Page 58 of Lunar's Ruined Alpha

Inside the barn, I take in the scene before anyone else notices I’m there.

Three Blackburns—young, burly henchmen by the looks of them—have Alina backed against the far wall. Her eyes are wide with obvious fear, but she’s holding herself ramrod straight and has her hands clenched into fists like she’s ready to fight back. Beautiful, vicious creature.

Nobody is in wolf form, their senses slightly dulled because of this,which is how I’ve managed to go undetected. They don’t even seem to have heard the crunch of my truck’s tires on the dirt a minute ago.

Protect. Guard. Kill.

There is no such thing as hesitation when I am in this form.

A low growl rumbles deep in my chest, and then I pounce. The Blackburn on the far left of me whips around, but in the time it takes him to process the sight of the massive wolf lunging for him, my canines are buried in his throat. I rip open his jugular without a second thought. Blood splatters across the hay-strewn floor, but I am already moving on to the next.

The second Blackburn squares off against me. In human form, we’d be evenly matched in size, but I can see that he’s younger and clumsier than me. Plus, when I am in all my Alpha wolf glory, he doesn’t stand a chance.

Still, he tries his best to put up a good fight. Behind him, the third Blackburn goes for Alina. She lets out a shout of fury, and manages to land a kick to his groin before he slams her into the wall of the barn.

The Blackburn standing in my way loses half the flesh connecting his head to his shoulders a heartbeat later. I spit out the disgusting, sour flesh and pounce on the third.

Alina scrambles away on her hands after being tossed to the ground by the third Blackburn. I claw off half his face before he can even get his fists up in an attempt to defend himself, taking one of his eyeballs out. Behind me, Alina makes a retching sound, but there’s no time to regret the amount of gore that I’m causing right now.

If she wasn’t watching, I’d rip them apart until nobody could recognize the pieces.

When all three are dead, which takes barely a minute to accomplish, I pause to breathe in the metallic, bloody scent that clings to the interior of the barn. Annoyance rattles through me. How did Alina not notice? Was she not paying attention at all?

I grunt, pawing at the hay to wipe the blood off my paws.

There are no more Blackburns. At least, none within the next mile or so. That doesn’t mean more aren’t coming.

I turn to Alina. She’s still on the ground, staring up at me withthose beautiful brown eyes. She looks awed and horrified all at the same time, and there’s a cut on her brow that’s bleeding a little.

Yet, when Alina’s gaze locks with mine, she offers me a breathless smile.

“Fancy meeting you here,” she whispers.

And then, much to my horror, she faints.

Chapter 21

Alina

I feel a little delirious.

Not because I got hit in the head by one of those Blackburn oafs, nor because another one of them threw me into the wall once Rowan entered attack mode…but because I’m currently cradled in his arms as he carries me through the front door of my house.

He’s vibrating with fury, jaw clenched tight. His arms feel like iron wrapped around my waist and under my legs because of how tense he is. There’s also a fair amount of blood all over him, and in different circumstances, I might be disgusted, but this strange, out-of-body sensation prevents that.

In truth, I feel weirdly relaxed. Or maybe relaxed isn’t the right word. Maybe this is just the aftereffects of the adrenaline that rushed through me as soon as I realized that I was surrounded by Blackburns, the same shifters who are responsible for the death of my parents.

Maybe it’s just pure, unadulterated relief because I don’t know what I would have done if Rowan didn’t show up.

But Rowan did show up.

He kicks the door shut behind him, then carries me into the livingroom. He’s never been in here before, but he strides confidently across to the threadbare sofa and deposits me gently onto the couch.

I already texted Zahra to confirm that she could pick up Noah from school today. There are still a few hours until he’s done, but I have a feeling that the day is not going to go back to normal at this point.

We left Tim’s truck at the farm. Rowan muttered something about how Tim is the one who set me up for this attempted murder—or kidnapping, or whatever it was supposed to be—and even though that makes almost no sense to me, there’s no arguing with an Alpha when he’s in this state of mind.

Rowan kneels down beside the couch. He’s covered in blood. It’s all over his face and smeared down his jaw and neck, spattered across the bare skin of his arms. I can smell it on his breath, and it’s clotted in his hair in places, too. His shirt is torn at the collar from where he yanked it off too quickly to shift, and now the leftover blood that lingered on his wolf form has soaked into the cotton.

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