Page 13

A lina

“I can’t believe you kept that from me.”

“Zahra—”

“I mean, I’m not angry. Believe me. I understand why you did it. It’s just…crazy.”

I snort softly. “Yeah, tell me about it.”

There’s only about half an hour left of my shift, and Zahra has come to keep me company at the bar. The Diner has been pretty dead today. Not even Old Betty and Old Joe have been around, and they’re some of my favorite regulars.

Over in the corner, Rowan is helping Noah with his math homework. The scene is so simple and sweet that it makes my heart ache.

I’m trying so hard to hold on to my hatred for him.

Unfortunately, every new piece of evidence that presents itself proves that Rowan has never had malicious intentions toward me.

When he rejected me, it was for the good of the pack.

And, if he is to be believed, he hasn’t touched another woman since me.

Which, for a man in his twenties, is really quite an impressive feat.

“I just don’t understand why you didn’t stick around, babe,” Zahra continues after a minute, glancing over her shoulder toward Rowan. “ He’s gorgeous, and he clearly makes a decent father. What was the problem? Is it that he’s an Alpha?”

I swallow hard, avoiding her eyes by diligently wiping down the already-spotless bar.

“The problem is that he rejected the Mating bond.”

“But why?” Zahra presses without missing a beat. To her credit, she keeps her voice low, but this is still not the time and place to have this discussion. “I mean, I noticed the way he looks at you. That’s hardly the look of a man who wants to reject you.”

“He looks at me the way any Alpha looks at his Mate. It’s instinct, and he can’t help it. It means nothing. It doesn’t change anything.”

Zahra purses her lips. She’s sipping a mug of black coffee. She has dark circles under her eyes, proof that her role as one of the pack’s healers has been taking its toll recently. The elderly must be fading at a faster rate. Or maybe there’s something she’s not telling me.

“It’s just…it doesn’t add up,” Zahra murmurs, still stuck on the same topic even as my mind starts to wander toward other things.

“You came stumbling through the forest ten years ago, weak and hungry and pregnant. It’s the sort of thing that suggests the father of the child was a bad man.

Mom and I didn’t want to pry, but we assumed that you’d escaped an abusive situation, Lina. ”

“Rowan isn’t abusive.”

“Clearly.”

I sigh loudly. “Listen, Z. I don’t really know what to tell you. It’s complicated, and there’s a lot of stuff that’s tied up in Greenbriar history. Stuff you might not understand.”

“Try me.”

“Not right now.” I know I can trust Zahra, but I don’t even know how to begin describing the mess that I’m tangled up in where Rowan is concerned.

She huffs, but she lets it drop. Zahra is never truly frustrated with me. That’s just who she is. Quick to temper, but also quick to calm.

We lapse into comfortable silence. I keep an eye on Caitlyn, who is doing a decent job dealing the handful of occupied tables on her own.

She hasn’t had a nervous breakdown since Henry Whiterose’s appearance, though I can tell that she’s skittish around Rowan.

In fact, I swear she’s even been skittish around me over the past few days.

It’s not like I think Henry is a gossiping old man, but word spreads fast in small towns.

It wouldn’t surprise me if the news trickled fast through the Whiterose pack.

The real question is how people will respond when they find out that, this entire time, I’ve been Rowan Greenbriar’s estranged Mate.

Or how they’ll respond when they discover that Noah was born a prince.

Hopefully, it won’t cause too much trouble. I’ve given no indication that I’m interested in stirring the pot here in West Pond. I’m not going to challenge the leadership structure, nor is Noah. As long as the Blackburns don’t start a war, I’m confident that everything can continue on as normal.

Maybe that makes me delusional, but now that I’m thinking about the Blackburn pack again…

“Hey, Zahra?”

“Hm?”

“Rowan mentioned something to me. About the Blackburns. He said that they were pressing into territory on the western border. Is that true?”

Zahra furrows her brow, cocking her head to side. “He said that?”

“Is he correct?”

“I have no idea.” She does, in fact, look thoroughly confused.

“I mean, I know that there was a small skirmish that resulted in the border trouble with the Greenbriars, but I haven’t been made aware of anything serious with the Blackburns.

If there’s trouble, the Alpha is probably keeping it to his inner circle for now. ”

“Right. I see.”

“I haven’t been called out to the western side of our territory to tend to any of the sick people who live there, so I wouldn’t really know.”

“Got it.”

Still, Zahra seems puzzled by the topic. As if it never occurred to her that something so serious might be kept quiet by Henry Whiterose.

“What else did Rowan say about it? ”

“Not much else.” I do my best not to let the blush rise to my cheeks when I recall exactly why that particular conversation was cut short. “He seems concerned, though.”

“Well, you know Alphas. They love to be worried about things.”

“Yeah…”

“Alphas with children are particularly protective,” Zahra carries on, schooling me as if I haven’t also lived my entire life drenched in shifter culture.

I quirk an eyebrow at her. “So, you think Rowan is just being dramatic?”

“No, not at all. It’s just—I don’t know. I haven’t heard anything, so it’s probably not a big deal.”

She sounds skeptical even as she utters the words, and I decide it’s better not to push it.

It’s not wise of me to encourage Zahra to question her Alpha.

Especially not with all of the implied influence that I’ve gained in their eyes at Rowan’s Mate.

