Page 38

A lina

“Now press your tongue to the roof of your mouth—”

“Wha…?” Noah blinks up at me in confusion.

I try not to laugh at his expression, knowing he’s in pain. It’s just a brain freeze, but still. The primal creature within me roars whenever my child is uncomfortable. As far as I’m concerned, nobody else in the world exists right now.

“Like this,” I tell him, demonstrating with my own mouth.

Noah follows my example and, just for good measure, I place my warm palm against his forehead.

“Mmf,” he says, lips clamped shut, but frowning deeply enough to tell me the pain isn’t subsiding.

“Press a little harder.”

A few seconds pass, and then Noah sighs in relief. Still, when I peel my hand off his forehead, he wrinkles his nose at me.

“Your hand is really sweaty, Mom.”

I snort. “You’re welcome, by the way. I just saved your life.”

“Except you can’t die from a brain freeze.” Then, because nine-year-olds aren’t very good at learning their lessons, he immediately reaches for the rest of his strawberry milkshake.

I let out a long-suffering sigh, and turn away from him, only to find Caitlyn hovering just a few feet away, wringing her hands and staring at me like she’s just seen the Grim Reaper.

Zahra is still at the bar, and I’m pretty sure she’s trying to communicate something to me with her eyes, but I’m too feverish and antsy to decode the wordless message. I turn my attention back to the trembling waitress in front of me.

“What’s wrong, Cait?”

Her eyes grow even bigger as she steps toward me. “I—I’m t-too nervous. M-m-my hands are sh-shaking. Two Alphas, Alina…”

I fight the urge to sigh again. Poor thing. It’s not her fault she’s an Omega. And even though the last thing I want to do is serve Henry and this mysterious visiting diplomat, it’s best I take care of it instead of forcing Caitlyn to endure a nervous breakdown.

I’m off in ten minutes, anyway. Just one last task and I can head home. Zahra is right. I need to shift tonight.

“Don’t worry about it, honey,” I tell Caitlyn. “Why don’t you go bring some refills to table five?”

She looks like she’s about to melt from relief, but she manages to remain steady on her two feet.

My head spins a little as another wave of sickening dizziness races through me.

I swallow hard, smoothing down the front of my apron, and head back to the bar.

Henry will want black coffee, so I grab the pot that just finished brewing and two clean mugs just in case the visitor needs an afternoon caffeine boost, too.

“Alina, wait,” Zahra hisses.

I pause, halfway around the corner of the bar on my way toward table one at the front of the restaurant.

My friend’s eyes are as wide as saucers. She almost looks like Caitlyn, which is weird, because not a whole lot can spook Zahra. But whatever it is needs to wait, because even if I’m not a member of the Whiterose pack, it’s not in my best interest to keep the Alpha waiting for much longer.

“I need to take care of this,” I reply, stepping past her.

“No, Alina, you don’t—”

Zahra’s fingertips brush against my arm as she reaches out, almost as if to stop me, but whatever the end of her sentence is, it fades into a dull roar in the back of my mind.

There’s a Greenbriar scent in the air.

Not mine. Not Noah’s.

It’s fresh and strong, tinged with the pleasant bitterness of autumn leaves and a cool breath of forest air. I would know that particular scent anywhere, even if it’s been ten years since I was so close to it. It’s overpowering, calling to me like a siren song.

The noisy din of The Diner quiets to a mumbled hush as my ears start ringing. My heart hammers so fast that I wonder if I’m about to lose control and shift right here in the middle of the restaurant.

The shifter—the Alpha—sitting across from Henry Whiterose has his back to me, but I would know him anywhere. I would know him if I were blind. I might even know him in death.

His broad shoulders are chiseled like the muscles wrought in a marble statue of a Greek god. He sits up straight with flawless posture, but there’s a tension in his limbs that tells me he’s about two seconds away from noticing me.

Rowan.

I was right. His hair is slightly darker than his son’s turned out to be. It’s an odd thought to bother having, right here in the middle of my nightmare brought to life, but a strange numbness has overcome me, and I’m not entirely sure I still have a firm grip on reality.

The wise thing to do would be to turn and run.

Grab Noah and disappear out the back of The Diner, then hop in the car and drive until we see the sunrise.

I’m in a fragile state, but I could probably get us close to the Canadian border before we’d need to stop.

Except, we wouldn’t have much of a head start. He’d find us.

He’s already found us.

It wasn’t supposed to happen, and yet fate has decided otherwise.

The worst part is that, instead of running, my feet start moving of their own accord.

I feel like I’m floating as I move toward the Greenbriar Alpha heir, like I’m watching myself cross the room from outside my own body.

It’s like there’s an invisible string tugging me toward him.

Or maybe less of a string and more of an indestructible chain attached to a manacle secured around my very soul.

Henry is the first to look up as I approach.

The world has taken on a slow-motion sort of quality, like everyone is suddenly underwater.

I watch the old man’s brow furrow, and then his eyes widen in shock.

His lips part as if he’s about to say something, and he half rises from his chair on aging legs.

But then the shifter across from him twists in his seat, and we lock eyes for the first time since I was eighteen years old.

