Tangled in Moonlight: Unshifted (Ava and Lucas)

Chapter 61 Ava: Homecoming (III)

Alpha Renard is someone I have had few encounters with. He's come by the house many times through my life, but my parents always sent me to my room, not wanting to parade their shame in front of him.

Today is different.

Today, he sits across from me at the dinner table as my mother serves him, apologizing for the dinner—something Phoenix had brought home from a restaurant in town. Everyone's gaze seems to center on me.

I can tell Phoenix and Dad are furious with me, but there's little point in looking in their direction. There's no point ruining what tiny appetite I have.

Alpha Renard is an imposing figure, towering well over six feet with a muscular build that speaks of years of combat training. His brown hair is neatly trimmed and his face shaved; I don't think I've ever seen him in a state of disarray. He likes to show off the deep scars clawed across his face.

Shifters don't scar easily, but it isn't impossible.

Like all alphas, he has an intimidating presence and a confident air that demands respect. But his eyes hold a cruel glint that has me cringing from eye contact.

He won't stop staring at me, even as he talks with the others.

I keep my gaze fixed on the plate in front of me. Alpha Renard's intense stare burns into my face, making my skin prickle with unease. His eyes linger on the split in my lip, the abnormal color across my cheeks. They still throb.

"Alexander," Renard's gruff voice breaks the tense silence. "What happened to your daughter's face?"

has become willful in her time

risk a glance, finding a sinister look come over Alpha Renard's features. "I will take care of it," he says, his tone sending an avalanche of

boring into mine with an intensity that makes me want to shrink away. "So tell me, Ava," he says, his voice laced with a dark edge. "Why has the Aspen pack taken such

lead weights on my tongue. I can sense

pack had me. But how much do they

and I lie,

they don't, and I tell them

So I lie.

car with some rogue shifters they were chasing, and got injured. They took care of my wounds after that as an apology." Mostly truth, but I can see by the twitch in Alpha Renard's

scent of deception? Or is it

it into my mouth. It tastes like cardboard. I have

eating, maybe he won't

But he does.

an omega, and the alpha forced you into a mating. We will fight back so you can regain your freedom. We are all family here. You can talk to us." Alpha

a true omega, like Clayton did, I'll never be able to escape that fate. I shake my head, desperate

his giant fist on the table, the dishes clattering from the force. I flinch,

flashing with barely contained rage. "We know all about your heat. How you threw yourself at the Aspen

with disgust. "You're an embarrassment to

twisted applications of the truth are not unfamiliar to me. Anger surges