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Unfortunately, flashing red and blue lights put a kibosh on further fae hunting. A cop car rolled up the driveway with sirens blaring, which was handy since it gave us time to shuffle the most severely wounded out of sight.
The most severely wounded...and the dead. Two alphas wouldn’t be going home to their packs tonight, and four McCallisters hadn’t lived to see their clan’s regime change. If the officers produced a search warrant....
But it turned out blood and mayhem weren’t the reason the police had come.
“That’s my sister!” Harper was out of the car before it fully stopped, running toward me the way she had before she grew into her teenage self possession. I grabbed her shoulders, pulling her in so hard that her elbow bit into my stomach. Neither of us cared about smears of dirt and blood.
I just hoped the police officers didn’t possess werewolf eyesight. Or that they assumed we were in the midst of costumed Halloween revelry. It was hard to focus on the bigger picture when my sister was so distressed.
“Are you okay?” I murmured into her hair. “What happened?”
Her answer came out in a rush of words that made little sense. “I didn’t mean to. I texted Dad to say I was okay and he asked me where I was and....” Her voice broke.
Then a flashlight blinded me. Harper hiccuped a sob as she was wrested out of my grip by what smelled like a female human. “Ma’am, please step away from the child.” The woman’s voice grew muffled, as if she was speaking into a mic. “Is this the one who absconded with your daughter?”
Daughter? Was Nick here? The reason for Harper’s crying?
Beneath my shirt, fur rose on the back of my neck. Of all the times for my wolf to try to claw free of my humanity....
Then Tank’s voice soothed as it passed me. “This is a misunderstanding. I represent Athena D’Argent.”
I blinked as the flashlight lowered. Saw through blurry eyes as Tank passed over his card to the second officer, a man.
Behind the cops a car door slammed. Then Nick himself was tromping toward us. He’d waited for the police to squash all signs of danger before emerging, despite the fact his daughter had already raced ahead into the night.
At that realization, my wolf tried to make another break for it. But this time I was ready for her. Words will win this.
She growled then subsided. The two of us were starting to learn each others’ strengths and weaknesses. This moment was mine.
My relief at regaining control of our shared body was short-lived. Because Nick met my gaze, his face smug. “Athena had no legal right to take my daughter out of my custody,” he asserted. “She didn’t even consult with me before doing so. I consider that a kidnapping attempt.”
By human law, he was right. I couldn’t explain why Tank had sent werewolves to protect Harper. Concerns about fae glamour were unlikely to hold up in court.
Only...Tank turned toward Harper and raised his eyebrows. My sister nodded, dropping into a crouch so she could dig through her backpack.
“But you’re not my father.” Harper’s voice was clear as she rose back to her feet. She was almost as tall as Nick, I noticed for the first time. And despite boasting his red hair and his slender frame, Harper had a very different sort of heart.
Because Nick drank to drown his cowardice, but Harper was the furthest thing from a coward. She was standing up to her own father, risking everything she currently possessed in hope of a better future.
“Not your father?” Nick snorted. His gaze dropped to the single sheet of paper my sister was clutching. “What do you think you have there?”
Rather than handing the paper to Nick, Harper passed it over to the female police officer. Tank was closer than me, and I could tell the moment he read whatever was written on it. Because he broke out into the truest, most beautiful smile imaginable. My gut lurched as my wolf turned a stomach flip.
One millisecond later, Tank’s hand rose to shield his face. An attempt not to scare the humans. And his voice was even as he inserted himself into the disagreement yet again. “In my professional opinion, this birth certificate appears to be genuine.”
Birth certificate? My mother wasn’t the type to cheat on her partner and she and Nick had been together for years before Harper was born, even if they weren’t legally married. So I didn’t see how Harper’s birth certificate could help matters.
The male officer apparently agreed. “Still doesn’t solve the issue of custody. If this man isn’t the father, Harper has no parent in attendance. We’ll have to call a social worker.”
Harper flinched and the female cop noticed. “It’s going to be okay, honey,” she soothed. “Foster parents are nice. We’ll sort this out.”
The woman was trying to be kind, but Harper was already crying. Foster care wasn’t what I’d promised her. I’d promised her a real home and a real family. I intended to make that promise stick.
To that end, I shouldered my way into the huddle. The cop had moved her flashlight away from the paper but I pulled upon my wolf until I could read the dark squiggles on the birth certificate.
There was Harper’s name, the date, the location. Mom’s name and....
Now my smile was as wide as Tank’s had been. “How about we let Harper’s father decide?”
***
THE LAST TIME ACE HAD been called upon to act like a parent, he’d dropped the ball so fast it might as well have been greased and lit on fire. This time, though, he had an alpha pushing him toward us rather than away from us.
Or so I gathered by the way Ace fell all over himself to make things right.
“Of course this is my daughter,” he lied, causing every werewolf in the vicinity to wrinkle our noses at the stench of his assertion. Why my mom had listed him on the birth certificate was beyond me since he clearly wasn’t Harper’s father....
Although, considering the contrast as Ace’s strength faced off against Nick’s weakness, I wasn’t so surprised after all. Mom hadn’t felt able to leave Nick, but she’d wanted a better life for her children. And that was what we were about to ensure.