There’s a hollow whoosh and the dizziness returns so violently that I wonder if I’m about to faint. My stomach flips, and then I’m wondering if I’m going to vomit.

“Fuck,” is all I can think to say.

Rowan Greenbriar blinks. Once. Twice. His nostrils flare as he breathes in my scent. I watch his pupils dilate, his jaw tighten as he clenches his teeth.

Molten fury seeps into my bloodstream because there’s nothing I can do to avoid the way my body responds to that look on his face. The wild, instinctive urge for Rowan to claim, to possess, to devour what is his.

Because that’s what I am. His Mate. Just as he is mine. My Mate.

Except, no. That’s not true at all. He rejected me, mere minutes after he realized what I am. He made it very clear that he didn’t want me, and that not even the bond between us was worth the risk of losing his birthright.

Kseniya thought she was doing the pack a favor by delivering that prophecy, but all she did was curse me.

“Glory be to the ocean-eyed Alpha, ninth of his line. Yet beware the beloved heir’s Mate, who shall ruin him in time.”

I hate that old wretch of a woman. It’s not like I asked for this, and yet I was the one who suffered for it.

I’m vaguely aware that several painfully silent minutes have passed. I’m also aware that most of the other patrons are doing a very bad job of pretending to mind their own business. Nearly every eye in the room is on us.

It’s too much to handle. I’m already weak and shaking. As I watch Rowan’s throat bob with a swallow, a war raging in his eyes between his most basic instincts and his propriety, my grip on the coffee pot loosens.

The pot slips out of my hand and crashes onto the floorboards. Glass shatters and shards scatter in every direction. Shouts of alarm echo around the space, but they seem muffled. I don’t even move, even with my shoes now drenched in scalding coffee. Neither Rowan nor Henry flinches either.

“Alina,” Henry says.

Rowan bristles, visibly annoyed at the sound of my name in another Alpha’s mouth. Never mind that Henry is more than twice my age and has a Mate of his own.

I almost want to laugh. This man rejected me, and he still has the audacity to display signs of possessiveness.

“Alina,” Henry repeats. “Are you all right?”

“Yes,” I breathe, glancing down at my ruined shoes. None of the glass managed to cut the bare skin of my ankles, thankfully.

It’s only then that I realize my hand is still hovering awkwardly in mid-air, clenched tightly as if I’m still holding the coffee pot aloft. Trying not to show how badly I’m shaking, I quickly lower it to my side.

Rowan’s eyes have narrowed. He whips his head back toward Henry, eyes blazing. “My Mate has been here among your pack this entire time?”

Irritation laces down my spine at those two words and the emphasis placed on his possession. My Mate. He speaks as if I was stolen away from him, not like he was the one who pushed me away.

Henry purses his lips, but doesn’t even bother to look apologetic in the face of another Alpha’s anger.

After all, Rowan isn’t Alpha yet. As far as I can tell from his scent, he’s yet to inherit the full breadth of his power.

Which is alarming, really, considering how much power is already gushing through his veins.

“I wasn’t aware Ryland’s boy had claimed a Mate,” Henry answers diplomatically. “Nor was I aware that Miss Alina was bonded with a fellow Greenbriar in that regard.”

“I’m not,” I cut in before Rowan can answer. I don’t even care that a couple dozen people are listening in. “Rowan has rejected the Mating bond, and thus I am untethered. He’s claimed no one.”

Rowan exhales slowly, closing his eyes briefly. I’m not stupid enough to think that my words have pained him. I’m not eighteen anymore, grasping for love wherever I can find it. I won’t fall for his faux tenderness again.

I know what kind of cruelty he’s capable of. That’s what it is to reject a Mate—unspeakably cruel.

Henry nods slowly.

“Lina,” a soft voice murmurs at my shoulder.

Ripping my eyes away from Rowan, who is now glaring at the table in front of him like he can set it on fire with the force of his gaze, I find Zahra hovering just behind me. Old Betty is there, too, both of them armed with handfuls of napkins.

“Why don’t you sit down, Lina?” Zahra suggests.

“I’ve g-got it!” squeaks Caitlyn, skittering into the scene a heartbeat later. She immediately drops to her knees to carefully collect the pieces of glass. Old Betty tuts her tongue at her, then diligently starts mopping up the coffee with a wad of napkins under the sole of her shoe.

Zahra is glancing between me and Rowan, expression steady and calculating.

I step away from the mess, closer to Henry. Rowan tracks the movement with vicious precision. I want to snarl at him, but there’s too much panic tearing through my lungs, and I have to focus all my attention on remembering how to breathe properly.

This can’t be happening.

But it’s not even me that I care about right now.

My Mate doesn’t want me, and I’ve had a decade to come to terms with that, so it’s not like I’m worried that he’s going to drag me away from here and start rutting me like a wild beast. I don’t care if Rowan knows that I’ve been hiding a mere thirty miles away this entire time, basically right under his nose.

What I care about is the fact that Noah is still sitting in the corner of the restaurant, and it’s only going to take about another two minutes for Rowan to realize that we’re not the only shifters in this room carrying the Greenbriar scent.

Rowan has taken enough from me. My pack. My pride. My future.

But I refuse to let him take our son.