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“Yes,” I snap. “I know it by heart by now. I just need you to give me the specifics, for fuck’s sake.”

If the old woman is offended by my cursing, she doesn’t show it. She merely sighs and shrugs her narrow shoulders, crooked with age.

“I don’t know the details, Rowan. Like the wise women who came before me, I only know what the wind tells me and nothing more.”

“But you’ve never been wrong before.”

Again, she shrugs. “Ruination can come in many forms, young Alpha. And I wonder if it is necessarily a bad thing to be ruined by the one you love.”

I’m beginning to wonder the same thing. Because, really, I don’t feel ruined. I feel strong and joyous and optimistic. I feel inspired and hopeful. I feel more like myself than I have in a very long time. If that’s what it is to be ruined, it’s not so bad.

“I need to know,” I press. “I don’t care if Alina ruins me, but the pack…and what if she is also ruined? What will I do then?”

Kseniya’s wrinkly eyes crease further at the corners, and she opens her mouth to answer, but then her gaze flicks to a point just over my shoulder.

I turn around to find, of all people, my mother and father walking down the dirt lane toward Kseniya’s cabin. When my mother sees me,she smiles in her lovely way, and my father waves good-naturedly. In contrast, I find it difficult to return the gesture.

And, as they get closer and come through the gated fence marking Kseniya’s property, my mother gasps, and the easy smile melts off my father’s face.

Both of them halt in their tracks just a few feet away from me.

They can smell her. I know they can.

Alina’s scent won’t smell the same to them as it does to me, but it will be obvious to them that it belongs not just to any Greenbriar, but to my Mate. My parents are Alpha and Luna, too, after all. They recognize their own kind, and it is doused all over my skin right now.

Kseniya remains where she is, hovering off to the side, observing silently.

Naturally, my father is the first to speak.

“You found her.”

It’s not a question. Still, I nod in confirmation.

“And?”

I stare at him. “And…I have repaired the bond I rejected.”

My mother gasps again, one hand pressed to her lips in surprise.

My father, on the other hand, betrays a rare flash of anger.

“You can’t be serious, Rowan,” he grumbles, stepping closer.

I stand my ground. “I am serious. I love her. I never stopped loving her. That is why I’ve come to Kseniya today. I hoped to gain some clarity on the prophecy.”

My father throws a look at Kseniya, but turns his attention back to me. “And did you? Gain clarity?”

“I don’t—”

“Because you risk everything by bonding with your Mate,” he interrupts. “You risk your future as Alpha, and therefore risk the entire pack. Wherever your runaway Mate has been all these years, she has not been here in Greenbriar territory serving the community. She has abandoned you, abandoned all of us.”

“Enough,” snaps my mother.

Both me and my father startle at the vehemence in her tone. It is the Luna speaking, the wolf queen who has only ever been gentle and sweet even at the worst of times.

She narrows her eyes at my father, her mate. “With all due respect to Kseniya, we have allowed her prophecy to rule our son for his entire life. He has lived in fear because of it. He has lived unhappily, unfulfilled. He will make a perfect Alpha, I am certain of it, but I have also worried that there is a darkness inside him that grows stronger without the love of his Mate. Each passing year, I have been so afraid for him, my love.”

Something clicks in the back of my mind, but my father grunts in frustration before I can latch on to it for long.