“They’re saying the alpha is from their pack, so they want her to go with them.”
“No,” I growled.
Amir took a step back. “Where are they?” I asked.
“Conference room,” he said.
I turned and left, throwing the door open as I went. When I got there, I saw an older man on one side and another who looked to be around my age next to him.
“How can I help you?” I asked.
The older man stood. “Are you Pack Alpha Hawthorne?”
“Yes,” I grit out.
“I’m Roland Adams, and this is my son, Stephen. We’re here because a sample was entered into the database for an alpha wolf over the weekend, one we believe to be my son’s child.”
I started trembling. “I’m sure you’re mistaken.”
“I don’t think so,” Rolland said. “We were able to get a DNA test to prove it. I have the results here.” He slid the document across the table, but I didn’t need to see it. Though she looked more like Harper than this man, I could see a similar hair color and face shape.
“And because she’s not registered with a pack,” Rolland continued, “we would like her to come to ours.”
“That’s not happening,” I said clearly.
He furrowed his brows. “I don’t understand. Do you have some kind of attachment to this child?”
I stood behind the chair, gripping the back. “Yes. She’s my mate's daughter. She belongs with this pack.”
Rolland pursed his lips. “According to the database, she’s not. You haven’t claimed her, so that means as of right now, she belongs to our pack, and we don’t have an alpha. Training her to take over Mislulu one day would be the first good thing my son ever contributed to this pack.”
Stephen, for his part, looked completely uninterested. How a man could be this uninterested in meeting his own child made me want to snap the chair I was currently gripping in my hands.
“It’s an error,” I said. “We’ve mated, and it must not have updated.” It was a lie, but one I could use to buy more time. He was technically right. Because she was blood-related to them, she should belong to Mislulu, but I’d never liked that pack. They held onto archaic traditions that put them in this situation to begin with. However, mate bonds were as good as blood, and if I was mated to her mother, that would make her just as much my family as theirs. But if they found out I was lying, they could challenge my pack. Though I didn’t think they had the manpower to do so, I would like to keep this as peaceful as possible.
“Dammit, Stephen,” Rolland said, addressing his son. “How could you let this alpha slip through our fingers like this?”
Stephen scoffed. “I didn’t even know I knocked the girl up until months later,” he said. “And how was I supposed to know the runt would be an alpha? I’m not.”
I couldn’t help it. I flew at the guy, gripping his shirt and pinning him against the wall. “Don’t speak about my mate or child like that if you’d like to leave with all your body parts,” I growled.
He looked like he wanted to be smug, but genuine fear clouded his expression. “Whatever.”
I reeled back and punched him, hard. I felt his nose crack under my fist, blood pooling from his face as his hands flew to it. “What the fuck, man?” he yelled.
Rolland cut in. “That’s enough, Stephen. Please respect our host.”
I scoffed. This man couldn’t care less about his son, about as much as his son did about Aria. He only cared about securing an alpha for their pack.
“I understand, but we would like to see proof of this mating.”
“Proof?” I asked.
“Yes. If the mother tells us she’s your mate and would like to stay here, even after hearing our offer, we will leave.”
He seemed pretty sure they would leave, but I knew Harper. I knew she wouldn’t.
“Fine. Come back tomorrow, and you may speak to her if she wants to see you. ”
