Chapter 15
Chapter Fifteen
Grayson
Petition for Custody of Minor Child. Ethan Wolfe.
I read the line three times. My grip tightens until the paper tears at the corner. “What the fuck is this?”
“Grayson,” Coach begins, but I lift my head, my blood boiling.
“She has no fucking grounds. The Council ruled against her!”
“She’s not going through the Council.” Sterling holds my gaze. “She’s going through the human judicial system.”
The bird somewhere in the tree line keeps singing. I want it to stop.
“What?” Something cold drops through my stomach. “She can’t do that. Can she, Coach?” My eyes swivel to the older man who raised me and Gabriel since we were ten. “She can’t do that. The Council won’t allow—”
“They are displeased,” Coach says carefully. “But technically she’s not breaking any laws. Even our kind is known to use the humans’ law systems sometimes. But it’s unprecedented in this case.”
He clasps his hands in front of him. “When those photos went public, Ethan’s existence became known in the human world. Under the Accord, that’s a breach. Wolf pups must stay hidden from human society until they are ten years old or they have completed their first shift.”
“I know the law.”
My jaw works around the words. Better than any of them. I wrote that law into Ethan’s life from the day he was born. No crowds. No public spaces. No outings in human areas. And the one time I bent the rule, four years in, four goddamn years of holding the line, she found a way to use it.
“She’s put Ethan in danger,” I snarl. “She leaked the photos. She—”
Sterling and my alpha exchange a look, and Sterling says, “We know that she leaked them, Grayson, but the Council doesn’t believe it. The man we tracked last night has disappeared. He was the only link between her and the photographs. Alpha Ramirez has already been to the Council.”
I look between the two of them. “Why is she doing this? She doesn’t even want Ethan! She never wanted him. You know what she put him through! He was six months old when she left. She never cared for him—”
“Her husband wanted him. His pack, the Crimson Rock, wanted her to bring Ethan over with her,” Coach Ramirez reminds me.
My heart is pounding, anger and fear warring within me. “But the Council said no. They had proof she was a neglectful mother! Why would they allow something like this? The Council governs all the packs. They can stop this!”
“Sit down, Grayson.” My alpha forces me to sit in one of the lawn chairs and sits down across from me.
Sterling lowers himself into the third chair, briefcase open across his knees.
“They don’t want this. But she has chosen to take the human route.
Their hands are tied. Like I said, they’re not pleased over this matter, but the Council also considers this a trivial domestic dispute.
They’re not willing to step in. It’s up to you how to navigate this scenario. ”
“Navigate?” I look between the two men, stunned. “You think there’s a chance she can get her hands on my son?”
“You took him out in public, Grayson.” Sterling shakes his head. “You should’ve known that given your recent rise to stardom, you would be photographed.”
I stare at him. “Shifter parents take their children out. Coach, you told me I had to. He was wearing a cap. He wasn’t shifted, he wasn’t exposing anything.
He was four years old and spending time with his father.
Maybe the park was a stupid place to take him, too crowded, but it was the closest to the estate, and it was his first time. ”
I pause as something occurs to me. “There’s a game coming up between us and Crimson Rock in a few months.” I look at the document in my hand. “She’s married to one of the hockey players on it, right? Brent? Brent Taylor? What if she’s trying to throw me off my game and none of this means anything?”
I’m desperate at this point, and I know I’m reaching.
Coach sighs. “It could be the case, but I don’t see why she would risk Ethan over a game.”
I get to my feet, my blood heating again. “You don’t know her like I do. She despised Ethan. She blamed him for our marriage breaking up.”
“Your marriage broke up because she cheated on you with Brent.”
I look at my alpha dead in the eye. “No. No, Coach. It was because she left Ethan alone in the house for three days to cheat on me. Don’t tell me you forgot that.
My son nearly died. If he had been human, he would have.
That’s why I divorced her. Not because she cheated on me.
And she knew that. She blamed Ethan for it.
She blamed a child that she abandoned for three whole days to starve to death! ”
Coach and Sterling exchange a look, and Sterling says firmly, “Whatever the case is, since those photographs are in circulation and Ethan’s existence is now public knowledge in the human world, he must be registered.
And since he must be registered, she has legal standing to file for custody.
A door that didn’t exist for her until last night. ”
My jaw tightens. “I’m a fit parent by any measure that matters, in any world that exists.”
