Page 8 of Lunar's Ruined Alpha

Rowan bristles, visibly annoyed at the sound of my name in another Alpha’s mouth. Never mind that Henry is more than twice my age and has a Mate of his own.

I almost want to laugh. This man rejected me, and he still has the audacity to display signs of possessiveness.

“Alina,” Henry repeats. “Are you all right?”

“Yes,” I breathe, glancing down at my ruined shoes. None of the glass managed to cut the bare skin of my ankles, thankfully.

It’s only then that I realize my hand is still hovering awkwardly in mid-air, clenched tightly as if I’m still holding the coffee pot aloft. Trying not to show how badly I’m shaking, I quickly lower it to my side.

Rowan’s eyes have narrowed. He whips his head back toward Henry, eyes blazing. “My Mate has been here among your pack this entire time?”

Irritation laces down my spine at those two words and the emphasis placed on his possession. My Mate. He speaks as if I was stolen away from him, not like he was the one who pushed me away.

Henry purses his lips, but doesn’t even bother to look apologetic in the face of another Alpha’s anger. After all, Rowan isn’t Alpha yet. As far as I can tell from his scent, he’s yet to inherit the full breadth of his power. Which is alarming, really, considering how much power is already gushing through his veins.

“I wasn’t aware Ryland’s boy had claimed a Mate,” Henry answers diplomatically. “Nor was I aware that Miss Alina was bonded with a fellow Greenbriar in that regard.”

“I’m not,” I cut in before Rowan can answer. I don’t even care thata couple dozen people are listening in. “Rowan has rejected the Mating bond, and thus I am untethered. He’s claimed no one.”

Rowan exhales slowly, closing his eyes briefly. I’m not stupid enough to think that my words have pained him. I’m not eighteen anymore, grasping for love wherever I can find it. I won’t fall for his faux tenderness again.

I know what kind of cruelty he’s capable of. That’s what it is to reject a Mate—unspeakably cruel.

Henry nods slowly.

“Lina,” a soft voice murmurs at my shoulder.

Ripping my eyes away from Rowan, who is now glaring at the table in front of him like he can set it on fire with the force of his gaze, I find Zahra hovering just behind me. Old Betty is there, too, both of them armed with handfuls of napkins.

“Why don’t you sit down, Lina?” Zahra suggests.

“I’ve g-got it!” squeaks Caitlyn, skittering into the scene a heartbeat later. She immediately drops to her knees to carefully collect the pieces of glass. Old Betty tuts her tongue at her, then diligently starts mopping up the coffee with a wad of napkins under the sole of her shoe.

Zahra is glancing between me and Rowan, expression steady and calculating.

I step away from the mess, closer to Henry. Rowan tracks the movement with vicious precision. I want to snarl at him, but there’s too much panic tearing through my lungs, and I have to focus all my attention on remembering how to breathe properly.

This can’t be happening.

But it’s not even me that I care about right now. My Mate doesn’t want me, and I’ve had a decade to come to terms with that, so it’s not like I’m worried that he’s going to drag me away from here and start rutting me like a wild beast. I don’t care if Rowan knows that I’ve been hiding a mere thirty miles away this entire time, basically right under his nose.

What I care about is the fact that Noah is still sitting in the corner of the restaurant, and it’s only going to take about another twominutes for Rowan to realize that we’re not the only shifters in this room carrying the Greenbriar scent.

Rowan has taken enough from me. My pack. My pride. My future.

But I refuse to let him take our son.

Chapter 4

Rowan

“Fuck,” is how she greets me after all this time. An expletive, murmured almost like a prayer.

I don’t really blame her.

But the moment I hear her voice again, I’m transported back in time to ten years ago.

She was eighteen. I was nineteen. Alina was the only daughter of Nora and Amos Sinclair, two highly respected elders in the pack. They’d died a few years prior in a terrible altercation with the Blackburns, and Alina had left the main town in our territory to live on the outskirts with a cousin. I hadn’t paid much attention to her when we were kids, though I did notice how pretty she was. Everyone did.

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