Someone might start to think that I’m up to something.

Or maybe I’m just being paranoid. I’ve gotten by the past several years by flying under the radar.

I’ve done everything I could to avoid rocking the boat, and it’s served me and Noah well.

Anything that risks disturbing the peace makes my skin crawl with anxiety, because if I can’t claim a home here in Whiterose territory, I’m going to have to find somewhere new.

No matter how much I’m drawn to Rowan in a physical sense, I’m not going to agree to come back to Greenbriar territory. I meant what I said last night.

“Want more coffee?” I ask Zahra.

She blinks as if she’s lost in thought. “Hm? No, thanks. Actually, I should probably get going. Told Mom I’d stop before dinner. I’ll see you later?”

I offer her a mocking salute. “You know where to find me.”

Zahra chuckles and rises from the bar stool. We both know that I’m at The Diner almost every single day. Life isn’t cheap, I need a paycheck, and it’s not like I have anything better to do.

After Zahra leaves, I check the time. I only have about fifteen minutes left of my shift, but I can already hear the evening bartender talking loudly in the kitchen.

Rick is usually here pretty early, and I’ve cleaned up the workstation nice and pretty for him, so I step out from behind the bar and head over to Noah’s table.

Rowan is the first one to look up as I approach.

His expression does a strange thing. At first, it’s soft and tender, but then it quickly hardens into something that looks like a half-hearted attempt at indifference.

Finally, it melts into polite resignation.

A flash of memory clouds my vision for half a second—the sight of him kneeling between my spread thighs, eyes dark with ravenous desire.

I clear my throat and force that thought away.

An unbearable trickle of embarrassment drips throughout my bloodstream at that careful nonchalance of his.

Clearly, Rowan’s enthusiasm was purely of a physical nature.

He does not love me. He never did. And now that he’s seeing me in broad daylight, without all the passion that was born from our argument, he’s obviously not as interested in me as I foolishly assumed he was.

Sitting down beside Noah, I glance over at his notebook, which has been cast aside in favor of his drawing journal.

He likes to sketch out his best approximations of his favorite cartoon characters, and even though most of them are a little wonky, I do think he has an impressively steady hand.

Who knows? Maybe instead of confining himself to the rigid potential of an Alpha’s lifestyle, Noah will branch out and become an artist one day.

Whatever he wants, I’ll do what I can to make it a reality.

“How is the math homework coming along?” I ask him.

Noah beams at me. “All done!”

“Really? All of it?”

“Yep! Dad helped! He’s really good at math, Mom. Did you know that?”

I glance across the table at Rowan. “No, I didn’t know that.”

We went to the same school until I was fourteen, but our social circles didn’t overlap often enough for me to notice what he was good at. After my parents died, I was homeschooled with two of my cousins on the outskirts of the territory.

Rowan merely shrugs. “It’s not a very useful skill. Alphas don’t exactly worry themselves with balancing the pack’s checkbooks. ”

“Mom is really bad at math,” Noah chimes in.

I place a hand over my heart, pretending to be horribly offended by that. It makes Noah burst out into a fit of giggles.

“I’m sure that’s not true,” Rowan says, clearly trying not to laugh along with him.

Noah shakes his head. “No, seriously. Every time she has to help me with my math homework, she ends up more confused than me!”

I tut. “In my defense, the way they teach you kids these days is very different than how we learned things.”

“That’s true,” Rowan says, coming to my defense. He could very easily make me the butt of the joke for the sake of amusing his son, but that’s not his style.

Noah keeps chattering, more talkative and energetic than I’ve seen him be in a while. “Mom once told me that her best subject in school was language arts. Like, writing and grammar and stuff. Ugh!”

Rowan smiles softly. “I remember.”

I balk. “You do?”

His eyes lock with mine. “Of course I do.”

But I hardly noticed you at all when we were kids, I almost say. Instead, I shrug off the gentleness in his gaze and focus back on Noah.

“Being good at communication skills like writing and reading is important,” I tell him.

“Yeah, yeah. You always say that.”

“A good communicator makes for a good leader,” Rowan adds.

I try not to flinch. He didn’t mean for that to come across as a slight, but I can’t help translating it that way.

Because I’ll never be a leader. I was born to be his Mate, and therefore born to stand by his side at the helm of the pack, but that is a destiny that will never come to fruition.

It doesn’t matter if I can give a good speech or analyze complex documents.

Rowan shifts on the other side of the booth. “Is your shift over?”

“Just about.”

“Aw, man,” Noah mumbles, sinking low. “Does that mean we have to leave now?”

I gaze at him, noting the twinkle in his eyes and the glow in his cheeks. He barely knows his father, but he loves him, anyway. I can see it written plainly on his face—he wants to spend as much time with Rowan as possible.

And I can’t be selfish about this. I can’t drag him away again, even if I’m not exactly eager to spend more time in Rowan’s presence. Especially after last night.

“I guess we can stay a little while longer,” I tell him.

Across from us, Rowan smiles. I try not to let that smile affect me, and instead force myself to turn my attention to Noah, but there’s a light heat spreading up my neck from the intensity of his stare.

I need to stop overthinking things. Whatever happened between us last night was nothing more than lust. As soon as I accept that as truth, the easier this entire situation will be.

Utter fool, growls the wolf within me.