41

“Finn?” I call out.

When there is no response, I feel a hint of concern. Finn often plays in these gardens. He knows every nook and cranny of this place, so it’s not odd for him to wander off. My son has an adventurous streak. But he always comes when I call.

“Finn!” I yell, stepping down from the gazebo and making my way over to where I saw him last.

When he doesn’t reply, alarm bells begin to go off in my head. This time when I shout his name, there’s a hint of panic in it. “Finn Avery! You answer me right now!”

I hear a muffled whine, and my heart sinks. Something’s wrong.

Without a second thought, I discard my human form and race toward where I heard the sound come from.

I round one of the hedges and see a man with his back to me. One of his arms is raised, and he’s holding a struggling young wolf by the scruff of his neck. My son’s arms and legs are kicking the air, but he seems too terrified to make any noise. Roaring, I leap forward and snatch him from the man, landing a few feet away from him. The familiar scent doesn’t register on me just yet. My wolf’s maternal instincts are at an all-time high.

I spin around, ready to attack the man, when I finally lay eyes on him, on his face. I am facing the one person I never truly believed I would ever see again.

Cedric Raine.

The sight of my fated mate leaves my wolf stunned. The shock is temporary, though. It’s followed by an intense rage when Finn whimpers.

Cedric is frozen in place, and I shift back, clutching Finn to me.

“How dare you touch him?!” I snarl.

Cedric’s eyes widen, and I see the surprise in them. “How is this possible?”

He steps toward me, and I immediately move backward, baring my teeth at him. “That’s far enough.”

“Leanna,” he breathes. “I thought you were dead.”

Is that hope I hear in his voice? I always wondered how I would feel when I saw him, if I ever did. I always imagined the perfect scenario where I would lash out at him and make him regret what he did to me, that I would make him grovel. A fantasy meant only to soothe my deeply wounded heart. But when I look at him now, the only anger I feel is driven by the instinct to protect my child. Under that anger are thick, roiling fear and pain, a heavy sadness that permeates me to my bones.

“I’m sorry,” I finally say, trying to calm down and focusing on the fear. “I think you’ve mistaken me for somebody else.”

I look different. I know I do. And eight years is a long time to forget somebody he knew for only a short while.

Holding Finn tightly in my arms, I begin to walk away from him. My heart is pounding like a drum against my rib cage with each step. There is fear in every breath I take.

Let him accept that. Let him think he made a mistake.

I feel his hand on my arm, and I am whirled around. Cedric’s eyes bore into mine, and his grip is tight, almost to the point of painful. His voice is hoarse. “You can’t fool me. I know you, Leanna. You can change your hair all you like. You can’t change your face or your scent.”

I narrow my eyes at him and pull away from his hold. “Stay away from me.” When he moves to touch me again, I yell, suddenly overcome with emotion, “I said, don’t touch me!”

Finn whimpers in my arms, and I hold him even closer, protectively.

Cedric’s eyes flit to the dark wolf cub, and an emotion flickers behind his eyes. “That’s your child.” I take a few steps back, ready for an excuse that might actually work, and he says harshly, “Don’t deny it. I can smell him. He has your scent.”

Wolf shifters carry the scent of their mothers, just a trace of it, from the womb. To identify their father, shifters have something similar to the DNA tests that humans conduct. For our kind, drops of blood from the child and the potential father are placed in a bowl of water. If they are truly father and child, the blood drops combine; if not, they stay separate.

There is no way that Cedric will be able to recognize Finn as his own child right now because he can’t see the boy’s facial features. And I’m sure that as long as Finn is terrified, he won’t shift back, feeling safer in his wolf form.

I clutch my trembling pup to me. “Stay away from us!”

Cedric looks shocked to the core. “You—How are you alive? Who—Who is the father of that child?”

A part of me, a cold vicious part of me, feels a sick sense of satisfaction at how stunned he looks. He expected me to be dead. He wanted me to be dead. What a surprise, seeing me alive and thriving after all these years! I hope it hurts him. I hope he—

“Whose child is that?” he snaps, rage in his eyes now.

His anger is startling, and I take another step back. “What’s it to—”

“Watch your tone, Cedric!” Erik’s voice comes from behind me, and he sounds irked. “Leanna, take Finn and go inside!”

I’ve never heard him sound so pissed. I start to walk away, but Cedric blocks my path, his eyes flashing. “I don’t think so. I’m not letting you leave my sight again.”

“Watch it, King Raine,” Erik says coldly. “I won’t tolerate my son and his mother being threatened.”

“Your—Your son?” Cedric goes pale, and my wolf strains inside me, not liking this turn of events.

“Yes.” Erik comes to stand beside me, taking Finn from my arms and holding him. “My son and heir.”

“Your son,” Cedric breathes, looking dazed. He looks like someone has punched him in the stomach. “You and Leanna. Do you even know who she is?”

Erik stares at him silently, and I flinch inwardly.

Even now, he’s going to try to sabotage me? Erik knows what happened, or at least part of it. If Cedric really decides to—

“She’s my fated mate!” Cedric snarls.

I go still. That wasn’t what I expected.

“Your fated mate?” Erik sneers back at him. “But you’re mated to Princess Vivian from the Eastern Wolf Kingdom. Do you really expect me to believe that you are mated to another woman and have a fated mate? You do know that once you give a female your mating mark, your bond with your fated mate disappears. You have no claim to this woman.”

Cedric glowers at him. “Vivian does not bear my mating mark!”

Erik scoffs. “So what? You refused to mark your queen, and now Leanna should serve as your mistress? Is that what you’re trying to imply?”

Erik’s absurd conclusion has my head whipping around so I can gape at him. Cedric didn’t say anything remotely like that!

However, the king of the Human Wolf Kingdom has his eyes on the Northern king. He doesn’t even glance in my direction.

“That’s not what I meant,” Cedric snarls. “When did this happen? When did you and Leanna—” He can’t seem to form the words, apparently too enraged by the idea.

Erik smirks. “Around eight years ago. I found her on the palace grounds, badly injured. She and I are old acquaintances, you know.”

Cedric struggles to speak, and when he looks at me, I see a strange emotion in his eyes. A look of betrayal.

I tear my gaze away. It hurts to look at him. But how dare he act like I’ve done something horrible when he was the one who betrayed me?!

“You had a child together?” Cedric asks, his voice heavy and filled with something that has my wolf lurching inside my mind.

“Yes, we did.” Erik puts his arm around my waist.

“So, you’re his mate?” Cedric looks at me. Why does he looks so anguished, like I have done him a terrible wrong?

I finally summon the strength to speak. “Did you expect me to come back to you? So you could finish me off?”