Page 5

A lina

I see it the moment the knowledge clicks into place.

Rowan is on his feet, looking like he’s ready to pounce, but I steel my spine and place myself directly in his path.

“Don’t you dare get anywhere near him,” I snarl.

“He’s my—”

“He’s mine,” I cut him off. “Not yours.”

Rowan looks like he doesn’t know if he wants to shove past me, growl in my face, or turn and put a fist through the nearest wall. Instead of doing any of those things, he rolls his shoulders and looks down at me with barely contained rage.

“You were pregnant.” It’s not a question.

There’s no point in lying. “Yes.”

I don’t bother mentioning that I think it had less to do with fertility and more to do with the so-called magic of a Mated pair’s first coupling. It’s easier to imagine that it was a twist of fate rather than the result of two idiot teenagers who forgot to use a condom.

“He—you didn’t…” Rowan pauses, unable to tear his gaze away from Noah in the back corner.

Thank God that kid has a one-track mind and cares more about his comics than anything else half the time. I’m not ready to tell him who his father is, let alone that he’s right here, right now.

“Didn’t what?” I snap. “Didn’t tell you? Why would I?”

Rowan’s icy eyes flash with frustration.

Even now, when he looks furious and wild and dangerous, it’s hard to ignore how handsome he is.

I remember how sweet and angelic he used to look when we were younger.

The Alpha’s son is such a pretty boy, the older kids used to tease him.

And it was true that, prior to puberty, Rowan was a little bit daintier and lovelier than a shifter prince tends to be.

But then he had his first shift. He started maturing.

Soft cheeks hollowed to reveal chiseled cheekbones.

A delicate jaw strengthened into a sharp line.

Starry eyes became chips of ice. His lashes were still thick and long, though.

His lips were still visibly soft and always curving into a playful smirk.

When I saw him again after the years I had spent away, grieving my parents, he was nineteen and the most beautiful man I’d ever seen.

I was so mesmerized by him, and by the fact that he clearly felt the same way about me, that I didn’t even notice the Mating bond howling between us until it was too late.

I hate him, though, so it doesn’t matter how pretty the bastard is.

When Rowan doesn’t say anything, I announce to nobody specific, “My shift is over. I’m leaving.”

I whirl away from my Mate and stalk across the room.

Zahra, bless her, immediately has my back.

Never mind that I didn’t tell her the truth about who Noah’s father is.

Never mind that I lied to her all these years about not having a Mate.

She’s still on my side, and I watch over my shoulder as she cleanly steps in Rowan’s path as he attempts to follow me.

Then Henry and his Beta are there, too, politely getting in the way so that Rowan can’t plow Zahra over and race after me.

I stumble over my own feet and catch myself on the back of a chair. I really need to shift.

But first, I need to get out of here.

I gently grab Noah’s arm and pull him onto his feet.

“Work is over! Time to go!”

“What? Whoa—Mom!” he protests feebly as I practically drag him through the swinging door of the kitchen. I feel bad for being so forceful, but it’s imperative that I get him out of this place before Rowan goes apeshit. Noah doesn’t deserve to meet his father for the first time like this.

Josh glances up at us from his position at the grill, but he thinks nothing of it as I usher Noah down the hall toward the door that leads to the dumpster in the alleyway. It’s not typically how I leave work, but the front door wasn’t really an option.

“What are you doing? Where are we going?”

I squeeze Noah’s hand. “Home, of course!”

“Why are we walking so fast, though?”

“Because I just really want to go home! That’s all!”

I know he can probably see right through the false, chipper tone of my voice.

Sure enough, as I shove open the alleyway door and pull him around the dumpster and toward the parking lot tucked away at the back of The Diner, Noah lets out a huff of impatience.

“It’s because you need to shift, right?”

“Yep! That’s it! Get in the car, sweetheart.”

My hands fumble with the keys as I fling open the back door.

It’s an effort not to shove Noah inside, but he’s fast enough on his own.

