Page 17 of Rejected by My Shadow Alpha (Mate to the Fallen #1)

Ruby

He was back. Drew was here, alive, breathing, and under my roof.

And I couldn't throw him out.

The realization settled over me like a weight I couldn't shake.

Every time I turned a corner, I braced myself for his scent, cedar wood and storm, familiar and foreign, dragging up everything I'd buried.

I had imagined this moment so many times in my mind, a mind-game I did in my thoughts, assuming if he was alive and had dared to show up again: the slap I'd give him, the words I'd hurl like daggers, the door I'd slam in his face.

Now, it was a reality, but instead, I stood frozen when he walked in and our eyes met, and I couldn't satisfy the brief satisfaction of slamming the door in his face.

The scent of crushed basil and rosemary filled the air, filling my nostrils, but it did nothing to calm my nerves.

My hands worked mechanically, plucking, tearing, grinding the dried leaves from their stalks while my mind spun in a thousand directions.

Nia hummed softly beside me, her mortar steady, movements fluid and practiced, but the rhythm was erratic, jagged, and it jarred my insides.

He was back, just like that.

No apology could make up for seven years of silence. No explanation could erase the night he rejected me with fire in his eyes and vengeance on his tongue. He was here because fate decided to hurl him back into my life on the back of my child's suffering, the very child he didn't know existed.

I clenched another leaf, shredding it mercilessly. How dare he come back? How dare he walk in like a ghost reborn, into the life I rebuilt from ashes? And why now, of all times? I blinked furiously, the sting behind my eyes threatening to spill. I wouldn't cry. Not again. Not for him.

I hated how he looked at me because I could still feel the burn of recognition and longing for a mate I never got to claim.

My traitorous body remembered everything.

The scent of cedar wood and rain still made my knees threaten to give.

My wolf stirred in places I had locked away for years.

And Goddess, when he had spoken my name, I had wanted to crumble and rage all at once.

He didn't deserve to say my name like that after rejecting me and after faking his death.

The way he looked at Liora and held her hand… he must never know.

I sighed in frustration and crushed the dried basil into the bowl.

It wasn't just anger clawing through me.

It was a deep, guttural fear that Drew might find out the truth about Liora, our daughter, a secret I'd guarded with every breath in my body.

She was a child born of a bond that was fated, broken, and abandoned.

My hands trembled as I reached for the next herb, the leaves slipping from my fingers.

"Ruby," Nia's voice was calm but firm. "Stop."

I looked up at her, my breath uneven. My chest rose and fell like I'd run a mile uphill.

Nia's voice broke through, calm but firm. "You're tearing too hard. You'll ruin the balance of the mix."

I looked down at the pile of herbs on the table, half of them unusable now, smeared with bruised resentment. My hands had gone red. The air trembled with my emotions, enough that even the herbs recoiled.

"Sorry," I whispered, ashamed.

Nia reached over and gently took the leaves from my hand. "Your energy is powerful. If you pour all this into the medicine, it could do more harm than good."

My lips quivered, and before I could stop it, a sob cracked loose. My throat clenched, my vision blurred, and before I could stop myself, the tears came; violent and hot and unrelenting.

"I didn't ask for this," I said, voice breaking. "I didn't want him back. I hate that he's alive. I hate that he came back now. I hate that he gets to breathe the same air as her, as me, after what he did."

Nia reached out, her warm hands enveloping mine. She pulled me close, and I collapsed into her arms like a dam bursting, years of grief surging to the surface.

"He left me," I choked. "He tore me in two and walked away. I begged him to listen, I begged him, and now he's back, acting like he cares and wants to help and appearing remorseful like he didn't reject me to get back at my father."

Her arms tightened around me. "You never got to mourn it properly," she said softly. "You never mourned him or what you lost."

I felt Nia's sympathy seep through me, comforting me. I had never told her about my past, and she had never asked, just as I never asked about hers. Being vulnerable with her felt alien, but I must make her understand that Drew must not know about Liora.

"I don't want his pity," I muttered. "I don't want his redemption. He doesn't get to know about Liora. He doesn't deserve to."

I pulled away just enough to meet her eyes. "He can heal her, yes, but after that, he leaves. He doesn't get to know Liora. He doesn't get to claim a child he rejected without even knowing."

Nia looked at me for a long moment. There was no need to pretend she didn't know Drew was Liora's father. I had seen her look the night before when Drew touched Liora. Something shifted in her expression, an old sadness, maybe, or a wisdom I wasn't ready for.

"I know," she said quietly in admission.

"I observed the deep connection between him and Liora," she said gently, her eyes meeting mine. "It was deeper than the ability of an alpha with healing powers. I felt it." Then she chuckled, "Besides, you didn't seem relieved to receive him as the alpha you were desperate to meet."

I looked away, troubled. I could trust Nia, but I hoped I could trust her to say nothing about it to Drew. I opened my mouth to argue, but she held up her hand.

"I've known from the moment I saw you that trouble followed you. The way you look at her is with the kind of fierce love that's born of something deeper than just motherhood. It's survival. It's protection." There was a long pause before Nia spoke again, this time quieter. "What if he finds out?"

I stiffened.

I wiped my face roughly with the sleeve of my tunic. I faced Nia, and a surge of panic filled my heart. Drew must never know about Liora. "Nia, he can never find out." I insisted, a warning tone in my voice. "He won't know unless one of us tells him."

"Ruby."

"I mean it." I gritted my teeth. "I don't trust him. He walked away from me once. I won't risk her getting hurt by his quest for vengeance."

Nia reached for the dried stalk of basil, tossing it into the blend with quiet thoughtfulness. "People change," she murmured.

"Wolves don't," I shot back. "Not when their entire pack is destroyed and they are fueled with vengeance."

The silence between us thickened like fog.

Then I added, my voice low and hesitant, "I've been thinking, what if the curse on Liora didn't just come from some wandering witch? What if it came from someone in Drew's pack?"

Nia froze mid-stir, her hands stilling completely. When she finally looked up, her gaze had gone glassy and distant. "Why would you say that?"

"There's something off about the curse," I said. "It's a blood curse. It feels like vengeance, like someone wanted to punish her and make me suffer. What if it's connected to Drew?"

Nia didn't speak for a long moment. Then she exhaled slowly and said with a sigh, "A storm is coming, Ruby."

Her voice was different, weighted, almost prophetic.

"What do you mean?" I asked, my expression grave. I knew when her psychic gifts had set in, and this is one of the times.

She turned her face to the open window, watching the darkening sky. "Something shifted when Drew walked through that door. The balance changed, and now, everything you've hidden and fought to protect is going to be tested."

I felt the chill of her words deep in my bones. Maybe it was time to leave Littleton and go away from all these dramas. I had fared better in seven years without Drew. I would do just fine still without him.

"You need to brace yourself," she continued, her eyes holding a note of warning as if she could read my thoughts. "Because the past is not done with you. And neither is it done with him. Running away cannot make what is coming go away."

"Nia…" I whispered.

Her lips pressed into a thin line. "Brace up for it, Ruby."

I nodded slowly, the weight of her words anchoring deep in my bones.

Drew might have returned from the dead, but if he thought he could step back into our lives, into Liora's life, he would find I was no longer the broken girl he left behind.

He would play his part in healing her, and then he would leave.

Liora and I will not be subjected to the ongoing war between the Cornerstone and the Lunaris.

I wouldn't let it happen again.