Page 13

“Sorry, honey!”

Thankfully, turning at the last minute like that seems to have bought us some time. I speed down the dirt road, skid into our driveway, and come to a sharp halt right in front of the garage.

“Let’s get you inside, Noah. Now.”

As I climb out of the car, I can hear the roar of the truck’s engine echoing further down the road.

Noah is frowning in confusion, letting his backpack dangle from one arm as I nudge him up the porch steps. He twists curiously, glancing past me as the growl of tires on gravel reaches my ears, butthen I already have the front door unlocked. I push him lightly over the threshold.

“Stay inside,” I tell him firmly. “Go upstairs to your room. Shut the door. Don’t come out until I come and get you, okay?”

“But—”

“Do as I say, Noah. Please.”

He glances past me, but obeys a moment later, shrugging dramatically before scurrying up the stairs toward his room. I lock the door again, shove the keys in my back pocket, and then shut the door behind me as I brace my feet on the front porch and face the scene before me in the front yard. If Rowan wants to get inside, he’ll have to retrieve the keys from my dead body or break a window. Committing either one of those crimes on Whiterose territory will have some unfortunate consequences, which is something I really hope he remembers through the blaze of his fury.

Rowan’s truck tears through the grass as it comes to a jolting stop mere feet from my flowerbeds. He doesn’t even kill the engine before he flings open the door and stalks toward me.

He stops just before the porch steps, glaring up at me, though his height doesn’t allow me much of an advantage in my higher position.

“You tore up my yard—” I begin.

“Fuck the yard,” he snaps. “Would you mind explaining why the hell you’ve been hiding my son from me for the past ten years?”

I take a deep breath, clenching my hands into fists. “Nine years. He’s nine.”

“Not the point, Alina.”

My head spins. I’m sweating. Trembling. If I’d known ahead of time that I’d be dealing with this today, I would have gone out for a run last night.

Then again, if I knew this was coming, I’d already be halfway to another continent by now.

Rowan inhales steadily through his nose, then exhales calmly out of his mouth. He squares his shoulders, smooths his brow, and looks every bit the leader he was born to be when he asks me, “Why did you keep him from me?”

“I didn’t know I was pregnant until I was already in Whiterose territory.”

“Why didn’t you come back, then? I would have—”

“Would have what, Rowan? I had no reason to believe you’d care that I was carrying your child. You rejected me, and that means you rejected our son, too.”

He flinches. “You know why I had to do that.”

Now it’s my turn to flinch. It’s not easy to know that you carry the power to ruin someone, especially when you’re not sure what exactly that means. “I do, but that doesn’t change anything. You didn’t want me, so I left.”

“You could have stayed.”

“Stayed? And lived out my life on the fringes of the pack as Rowan Greenbriar’s rejected Mate? The Luna that never was? A walking symbol of your potential downfall?”

A frustrated grunt is the only outward display of his anger that he’ll show. He runs his hands through his dark hair, mussing it up in a way that I hate to admit really suits him.

“Well, what’s done is done.” He seems surprised by his own words. “Either way, I deserve to know my son.”

I lift my chin and press my back against the front door. “And your son deserves to meet his father on his own terms.”

“That boy is a Greenbriar heir, tenth of his line. Alina, he’s meant to be an Alpha one day. Surely, you can sense it in him? He needs to be guided by me and his grandfather and the elders.”

“So, you’re saying I’m not good enough.”