Sterling doesn’t answer immediately, and that pause makes me clench my fist.
“Your public image,” he says finally. “It’s working against you.”
“That image exists because you told me to maintain it.” I look at Coach. “Keep attention on me and off Ethan. Make sure no one goes looking into my private life.”
“I know what I told you.”
“So I played the part. And now it’s being used against me in a human custody hearing!”
“She’s claiming women rotate through your home,” Sterling says. “That you’re single, that the environment is unstable, that a child Ethan’s age needs the consistency of a two-parent household.” He looks me dead in the eye. “Since she’s married, she’s arguing she provides one.”
I freeze.
“She’s crazy,” I hiss. “There is no way Brent will tolerate Ethan. Their bloodlines are different. Male shifters can’t tolerate male children from their mates inside their territory, their homes.
She knows that. He could kill Ethan and would not be held responsible.
She wants to—She wants to risk his life? ”
“She claims she is Brent’s wife, not his mate, so the difference matters.”
“The fuck it does!” I roar, my blood pounding between my ears. “It will still be Brent’s territory, his home. Absolutely not! She can’t get custody! I won’t give Ethan to her. Human law cannot apply to us. Not in a case like this, Sterling!”
“It can.” The lawyer’s voice is harsh. “When we live in human territory and operate within their infrastructure, their laws bind us. She knows that. She’s built her entire strategy on it.”
My claws scrape the wood, my wolf angry that our pup is in danger.
Ethan is upstairs. Still asleep. His face pressed into the pillow, that bear tucked under one arm. Completely unaware that the woman who has not asked after him once in four years is standing in a lawyer’s office with documents that could take him from me.
I breathe.
“It’s something else. She has some motive for doing this. It’s not Ethan. She doesn’t care about him.”
Coach lets out a gust of air. “When she married Brent, the Crimson Rock alpha tried to pressure her to keep Ethan. He would have been political leverage of a sort since you are the closest thing I have to a son.”
My head jerks up. “You think it’s their alpha again?”
Coach gives me a considering look. “Could be. Rivalries between the two packs have gotten worse over the past two years. I wouldn’t be surprised if they are behind this.”
“These are all just assumptions,” Sterling interjects. “At the end of the day, Vanessa has a strong case. Your playboy reputation and you being single are the two biggest hurdles in this custody battle.”
My wolf slams against my ribs.
Vanessa could take Ethan from me.
The growl tears out before I can catch it. “No.” My grip on the railing tightens until the wood creaks. “I’m not giving her my son. There has to be something I can do.”
Sterling clears his throat. “There is one avenue.”
I look at him.
“Stability,” he says. “It’s the single thing she’s arguing you lack and the single thing a human court weighs most heavily. A committed household. A consistent partner. Someone present in the child’s daily life.”
“So I need a wife. Or someone willing to stand next to me and look like one.”
Coach tucks his hands in his pockets.
“It won’t be simple,” he says. “If it’s any female from this pack, Vanessa will know the truth within the week.
She still has allies here. One conversation, and the arrangement collapses before it starts.
” He meets my eyes. “We need someone she doesn’t know.
Someone with no connection to this pack at all. ”
Sterling pulls out his phone. Turns the screen toward us.
“What about this woman?”
One of the leaked photographs. It’s a picture of Miranda and me in the diner, the day she was attacked in the parking lot.
My alpha raises a brow. “Miranda?”
He considers it. “She is quite loyal to you, and she cares for Ethan. Do you think she’d be willing to help?”
I stare at my alpha, feeling dazed. “She’s—She’s human, Coach. The Council will never allow—”
“Vanessa is using unconventional means, so that means we can too,” my alpha says slowly. “I’ll handle the Council.”
Sterling nods. “If you can get her to present as your partner, even temporarily, the optics shift entirely in your favor.”
My wolf locks up inside me.
Tell him. Tell him she’s ours.
Tell him asking her to do this is asking me to hold a flame to my own chest for the next six months and pretend I can’t feel it.
The words sit at the back of my throat and rot there. If Coach knows, the Council knows. If the Council knows, she’s gone before the week is out, and not in any way I’d survive.
“Would she agree?” Sterling’s question makes me hesitate. She’s already got so much on her plate. How can I ask her to do something like this? There has to be another way, one that doesn’t involve her.
“No.” I shake my head. “She can’t do this. She—”
“Grayson.”