Page 17 of Lunar's Ruined Alpha

Alina

“Mom, why is there a truck in our driveway?”

For the second time in twenty-four hours, I lose my grip on the coffee pot in my hand.

Thankfully, the one I have at home is just a cheap plastic thing, and I was only filling it up with water in the sink, so it clatters into the metal basin harmlessly.

I whirl around, looking past the kitchen doorway to where Noah is hovering in the entryway. He’s dressed and ready for school, red backpack stuffed full with his lunchbox and probably a few comic books as well as his usual school supplies. He peers past the curtains of the window beside the front door as I crane my neck to see out the kitchen window toward the front yard.

Sure enough, there’s a large black pickup parked beside my decade-old Jeep Cherokee in the driveway.

I curse under my breath, praying Noah doesn’t hear it.

“Isn’t that the same one that was chasing us yesterday?” Noah asks.

Obviously, I knew better than to think that Rowan would cut his losses and return to Greenbriar territory without putting up a fuss. He’s a born Alpha. Determination and loyalty—or stubbornness andpresumption, rather—are his natural traits. He may have let it drop and returned home if it was just me here in West Pond, but now that he knows about his son…

“Mom? The bus is going to be here in, like, five minutes.”

Coffee forgotten, I hurry out to the entryway so that I can gently shove him back into the kitchen. “Don’t go outside without me. I’ll drive you to school today.”

“Don’t you have work?”

“Stop worrying about me, honey. Just sit down for a minute and then I’ll take you into town, okay?”

Noah frowns at me in confusion, but shrugs off his backpack and takes his usual seat at the table. He kicks his legs back and forth impatiently. Normally, he’d immediately reach for a comic to pass any amount of time, but it seems he’s too distracted by this bizarre scenario to let his mind slip out of reality.

Pushing aside the curtains as subtly as I can, I glance out at the driveway from the clearer angle of the entryway.

Rowan’s truck is parked with polite precision this time, and it even looks like he did his best to smooth down the divots his tires ripped out of my lawn yesterday. He’s not blocking my vehicle in either, even though that would be an effective way to prevent our escape.

He’s playing nice.

That’s more concerning than anything else.

I can see the shape of his strong, muscular frame sitting low in the driver’s seat of the truck. His face is turned downward, perhaps focused on his phone in his lap.

Except, a moment later, his head snaps up.

I let the curtains fall shut and yank myself away from the window.

“Mom? Who is that guy?”

Nobody, I want to say, but it doesn’t seem fair to begin with a lie. I’m not going to keep the truth of who his father is from Noah, but I also need time to figure out how to explain it to him. He’s a sensitive kid, and there’s a selfish part of me that’s afraid he might hate me when he learns everything.

“He’s someone I used to know before you were born,” I answer as calmly and diplomatically as possible.

“Okay…so, why is he here?”

I glare at the front door as if Rowan is standing right on the other side of it, even though my shifter hearing tells me he hasn’t moved from his lookout spot in the cab of his truck.

The bright side is that I’m feeling much better than yesterday. As soon as I was certain that Noah was fast asleep and safe in his bed, I shifted and went for a run. I didn’t go far. For the most part, I kept a tight perimeter around the house. And even though Rowan’s scent lingered among the foliage, he was nowhere to be seen. His truck was gone, and Zahra had texted me to confirm that she hadn’t seen him returning to Main Street.

Zahra also sent me a very strongly worded message about how we need to talk. I know I should feel bad for keeping such a huge secret from my best friend, but I can’t bring myself to regret something that was done for Noah’s safety.

Nobody could know—not even her. Because, if an Alpha started asking questions, or even one of Henry’s Betas asked Zahra about me, she’d have no choice but to answer honestly. Then word would spread among the Whiteroses and, inevitably, it would get back to the Greenbriars. If I told anyone who Noah’s father truly was, Rowan would have probably discovered us years ago.

Well, maybe not Rowan. I doubt he bothered to look for me after I left. But one of the Greenbriars would’ve found us.

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