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I’m about to tell Rowan exactly where he can shove his legal threats, but then I remember that Noah is barely ten feet away. He might not be able to see my face from this angle, but he’ll hear me loud and clear if I start shouting like I want to.

On top of that, there’s a pleading quality to Rowan’s piercing gaze. I’m not even sure he’s aware of it, but he looks desperate. Like he’d do just about anything for the chance to talk to his son for just five minutes.

“Alina, please.”

For some reason, that one word changes everything. Please.

I think about Noah, who has grown up not knowing his father. I’d like to think that I am good enough of a parent on my own, but there is also a part of me that understands a child needs his dad in a way that is so much different from the way he might need his mom.

Forget what Rowan wants. This is what Noah deserves.

I sigh, deflating on the slow exhale.

“Okay, Rowan,” I say. “You can meet Noah today. This afternoon. He’ll be at The Diner after school, and you can have a supervised visitation with him. But if he wants to leave, or if he isn’t interested in meeting you, then you have to accept that.”

Rowan’s jaw tightens. He doesn’t like the sound of that last part.

And yet, when he opens his mouth, what comes out is, “Agreed. That’s fine.”

“All right. Good.”

It occurs to me that now might be a good opportunity to question him about what he was up to last night. Where did he go while I was on my run? Where did he sleep? Why hasn't he told our—no, his—pack what’s going on?

But I shouldn’t care about his well-being or his motivations like that. I shouldn’t care about him at all. God knows he doesn’t care about me.

Without a word, Rowan moves aside and lets me pass.

Neither one of us says a thing as I walk through the dewy grass and climb into the Jeep.

Noah leans forward between the gap in the seats. “Mom, are you okay?”

I smile at him in the rearview mirror, but I think we can both tell that it’s forced. “Of course, honey.”

“Are you sure?”

It breaks my heart to hear the concern in his voice. He has such a sweet soul, the makings of a compassionate Alpha.

“I’m sure,” I reply, putting the car in reverse to back out of the driveway, and doing my best to ignore Rowan watching us the entire time. “But, Noah…we need to talk about something.”

Chapter 8

Rowan

Now that I have Alina’s word that I will get to formally meet my son today, I feel more comfortable leaving West Pond.

Even so, my skin prickles with unease as I drive south, deeper into the misty hills of the Appalachians. I hate the idea of leaving my Mate and my heir behind while Samson Blackburn might be up to something. Still, it’s broad daylight, and at least I know that Noah will be at school and Alina will be at The Diner. They’re far enough from the Whiterose-Blackburn border that trouble won’t touch them if something happens to go terribly wrong in my absence.

I just wish my Alpha instincts would listen to that logic. I’m practically crawling out of my skin with each mile that I put between us.

Alina. God…at first, I was so angry with her. It’s always my gut reaction, that anger. My father says it’s an Alpha trait, an unfortunate translation of our natural aggression. Some shifters give in to it, using anger to dictate how their packs function. Greenbriars are different, though. We work past that innate fire that warms our veins and turn it into something more valuable.

As I pull into the driveway of the cabin I’ve built just barelybeyond the limits of Greenbriar territory’s main town, I know that I don’t have any anger left in me where Alina is concerned.

It’s easy enough to put myself in her shoes. She was rejected by her Mate, who wasn’t just any shifter. The rejection came from the future leader of the pack, and it wasn’t just any rejection. It came with a threat—the implication that she, simply by the fateful accident of being my Mate, has the power to ruin someone. To ruin an entire pack. That’s the sort of thing that hangs over someone for their entire life. It’s inescapable.

Of course she ran away. Of course she wanted to escape that.

I wish I could escape it, too. More than anything, I wish I could have written Kseniya’s prophecy off as nothing more than nonsense. Even now, I’m tempted to stalk over to her quiet cottage tucked into the foothills and demand that she take it back. Or, at the very least, clarify herself.