Before she can finish her sentence, there’s a loud pounding on the front door. Both of us jump at the sudden banging sound, twisting to face the entryway with twin expressions of shock.
“Alina!” calls Rowan from the other side.
Blinking in surprise, I glance out the window. Rowan’s truck isn’t in the driveway, and I hadn’t been expecting him to stop by, at the very least, until it got dark again.
He bangs on the door again. “Alina, are you okay?”
There’s a wild urgency in his voice. Something akin to panic. I jolt upright, rising to my feet to go answer the door. Zahra remains where she is, knowing better than to get in the way when there’s a frantic, demanding Alpha nearby.
Before I can even reach the door, however, it’s flung open.
Rowan barges inside, eyes dark and wide. His gaze sweeps the entryway quickly, then lands on me. He steps forward, grabbing my shoulders to hold me in place. I freeze, gaping at him as he does a quick perusal of me to ensure that I’m still in one piece. His scent almost stings my nose from how much anxiety tinges it.
“What’s going on?” I ask. “Everything’s fine, Rowan. I’m fine.”
When his Alpha instincts confirm that I am, indeed, completely and totally fine, he lets go of me and steps around me, letting the door slam shut behind him.
He sees Zahra, who is very good at reading a situation. She makes herself as small as possible, lowering her eyes to the floor as the Greenbriar Alpha prince stalks toward her.
Rowan must sense that she’s not a threat in the span of just a few seconds, though, because he halts in the middle of the kitchen and turns back to me.
“Where is Noah?”
I furrow my brow. “What do you mean?”
“Where. Is. My. Son.”
“At school, for fuck’s sake!”
“It’s four in the afternoon, Alina. School is over.”
I throw my hands up in exasperation. “Then he’s at his friend’s house already! He’s having a sleepover.”
Rowan’s expression darkens. “You’re letting the Greenbriar heir sleep under a foreign pack member’s roof?”
I scoff. “Um…yes? It’s just Susie Canan’s boys, Zack and Cameron. They’re good friends with Noah. He goes over there often.”
“Where do they live?”
He can’t be serious. Kids have slumber parties all the time. Especially nine-year-old boys. The worst that will happen is that they’ll stay up until two in the morning playing video games and probably drink too much Mountain Dew. It’s hardly the end of the world.
“Why do you look so freaked out, Rowan? Where’s the fire?”
His chest is heaving from how hard he’s breathing. Did he run all the way here from Greenbriar territory? He does look pretty disheveled. And now that I’m getting a close look at him, there is a streak of dirt on his face and a stray, damp leaf sticking out of his collar. The smell of the forest clings to him, and the electric, wolfish glimmer in his gaze confirms that he’s spent most of the day in his other form.
The room shrinks around us as realization strikes me.
Rowan isn’t just freaked out right now. He’s on the war path.
Rowan
Earlier that morning, as soon as I was certain that Noah was safe and sound in the school bus, I circled back toward the Whiterose-Blackburn border.
It wasn’t my original plan. I had meant to shift back into my human form, put my clothes back on, and speak with Alina like a reasonable person about what I witnessed happening during my patrol. I was going to explain that the danger is too obvious, and too close, for us to take this lightly.
I might have even considered begging on my knees for her to relocate to Greenbriar territory, if only temporarily.
Instead, I caught a whiff of the Blackburn scent on the wind. Weak and diluted, just like the first time, but present enough to be carried this far into the territory on the brisk morning wind.
It triggered something inside me. I couldn’t shift back. I had to chase the scent.
I chased it all the way back to where I hid last night among the foliage, observing the satellite pack stationed near the border. It was a risk for me to be there in broad daylight. If any one of them patrolled too close, they’d catch a glimpse of me. Thankfully, though, I was at least positioned downwind.
I’d been just about to assure myself that the only reason the Blackburn scent was so close to Alina’s house was because of the wind that had picked up dramatically overnight, when something else caught my attention.
The unpleasant, decaying aroma of the Blackburn pack wasn’t the only scent mingling in that camp.
There was a Whiterose among them.
Not a prisoner. Not a hostage. Because they were moving around freely, their heart pumping with enough liveliness to suggest that they weren’t injured either. One of Henry’s young, vital pack members was in that camp, and it didn’t take a genius to figure out why.
Betrayal is common among other packs, but not the Greenbriars. We are too bound by traditions, too faithful to the old ways. More recently formed packs, however, often struggle with the constraints and nuances of hierarchy. Alphas butt heads. Betas bicker and backstab. Omegas are used as metaphorical cannon fodder.
I never thought the Whiterose pack would ever stoop to such a status.
I ran back as fast as I could, the conspiracy unraveling in my wolf mind with ease. And when I reached Alina’s house and sensed her within, I was relieved, but then I immediately noticed that someone was missing.
I realized that Noah wasn’t home.
So, now, here we are, squaring off against each other with a Whiterose healer to bear witness.
“I’m not going to tell you where Noah is,” Alina tells me firmly, arms crossed against her chest. “He’s with his friends and he’s having fun. There’s nothing wrong with that.”
“You don’t understand. He’s in danger.”
For all I know, the family that my son is staying with is involved in this conspiracy behind Henry’s back.
Alina huffs loudly in frustration. “As I said, Rowan, he’s perfectly safe. I can’t even tell you how many times he’s spent the night at their house before. They’ve been friends since kindergarten. Susie’s boys have been over here plenty of times, too.”
Knowing that I won’t get through to Alina, I whirl around to face the friend.
New Book: Back Home to Marry Off Myself
Loredana’s father left the family for his mistress, leaving them to fend for themselves abroad. When life was at its toughest, her father showed up with “good news” after 8 years of absence: To marry off Loredana to a paralyzed son of the wealthy Mendelsohn family.