Page 9 of The Alpha Wolf’s Secret Baby Boy

“No,” I chuckle nervously. “I’ve just been—”

Just then, the lunch bell rings out, and Ingrid groans. She snatches the ladle back and picks up the pot again.

“Don’t worry about this. I got it,” she says with a wink as she heads to the door.

“Wait! Are you sure?”

“Yeah,” she nods. “Could you get the laundry going instead?”

“Y-yes,” I stammer, straightening up behind the door as she leaves. All I catch is a glance at the lunch hall, and my heart stops when I see him again.

Broad shoulders taper into a tiny waist, muscles clad in a tight-fitting black T-shirt that leaves little to the imagination of his contoured back, standing on two powerful thighs. I gulp hard, eyes traveling to the back of his head when it feels too intrusive to be gawking at his plump rear, but that’s where dark brown curls twist and almost touch his collar, and I’m reminded of what it felt like to let my fingers get lost in those luscious locks….

Damian Walker stands in the hall with his back turned toward the kitchen, and even if I haven’t seen his face yet, there’s no doubt that it’s him.

I heard about his arrival in Fort Smit this morning, and I’ve been doing everything in my power to steer clear of him.

Just as I have done every time he sets foot in Nightclaw territory to visit his brother.

Even if that means hiding inside my cottage on the south outskirts of town.

Damian can’t know that I’m here.

A shiver courses down my spine, and I feel the surge of an unwanted awareness fill my nerve endings, and that’s when Damian turns on his heel. I dodge behind the kitchen counter, making sure he can’t see me when the other volunteers walk out with more pots to serve lunch.

Still, it’s risky being inside the pack center when he’s under the same roof.

He has no business being here, anyway. He usually doesn’t mingle with the common folk of the pack. So what is he doing here today?

It doesn’t matter.

All I know is that I must avoid him; I must avoid being seen by him.

So I grab the laundry bag from the kitchen that contains soiled aprons and kitchen cloths and bolt for the washing room.

Once I’m behind the closed door in the small square room, I feel like I can breathe again. I’d spent all morning pacing the floor in my cabin, not risking coming out except for when I had to take my son to school this morning.

If Damian finds me here… He’ll find out about Daniel.

And I can’t risk all of that coming to light.

As I pick out items from the laundry basket and shove them into the washing machine, I mumble curses under my breath.

Almost a year ago, when Daniel and I were forced to evacuate our home in Roland, I wasn’t expecting to find that Dorian Walker was the alpha of the Nightclaw Pack. He forfeited his place as the alpha of Valley Walker, so I didn’t think he’d become the alpha of his uncle’s pack. I’d heard about Nightclaw and how they welcomed misfits like me—even if I’d been living as a lone wolf for nine years before arriving here—and knew that I’d have to meet Dorian eventually, only relying on the fact that he never knew about his brother and me.

My son and I reached the edge of Nightclaw territory when we fled the strange occurrence outside our Roland home; we returned from our day, only to find the garden around our cabin smeared with death. The stench of it almost made me throw up, and I knew I had to get Daniel and me to safety.

But when we arrived, border patrol stopped us and called their alpha over to decide if we’d be given refuge in the pack. To my surprise, it was Alpha Dorian Walker who came out to meet us.

And luckily for me, even though he recognized that I was once a Valley Walker wolf, he didn’t know about my history with his younger brother.

Of course he wouldn’t have known!

My relationship with his brother was a secret that I’d probably be buried with.

I’d like to keep it that way.

All Alpha Dorian knows is that I’d been living as a lone wolf with my son after leaving Valley Walker, but he doesn’t know the details, and didn’t care to ask when I told him we didn’t have a house anymore. He agreed to give us refuge right away, not caring about rank or status, just the mere fact that I was a single mother trying to find shelter for my son and me.