I practically dive into the driver’s seat, but it takes me several tries to get the key in the ignition.

I’m shaking like crazy, from panic, adrenaline, and my forcefully postponed shift.

There’s no sign of Rowan on our tail. Yet.

There’s only so much that the Whiteroses will be able to do to slow him down—and I’m still surprised that they’d even bother in the first place—but at least they can buy us a few minutes.

If I can at least get us home, then I can lock Noah inside, and then maybe I can talk Rowan into some kind of arrangement.

I could play nice and ask him to come over tomorrow to meet Noah.

Then, when he’s gone, we’ll leave town and never look back.

I’ve run away from him before. I can do it again.

I just need to go further this time. Sure, I’ll miss Zahra, and Noah will have to start over at a new school, but he can make new friends easily enough.

He’s introverted, but he’s a sweet kid. Naturally likable .

Just like Rowan, as much as it pains me to admit.

“Mom, what’s for dinner tonight?” Noah asks from the backseat as I drive way too fast down Main Street, then take a sharp left turn onto the narrow road that leads to our small house shrouded in the woods.

I take a deep breath to calm myself. I don’t know what kind of car Rowan drives, but there isn’t anyone following in the rearview mirror.

“What do you want for dinner?” I ask.

“Umm, pizza?”

“We had pizza two nights ago.”

“Can we not have it twice a week?”

“Well, it’s just not very nutritious.”

“I’ll eat broccoli on the side if that’ll make you happy.”

Despite my stress levels, I huff out a laugh. “There’s no need to lie, Noah.”

He giggles. “Okay, potatoes, then. That’s a vegetable.”

“That’s a starch.”

“What’s a starch? I thought that’s what you put in the laundry.”

“No, it’s—” I pause, glancing in the mirrors again. I curse loudly, then catch myself. “Sorry. Pardon my French.”

Noah twists in his seat to glance out the back window. There’s a black pickup truck catching up to us, and it’s not hard to identify Rowan behind the wheel.

“Whoa,” Noah murmurs. “That dude is driving fast.”

I step harder on the gas, then take the next turn so recklessly that Noah lets out a startled yelp.

“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, but then 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.”

“I’m saying that I think you know exactly what he needs, and even though I’m sure you’ve been a good mother, he needs a pack.”

“Then he’ll start a pack of his own someday.”

Rowan jerks back as if I’ve slapped him. “Just let me see him.”

“No. Not tonight. I refuse to let you inside my house. And if you choose to trespass despite that, you know it’s going to cause even more tension between you and the Whiteroses. There was already an issue, wasn’t there? Surely you don’t want to risk more trouble.”

He narrows his eyes at me, but I can see that he knows I’m right.

For whatever reason, the Whiterose pack is on my side.

Sure, with a little bit more pressure, they’d probably have to let Rowan drag his Mate and his son back to Greenbriar territory, but that would be a whole lot of melodrama that I’m sure Rowan would want to avoid.

“Alina, please.”

I hate the way he says my name. I hate that, even now, all I want to do is go to him and fall into his arms. I hate that, if I think about it just a little bit, I’ll remember what it was like to lie beneath him on a forest floor ten years ago and feel the magic of our Fated souls weaving unimaginable pleasure into every thrust of his body against mine.

I hate him. I do.

“I’m going inside now.” I dig into my back pocket for the keys and fumble behind my back until I get the right one in the lock.

“You need to leave, Rowan. If you really want to meet Noah, you’ll do this the right way.

But you can’t pick and choose. You can’t reject me and claim him.

I won’t let him go with you, and I’m not coming back. ”

He stares at me, placing one booted foot on the bottom step of the porch as the door creaks open behind me. I step inside quickly, nearly tripping over my own feet in the process, and then slam it shut before he can take another step.

Breathing hard as if I’ve just come back from a run in the forest, I press my forehead against the smooth wood of the door and listen. He’s still out there, but it doesn’t seem like he’s going to force his way in.

We’re safe. For now.