Page 51 of The Alpha Wolf’s Secret Baby Boy

All the questions, speculations, and demands go flying around the room as everyone seems to have something to say about my son’s disappearance.

My son.

The child I never knew existed.

Ten years…

Ten missed birthdays.

Ten crucial, developmental years of which I had no part.

No matter how much I try to wrap my head around what Poppy told me in the hallway, I can’t understand why she would keep him a secret from me.

I’m furious, almost disgusted by her choices. But she just walked out, implying that she can do this by herself, and my inner wolf is unsettled.

Without saying a word or contributing to the discussion—which is probably just wasting more of the time I could have with my son—I turn and leave the room, following Poppy.

It doesn’t matter how livid I am; I can’t let her go after him alone. Not when dark witches are behind this nightmare.

She’ll only get herself killed.

And my inner wolf won’t have it.

I can’t lose them both.

That single thought rips through the anger, the regret I’ve been wallowing in all morning, and I storm through the front door, following the trail of Poppy’s scent toward the town’s local school.

I find her at the back of the building, crouching between wilted flowers and grass and hastily unpacking a bag.

The same bag she packed when she planned on taking my son and fleeing Nightclaw, just to get away from me.

Anger washes over me again, and it’s like I’m being ripped apart, pulled in different directions by all the emotions I’m experiencing at once. Sadness, regret, anger, all churning inside my chest, reopening the wound I thought I’d closed when I spoke to Dorian yesterday.

I’m angry at Poppy for not having faith in me and running away at a volatile moment. I’m angry with Dorian for leaving Valley Walker in the first place, because none of this would be happening if I wasn’t so devastated when he left.

My son would have been safe, and I could have protected him if I knew Poppy was pregnant back then.

If I’d known… If I’d been there… If I’d been his father...

Damn Poppy for thinking she couldn’t trust me!

I clench my fists, my bones humming with the first stirrings of my wolf ready to be unleashed, wanting to rush out there and find my son myself. But then, I hear the terrified sobs coming from Poppy, and I take a deep breath.

I’m not the only one ready to do something reckless, even though neither of us knows what’s out there, except that it has to do with black magic.

A shiver courses down my spine just as Poppy stands up with a baby-blue mink blanket clutched to her chest, her cheeks streaming with tears.

I gulp hard, swallowing all the disarray in my head, realizing that I’m looking at a mother who just lost her son.

No.

This isn’t about my ego trip, or coming off as a victim—a victim who had to take his brother’s place in the pack, or a victim whose lover fled the town.

This is about a mother who just found out her son is missing. A mother distraught, torn by his disappearance at the hands of evil. She isn’t the woman who kept my son from me.

She’s a mother whose world just collapsed.

And seeing her in this state, face full of tears, eyes sadder than I have ever seen them, I realize that I will have to push aside how I feel about her keeping him a secret from me, so that I can be there for her when she needs it the most.