Page 14 of Lunar's Ruined Alpha

“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 alittle 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.

Chapter 6

Rowan

I stare at the locked door standing between me and Alina for several long minutes. I can sense her on the other side of it, barely moving, waiting to see if I’m going to force my way inside.

If I was still nineteen, still ruled by childish instincts, maybe I would.

But I’m a man now. An Alpha. A prince about to become king.

I roll my neck and take a step away from the porch. The house is small and a little lopsided in the way that old structures in this part of the mountains tend to be. The damp earth tends to shift over time, giving everything a slightly crooked appearance.

Still, the house is well-kept. Two floors. Cheerful white and yellow curtains in the windows. Lush flowerbeds offering a riot of color even in the middle of February.

For some reason, what I see before me hurts more than anything. It’s proof that Alina didn’t just run away. She left and decided to start over completely. She built a new life for herself here and clearly had no intention of ever coming back. If not for today’s strange twist of fate, I would have never known that I had a son.

I tilt my head back, eyes locking on a window on the second flooron the left side of the house. The boy is in there. I can sense him. The curtains are drawn, but there is a beating heart inside the room that pumps blood made from my DNA through his veins. My heir. My child.

It takes several deep breaths for me to calm down enough.

Alina is right, unfortunately. The boy deserves to meet me on his own terms. His mother is the one who decided to hide him from me, so he shouldn’t have to suffer the consequences of that.

More than that, I don’t want him to see me like this. I don’t want him to gain a first impression of his father that revolves around anger, impatience, and betrayal. I don’t want him to fear the Greenbriars.

So, even though every cell in my body is screaming for me to do otherwise, I walk back to my truck. Moving on autopilot, I throw it into reverse and back down the driveway.

I don’t go far, though. Just a quarter-mile or so down the road. I pull onto the dirt shoulder, but there isn’t any traffic out this way. There’s nothing out here on this side of town at all except ancient trees and dense foliage. Alina may have come to the Whiterose pack for amnesty, but she hasn’t fully assimilated. She lives on their fringes, almost as if she knows she’ll always belong somewhere else.

She belongs at my side. And it is the one place that she can never be.

Killing the engine, I sit in the quiet cab for a few minutes. It’s an effort to collect my thoughts. My shifter instincts are in overdrive. The primal side of my nature is urging me to turn around, go back to Alina’s house, and claim what is mine.

Despite my rejection, the Mating bond will always seek to be repaired. I had thought I’d be okay with that, okay with living the rest of my life knowing that there would always be something incomplete inside me. Whoever I chose as my partner would have to be okay with it, too.

I was foolish, though. This is nature. This isn’t something that can easily be fought.

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