Chapter 158 Surprise Guest
ADRIANA
The driver had caught the woman on the crossing, not fast enough to injure her seriously but fast enough that she had gone down and that was not something I could drive away from regardless of how the afternoon had been going until that point.
She was disoriented when we got to her, sitting up on her own and was taking stock of their body before committing to any larger movements. She didn’t have any visible injuries and her eyes were alert. She waved away the level of fuss we were creating over her and said she was fine, but I had not survived everything I had survived by taking people at their word when their word was I’m fine after a car had knocked them to the ground.
We took her to the hospital. The driver, who had gone white the moment it happened and had not fully recovered his color by the time we arrived, was beside himself. I told him to stop apologizing and that I was taking responsibility for what had happened, which was the truth. I had told him to move quickly.
“You really don’t need to do all this,” she said in the examination room. Her expression was of someone who was genuinely puzzled by the degree of care being extended to her. “I wasn’t even hurt.”
“We’ll let the doctor confirm that.” I told her.
She smiled, it was patient and slightly rueful, like someone who had learned a long time ago that some things were not worth arguing with.
I looked at her while she sat there and felt something pulling at the edge of my memory that I couldn’t quite locate. The feeling of familiarity without context. I had met enough people in the past year that this happened occasionally, but something about this was more specific than a general resemblance. Something about her was tugging at a real memory.
“Have we met somewhere?”
She looked up at me. “No, I don’t think so. I would have remembered you.”
Leo was in the corner occupying himself with my phone, doing something that required enormous concentration, and I glanced at him and then back at her.
“Is that your son?”
“He is.” Saying it still produced a small warmth in my chest every time. “Are you from this pack?”
The hesitation before she answered was slight but present.
“I was. A long time ago. I left.”
I waited to see if she would continue. She did.
“I did something I shouldn’t have. I made a choice that hurt people who deserved better from me. I’m here to try to make what amends I can.” She looked at her hands. “I don’t know if it will be possible. But I needed to try.”
The doctor came back with her results. She was fine, just mildly dehydrated, no internal injuries, cleared to go and I arranged for the driver to take her wherever she needed to go, which felt like the minimum I could do given that our car had been the one that knocked her down.
“Where are you headed?”
“The Alpha’s house. I have business there.”
I absorbed this information carefully and gave nothing away in my expression. I reached Elijah through the link.
“There’s a woman in the car with me. She was hit by the car, she’s not hurt, but I’m bringing her back. She says she has business with you. I don’t know who she is.”
“What does she look like?”
I described her as accurately as I could while appearing to be looking out the window.
There was silence on his end for a moment.
“Keep an eye on her. I’ll meet you when you arrive.”
The drive back was quiet. She looked out the window with an expression I recognized as someone encountering a place that had changed in their absence and was measuring the difference. There was something nostalgic in it, and something heavier underneath.
“This place hasn’t changed as much as I expected,” she said quietly. More to herself than to me.
The car stopped at the packhouse. She got out slowly and stood looking at the building with that same measuring quality, and I signaled to the driver with a look and he took Leo inside through the side entrance.
She was still taking in the front of the house when one of the maids passed.
“Good day, Luna.”
The woman turned to look at me with an expression of genuine surprise.
“You’re the Luna?”
“Yes.”
She processed this. “Then you’re married to—”
She stopped. Her eyes moved past me and I turned to see Elijah walking toward us across the forecourt, the directness of his stride that he had when he was assessing a situation in real time. He came to stand beside me and I felt his hand settle at my waist.
“I understand you were looking for me,” he said. His voice was the careful kind. Neutral and observational. Not giving anything while taking everything in.
The woman was looking at him with an expression I could not immediately read. Something enormous moving just beneath the surface of it. Her eyes were filled with tears.
“I’m the Alpha,” Elijah said. “Is there something I can help you with?”
She pointed at him. Her hand was shaking slightly.
“Elijah.” Her voice shook a little.
I felt Elijah’s hand go still against my waist. When I looked at him his face had done something I had never seen it do before. All the control of it, all the careful management he kept in place, had simply left.
He was looking at her with an expression I couldn't fathom.
The word that came out of him next was barely more than a breath.
“Mum.”
I stood very still beside him.
I’m sorry, his mother?