Page 47 of Lunar's Ruined Alpha
Noah isn’t extroverted. He isn’t bold and daring. He’s not even particularly adventurous. Although I’d tried to coax him out of his shell, he has always preferred to have quiet and solitude. But there is a steadiness in my son, and a sharp intellect to go with it, that speaks to who his father is and the leader that he is capable of becoming.
I may have been the one who raised him, but there is so much of Rowan in Noah. I can’t deny that. I can’t ignore it.
In fact, when I really think about it, I’m not even that mad about it.
Rowan swallows hard. “I want you to know…I looked for you.”
“What?”
“After you left the pack. Ten years ago. I looked for you. I wanted to find you.”
I stare at him. “You…why?”
“Why?”
“Yes. Why?”
Rowan gapes at me. “Because you’re my Mate, Alina. Why wouldn’t I search for you?”
“Because you rejected me?”
“That doesn’t mean we couldn’t—the rejection was a moment of panic. I was young. We both were. The prophecy was running through my head, and I freaked out.”
I stumble back a step, as if there is a physical force behind his words.
There’s a part of me that refuses to believe them. He’s just sweet-talking me. He’s using his Alpha influence, or tugging on the Mating bond, to sway me in his favor. This is how he’s choosing to argue with me from now on, by making himself seem like an altruistic savior. Eventually, I’ll give in. That’s what he thinks.
It doesn’t matter that, honestly, the Rowan I knew was nothing like that.
This is what I tell myself so that this grand realization doesn’t hurt as much.
I exhale shakily. “So, you’re telling me that, after discovering that I am your Mate, if given ample time to think it through, you wouldn’t have rejected me? You’re telling me that you don’t believe in the prophecy?”
Rowan’s pause is long enough that it gives me exactly the answer I expected. Of course, he’s believes in it. And of course, he would have rejected me no matter what.
“Right,” I say, slumping back against the edge of the counter. “That’s what I thought.”
“I didn’t know what to do,” he murmurs, taking a step toward me. “I still don’t know what to do.”
“Why don’t you go ask Kseniya? Maybe she can offer you another prophecy to point you in the right direction.”
He sighs at the venomous sarcasm in my tone.
Then, just like that, something else occurs to me. For some reason, it causes me to bark out a laugh.
“They don’t even know, do they?” I ask.
“Who?”
“The pack, Rowan. Your father, the Alpha. Kseniya. The elders. They still don’t know I’m here. They still don’t know that Noah exists. If they did, they would have sent others to try and take him home. But they’d leave me alone, of course, because they don’t want me to ruin you.”
“It’s…complicated.”
“Look me in the eyes and tell me that the pack would welcome me back with open arms.”
“I—”
“Tell me they’d happily overlook the prophecy, Rowan. Tell me that, if I came home, I wouldn’t be ostracized by everyone.”
