere in the distance, I heard movement—one of the others taking a step forward.

“Stay back,” Lucian said, not raising his voice.

The movement stopped immediately.

I braced a hand against the ground, fingers digging into the dirt as I forced myself to stay upright.

“You bastard,” I rasped. “You’re enjoying this.”

“What gave that away?”

I laughed again, the sound rough and edged with something that wasn’t quite amusement.

“Just wait till Catherne hears about this.”

Another surge.

This one was different.

Less chaotic. More...contained.

The thing under my skin, the constant pressure, the gnawing instability—it was still there, but it wasn’t spilling over anymore.

It was being held. Forced into shape whether it wanted to or not.

I sucked in a slow breath, the air burning on the way down.

“See?” Lucian said quietly. “Effective.”

I lifted my head, meeting his gaze through the haze.

“You should understand something,” he said.

I pushed myself up slowly, my body still humming with the aftermath.

Lucian stepped closer again, close enough to invade, far enough that it was just shy of threatening.

“Marcus and Catherine don’t have time to watch you right now,” he said. “They have something bigger in motion. Something that requires their full attention.”

A chill slid through me.

“And I’m what?” I asked. “An afterthought?”

“You’re a liability,” he said. “The volatile rogue who needs a babysitter.”

“Fuck you,” I spat.

I let out a slow breath, rolling my shoulders once, testing the edges of the control he had forced into place.

It held.

For now.

“You think I’m going to ruin whatever they’re planning,” I said.

“Is that not in line with your track record?”

A beat.

Then, quieter, “Either way, that’s not the question right now.”

I tilted my head slightly. “Then what is?”

Lucian’s gaze sharpened.

“Whether you can stay in line long enough not to become a problem again. Feel free to act out of line; it’ll be my pleasure to set you straight.”

“Don’t get comfortable,” I hissed.

“Trust me,” he said, his eyes darkening. “The last thing I am here is comfortable.”

Then, almost as an afterthought, he added, “And don’t think about running to them with complaints.”

“What?”

“They won’t intervene,” he said. “Not for this. They don’t have time. And even if they did...this doesn’t register as a problem worthy of their attention.”

I glared at him, heat swirling in my chest.

The worst part was that he was right; this was exactly the kind of thing Marcus and Catherine would do.

Prioritize. Adjust.

Cut away anything that didn’t fit.

Even me.

“Good,” I said finally.

Lucian’s brow lifted.

“Less interference,” I continued. “I was getting tired of being smothered.”

“Behave yourself, and we won’t have a problem,” he said.

I laughed again, softer this time.

"I don’t know which of us is more pathetic, the rogue Alpha heir, or the Alpha babysitter."

Lucian didn’t respond, but the slight twitch in his eye told me I hit a nerve.

I rolled my neck once, feeling the lingering ache from where the control had been forced into place.

Catherine and Marcus evidently thought I was a liability rather than an asset. I had to prove them wrong.

“Fine,” I said, my voice settling into something steadier. “You oversee. I behave.”

“For now,” Lucian said.

“For now,” I echoed.

Because neither of us believed that would last.