Unfortunately, the cops remained dubious. It wasn’t lost on them that Harper had run to me but hadn’t even recognized Ace until he started speaking. Luckily, my biological father appeared to be cannier than I would have expected.
“I wasn’t able to take care of Harper the way I wanted to, so I gave my older daughter custody.” He nodded his head at me, and Tank slid into the conversational gap.
“We have financial records to back this up. Athena has been paying for her sister’s schooling for some time now. Harper has spent breaks with her sister. Ms. D’Argent has clearly been acting in loco parentis.”
The male cop wavered. “A judge will have to make that determination.”
“Of course,” Tank agreed. “But until that time, doesn’t it seem like the best-case scenario to remand Harper into the custody of the person she clearly wants to spend time with? Her sister? The one her father has chosen to keep her safe?”
If Nick had been a werewolf, his teeth would have sharpened. He was losing the battle, but he wasn’t quite ready to concede defeat yet. “Perhaps you should let us discuss this between ourselves,” he suggested. I could almost see the dollar bills reflected in his pupils.
And the female cop nodded. “If the family is able to come to a consensus, that would be in the best interests of the child. Come on, Harper. Let’s give the adults a few minutes to talk.”
***
“HOW MUCH?” TANK ASKED the moment the officers were too far away to hear us. Then, being a lawyer, he clarified his question. “How much to testify in court that Harper is not your daughter?”
“She’s very important to me.” Nick’s voice was oily. And I should have flinched.
Because “very important” meant six figures at least. Maybe seven figures. And I had negative dollars in my bank account at the present moment.
Meanwhile, Tank glanced at me. A question. Was I willing to cede this financial responsibility? For a second, I found it hard to meet his gaze.
After all, I’d lost so much independence when I accepted Rowan’s money years ago. Had gotten swallowed up in a different sort of lopsided financial relationship with my stepfather, one he summed up with the farcical: “Family gives and family takes.”
From Nick, the statement had been a joke. But sometime in the past twenty-four hours I’d stopped worrying about being in debt to Tank. Money, I gathered, was easy for him. So was lawyering. And members of a pack took what was easily and willingly offered while giving from their own strength in return.
Tank was my pack and my family. I’d decided that. I trusted him not to hold this over my head.
So I lifted my chin and nodded. And rather than debt, heat flared between us. Tank was pleased by my willingness. Not so pleased, however, that he let Nick off the hook.
“I’ll be assuming responsibility for Harper’s tuition, of course,” Tank continued. “You will be expected to bow out of that facet of her life as well as all others.”
Tank’s voice was level, but for one split second his wolf rose huge and ferocious behind his eyes. The old scars and new wounds turned his face into a monster’s mask....
And Nick backpedalled so quickly he literally stumbled over himself. “I... You....”
My stepfather turned away from Tank to glare at me, his face red and his eyes furious. Of course Nick knew I was a werewolf. It was one more reason for him to resent me. But I’d always tried to keep my furry side under wraps around him. Perhaps that decision had been a mistake.
Because, after one split second, his glare turned into a cringe. No wonder when my inner wolf had risen to face him. When I didn’t even try to stop her as she sharpened my teeth and brightened my eyes.
Nick’s gaze dropped to the ground and stuck there. He wasn’t trying to prove his dominance over me at this point. He was just trying to protect his skinny neck.
First the stick...then the carrot. “Is this sufficient?” Tank tapped a number into his phone and held the device out to Nick. The gesture changed the mood instantly. My stepfather’s ratty little head nodded up and down so quickly he once again lost his balance.
“You’ll receive one third now,” Tank continued, as if he brokered deals with greedy fathers every day of the week. “The remaining two-thirds will come when you sign the final custody paperwork.”
“Of course.” Nick’s voice sweetened. Now he sounded like he was toadying up to rich parents at Highlands.
I turned away, disgusted that I’d let myself lose sleep over such a small, small man.
Then Harper was sidling back under my arm, her cop minders left behind for the moment. Her words, when they emerged, were mouse-like. “I don’t have to go to Highlands if it’s too expensive....”
I winced. Harper had seen what I’d been hoping to shield her from. If her father was willing to sell her to the highest bidder, of course she’d consider her place with anyone else threatened by thin ice.
But there was no ice beneath her feet when it came to me. And the assurance of continuing at Highlands, at least, I could offer her.
Or, rather, Tank could offer it to her. I risked a single glance in his direction, my head cocked in question. He rolled his eyes as if to say, Didn’t I already make that clear?
Smiling, I hugged Harper a little closer. Then I told her: “You can go wherever you want to go. You’re my sister.”
Harper’s body tensed rather than relaxing. “Half sister,” she whispered, low enough so the police officers couldn’t hear her. “Tank gave me the idea to hunt for the birth certificate, but I’m pretty sure Nick’s my father.”
I was too...and that made exactly zero difference. “You’re my sister,” I repeated. “And I would do anything to give you what you want. I can talk to Clara if that’s the hangup....”
“Naw, she already texted.” Harper shrugged, but this time her cheeks bunched up into a half-squashed smile. “We’re going to ask to room together again next year. If you can afford it, I want to go back.”
I swallowed against the lump in my throat. Soon, Harper wouldn’t need me. She was already starting to fight her own battles.
So instead of asking more questions, I hugged her closer. For this instant, at least, my sister was all mine.