“It was magic,” the shaman spat, and pointed an accusing finger at me. “He made them do it!”
I stepped forward and came to stand beside Matthew, who proved for the hundredth time that I’d chosen the best alpha on earth to mate me by keeping his mouth shut and letting me answer for myself. The impulse to gloat rose up strong. Damn it. I’d have to save that for my post-mortem with Nate later on. It might be momentarily satisfying, but it’d erode our moral high ground. Besides, that little fucking asshole already knew I’d beaten him at his own game.
“It’s not my fault that your magic backfired.” I offered an insultingly nonchalant shrug and had the satisfaction of watching the shaman’s face turn carmine with rage. “I simply defended my pack by placing a barrier between them and your assault. It bounced off.”
“You reflected it back on purp—” He cut himself off, standing there frozen with his mouth open…but too late.
Matthew stepped smoothly into the ringing silence that followed, interrupted only by the grumblings of Diaz’s healing goons. “So you attacked us with magic, my pack’s shaman tried to keep the peace by successfully preventing us from attacking you physically, and then your own plan resulted in these assholes trying to kill us? After you lied to Angelo’s boss, like he points out? That wasn’t your smartest move, by the way.”
“Not at all, he’s killed more impressive assholes for less,” Angelo put in, his tone filled with the kind of cheer that should’ve had Diaz and his people running for it like the lawyers had. They’d finally reappeared, but they still hovered by the car, half in and half out of the doors. “You will, I have no doubt, be leaving here alive, because Armitage is a man of his word. Unlike you. But I’m not sure you’ll be glad to be alive once Fenwick’s done with you.”
“We’ll leave,” Diaz grunted, finally getting himself up to one knee, resting his arms on the other, “as soon as I get what’s mine.”
What washis? As if they were his property. To hurt, and to use, and the only reason I hadn’t been sent back to a hell like Jessica’s was that Matthew had fought and nearly died for me.
“You’ll leave without laying a hand on them.” My voice came out betrayingly thick, full of memories I couldn’t suppress: chained and forced on a dirty floor, running through the night and using my magic to hide the blood I left behind me, Matthew choking out what had almost been his last breaths. “A violent, lying, cheating son of a fucking bitch like you shouldn’t be anywhere near them. You planned this. All of it. Or something like it. Your shaman helped Jessica get away from you so that you could follow her, lie about her, and make it look like she’d lost her mind.”
Matthew’s brows rose, and I caught a murmur of approval from the pack council. Wait until Nate heard I’d beenthe one to figure it out—he’d be either delighted it’d been one of us, or livid that I’d gotten there first, or both.
Diaz pushed to his feet, eyes dark with rage, jaw working. He didn’t even look at me, gaze fixed on Matthew. “He’s fucking lying,” he spat. “You call yourself a pack leader and an alpha, Armitage? You let your bitch do the talking for you?”
Matthew’s hand flexed at his side, showing a glint of claw, and even though he tried to throttle his side of the bond so I wouldn’t feel it and be distressed by it, his anger nearly overwhelmed his self-control.
“You’ll leave without laying a hand on them,” Matthew said. “Because a violent, lying, cheating son of a fucking bitch like you shouldn’t be anywhere near them. Hope that clears things up for you. And make it quick, because I’d like to keep Angelo’s good opinion of me for being a man of my word, but I’m this fucking close to changing my mind about that.”
“They belong to me,” Diaz snarled. He kept his presence of mind enough not to charge at Matthew again, but his fangs had dropped and blood dripped from his fisted hands where his claws had slipped out into his palms. Calder and Ian both shifted their weight, and Diaz’s guys took a step back. Diaz looked around him wildly and noticed his lack of support. “What the fuck is wrong with you? You!” He’d turned around enough to glare at the lawyers. “The fuck are we paying you for? Get over here and tell this fucking bloodsucker that they’re gonna be alphas, they need to be raised by their werewolf father, not some human cunt!”
“They’re babies,” Ian scoffed. “How the hell do you know they’ll be—”
“You say they’re alphas?” Paul’s voice cut Ian off, and I jumped, reaching up to rub at my ear, because he’d pushed between me and Ian and practically shouted. You had to in order to talk over Ian, who tended to boom. “Shut up, Ian, he wantsto believe he’s too much of a man not to father alphas, let him hang himself with his own delusional rope,” Paul hissed under his breath, quietly enough that only those of us next to him could hear. “You’re right,” he went on at a more normal volume. “Traditional shifter law lays out several rules for the custody of alphas, to make sure they get the training they’ll need to use their powers as adults. I read about it.” He shot Matthew a meaningful look, and Matthew waved a hand at Paul as if to say,Your show, go on. Paul nodded. “Mr., ah, Marin?”
Angelo stepped forward, sketching a slight bow that somehow looked natural. Right. He’d probably been raised when men still bowed to people to greet them. Fucking vampires.
“At your service, and you are…?”
“I shouldn’t have to be doing your job for you!” Diaz shouted to the lawyers. “Get over here!”
“Keep your mouth shut, or I’ll shut it for you.” Calder didn’t raise his voice. He didn’t need to. Diaz stopped talking, showing the first sign of intelligence I’d seen from him.
“Paul Rafferty, Armitage pack councilor, entirely at yours,” Paul said, not missing a beat. “I assume Mr. Fenwick’s going to tell the shifter council, based on what you’ve seen here, that Mr. Diaz shouldn’t be given custody of children, and that his pack clearly colluded in this. Since the shaman and lawyers were provided by the pack?”
“Mr. Diaz definitely told Fenwick that he’d come here with the full support of his pack leader. And Mr. Diaz is going to be lucky to keep custody of all of his internal organs,” Angelo added, with a genial smile and nod in Diaz’s direction.
“I happen to know you can do fine without a spleen,” Jared called out. “There’s hope for you yet!”
Ian started to laugh.
Matthew glared at them both, eyes flashing gold, mouth like someone had shoved a particularly sour lemon into it—that lemon being the realization that he bore a close genetic relationship to them.
“Under shifter law, these children cannot be left in the custody of Mrs. Diaz,” one of the lawyers piped up at last. “She’s human. The law is very clear on this point. You have no grounds to deny Mr. Diaz—”
“Mr. Diaz isn’t an alpha,” Paul said. “Unless we missed something?”
The lawyer opened his mouth, closed it, and shot a speaking glance at his colleague over the roof of the car.
Ferret Number Two chimed in with, “Our alpha pack leader will be more than willing to assume temporary custody of—”
“Except that he knew you were going to come here and attack us on our own land under false pretenses, and he almost certainly knew his shaman had helped Jessica leave in the first place.” Matthew’s clear, decisive voice cut across the lawyer’s, and his alpha strength and determination rippled through the air around him almost tangibly. Gods, but I loved him. All the time, but particularly when he took charge like this.
