Just like that, with the healed Mating bond glimmering between us, nothing seems quite as dire as before. We are Alpha and Luna, and we refuse to be parted again. Nothing, not even the prophetic power of a vague destiny, can get between us again.
I end up staying in bed with Alina for hours. We doze and talk, and make love again and again, but eventually reality comes crashing back in. When Zahra texts Alina, asking what time to drop Noah off, we force ourselves to get dressed.
My son is thrilled to see me when he gets home, and even though Alina’s friend is obviously desperate to know what the hell happened earlier today, I scare her off with one particularly ferocious glare.
I know that I need to get back to my pack. I need to tell them about Alina and Noah, and then I need to explain what the Blackburns attempted today.
I need to convince my father that it’s time to declare war. There is no other solution except to destroy the Blackburn pack once and for all. Samson cannot be allowed to continue his plight to sow chaos and violence. Not when the things I hold most dear are at risk.
Instead of taking immediate action, however, Noah asks me to stay for dinner, and I can’t bring myself to say no.
“Dad, do you want to help me set the table?” he asks me, looking so sweet and earnest that I’m certain I’d say yes to any chore he offered me.
“Noah, honey, you can’t pass off your responsibilities to your father like that,” Alina laughs from her place at the stove.
“I’m not!” he protests, batting his eyes innocently. “We’re sharing the responsibility.”
I grin at him, then offer Alina a fake pout. “Yeah, we’re working together.”
Noah giggles, then tugs me toward the table. “So, Dad, here’s the thing. Mom has a very specific way she likes to set the table. I don’t really know why, but-“
“Because it’s the proper way to do it!” Alina calls from within the kitchen.
I wink at my son. “I know better than to argue with your mother. Show me how to do it her way, kiddo.”
“Okay, so the forks have to go on this side…”
I smile the whole time, chuckling when Alina comes in to offer mischievous corrections and claiming that I laid out the knives crooked. It becomes a game for us, and the moment feels so sweet and perfect that I’m almost afraid it will shatter.
But it didn’t. It was perfect.
Later, after Noah had gone up to bed, I told Alina that spending the night in her bed might be too confusing for him this soon in our relationship, so my solution is to shift into wolf form and curl up on her doorstep just like during those first few days.
In the morning, though, I’m determined to do my duty.
I make sure Noah gets on the school bus without trouble, and then I confirm that Alina has no plans to go to work today. She’s still not convinced that her idiot manager is the cause of the attack, but she also promised to believe me and trust me, so she obeys my loving command to stay home until I can come back to her.
When I get back to Greenbriar territory and reach the main town, I don’t go to my father’s house. Nor do I seek out Cal.
Rather, I hunt down Kseniya.
It’s easy to find her. She’s at her tiny cabin on the outskirts of the town, tending to her extensive garden of herbs and medicinal flora.
I park in the narrow driveway and hop out. She rises from where she was kneeling in a thicket of rhododendrons-miraculously blossoming way before full spring has come-and stares at me for a long moment in complete silence. The wise woman is tall, nearly six feet in height, just like her foremothers, and has long silver hair that she wears in a loose braid down her stooped back.
She seems to know exactly why I’m here, because she doesn’t question me as I stride across the yard and come to stand in front of her.
“Alpha prince, you’ve been up to many things behind the scenes,” she murmurs in lieu of a normal greeting. “You wear your Mate’s love like a cloak.”
I frown at her. “Alina doesn’t lo-“
“Do not speak things aloud that are untrue when you stand in my garden, child.”
I resent being referred to as child, but Kseniya is pushing ninety, so I suppose she’s earned the right to call me something so diminutive.
Deciding to get right to the point, I plant my hands on my hips and say, “The prophecy, Kseniya. I need you to clarify it.”
“‘Glory be to the ocean-eyed Alpha, ninth of his line. Yet beware the beloved heir’s mate, who shall ruin him in time’,” she recites.
“Yes,” I snap. “I know it by heart by now. I just need you to give me the specifics, for fuck’s sake.”
If the old woman is offended by my cursing, she doesn’t show it. She merely sighs and shrugs her narrow shoulders, crooked with age.
“I don’t know the details, Rowan. Like the wise women who came before me, I only know what the wind tells me and nothing more.”
“But you’ve never been wrong before.”
Again, she shrugs. “Ruination can come in many forms, young Alpha. And I wonder if it is necessarily a bad thing to be ruined by the one you love.”
I’m beginning to wonder the same thing. Because, really, I don’t feel ruined. I feel strong and joyous and optimistic. I feel inspired and hopeful. I feel more like myself than I have in a very long time. If that’s what it is to be ruined, it’s not so bad.
“I need to know,” I press. “I don’t care if Alina ruins me, but the pack…and what if she is also ruined? What will I do then?”
Kseniya’s wrinkly eyes crease further at the corners, and she opens her mouth to answer, but then her gaze flicks to a point just over my shoulder.
I turn around to find, of all people, my mother and father walking down the dirt lane toward Kseniya’s cabin. When my mother sees me, she smiles in her lovely way, and my father waves good-naturedly. In contrast, I find it difficult to return the gesture.
And, as they get closer and come through the gated fence marking Kseniya’s property, my mother gasps, and the easy smile melts off my father’s face.
Both of them halt in their tracks just a few feet away from me.
They can smell her. I know they can.
Alina’s scent won’t smell the same to them as it does to me, but it will be obvious to them that it belongs not just to any Greenbriar, but to my Mate. My parents are Alpha and Luna, too, after all. They recognize their own kind, and it is doused all over my skin right now.
Kseniya remains where she is, hovering off to the side, observing silently.
Naturally, my father is the first to speak.
“You found her.”
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.