23. Brakkus
Brakkus
Ipicked up my phone and called my orc attorney Eleanor Marsh.
Her assistant answered. “Marsh & Bell.”
“This is Brakkus Drakkar. I’ve been served with a clan claim concerning my son. Tell Eleanor I’m sending it now.”
I ended the call, opened the camera, and began taking photos, page by page—caption, claim, exhibits, summary—my hand steady through all of it until I reached the photo of Hannah outside Breakstone Apothecary, and then the image blurred.
“Damn it.”
I took it again and sent the whole thing. The phone rang before I could set the phone down, and when I saw Eleanor’s name on the screen, I answered immediately.
“I’m reading it,” she said. No hello. That was why I paid her. “Do not respond to the Vossics.”
Eleanor kept talking. “Preserve the proof of service. I’ll call you back with next steps.”
“They’re trying to take him.”
“They’re trying to scare you into acting badly.”
“It’s working.”
“The Forum can’t take him. No clan body can—Otto’s a Texas child with a living father.” Pages turning on her end. “What it can do is make findings. And findings from a clan body are admissible in a Texas family court.”
“What about my nanny?” I wanted to tell Eleanor that Hannah was my mate. But Hannah hadn’t accepted me yet. How could I tell my attorney something not even Lola knew? “She’s good for Otto.”
“If she leaves, they’ll say Otto was allowed to form an attachment to a temporary caregiver who disappeared.
But if she stays, they have a cleaner argument,” Eleanor said.
“And before you answer, I need to ask the question they’re going to ask.
Are you in a sexual or romantic relationship with Hannah Brooks? ”
I closed my eyes, unable to respond.
“If the answer is yes, the Forum will argue you blurred the line between employee, caregiver, and partner while your son was grieving. If the answer is no, they’ll still imply it, but it’s a different fight.”
My jaw tightened.
Eleanor waited.
Finally, she said, “Brakkus?”
“They can point to a live-in human nanny acting as a parental figure, argue boundaries have collapsed, and ask the Forum to step in immediately.”
I stared at the page. “So leaving is what they want.”
“They’d certainly prefer a dramatic reaction.
But Hannah moving out doesn’t automatically solve the problem, and it doesn’t erase whatever relationship exists.
It just changes the facts they argue about.
” Eleanor paused. “That said, if she stays, they can point to her daily role in Otto’s care and argue the exact thing they’ve alleged—that an unrelated live-in caregiver has become central to his upbringing.
If she removes herself from that role, they lose that argument.
Right now it’s something they’ve claimed.
Once it’s been heard, it’s something that’s been decided, and you don’t get to relitigate it. ”
My grip tightened on the phone.
“If you’re sleeping with your son’s live-in nanny, it is absolutely something they’ll build a case around.”
I said nothing.
Eleanor exhaled.
“They don’t care whether she’s good for him,” Eleanor continued. “They care whether they can make it look inappropriate. Right now, the strongest thing in your favor is that Otto is safe, stable, and thriving.”
“If she leaves,” I said quietly, “they’ll say she abandoned him.”
“Yes.”
“There’s something else.”
Eleanor was quiet for a beat. “Go on.”
I stared at the photograph from Breakstone Apothecary.
“Hannah is my second mate.” The words landed in the room with a strange, brutal certainty. “She is,” I said quietly. “I know she is.”
Second mates were so rare that most orcs never met anyone who had one, and half the stories about them sounded like myths told to children.
If the Vossics got hold of it, they would use it like a club.
Widower loses mate. Hires nanny. Decides she’s his second mate after a few weeks.
Even I could hear how insane it sounded.
“Does she know that?”
“Yes.”
“Does she believe it?”
“Mostly, but she hasn’t accepted the claim,” I said.
“Then from an Elder Forum legal standpoint,” Eleanor said, “you have a private belief and nothing more.” I closed my eyes. “If it comes out, the Vossics will argue you’re unstable, grieving, impulsive, and allowing an unfounded delusion to influence decisions about Otto’s care.”
Every word hit me in the gut. “I’ll call you back,” I said and ended the call.
I left the study and walked into the living room on my way to the kitchen for a drink.
Sunlight stretched across the hardwood floors.
Hannah was curled into the corner of the sofa with a book open in her lap, one leg tucked beneath her.
A mug sat on the coffee table beside her, forgotten and half-finished.
She looked up when I entered and closed the book around one finger to hold her place.
“What happened?”
I stopped at the edge of the living room. The words should have been simple. They were not. “The Vossics filed a claim.”
Her book lowered into her lap.
“What kind of claim?”
“They’re asking the Old Quarter Elder Forum to review Otto’s household.”
Her face changed. “You mean they’re asking for custody?”
I looked away and her breath caught.
“But if it rules against me, they take that ruling to a Texas court and file for custody there. That’s the point of all this.”
The baby monitor on the coffee table hissed softly.
“They say you’ve become too central to Otto’s care. They’re also implying we’re involved.” There it was. The whole ugly truth.
Her mouth trembled, but her voice stayed steady. “I’m not going to be the reason you lose your son.”
“It’s not really about you, Hannah.” That was a lie, and she heard it.
“If I stay, they’ll use me against you. If my agency hears I’ve been named in a custody claim because people think I’m sleeping with my employer, I’m done. They have rules about that, Brakkus.”
The thought hit hard. This was not just about Otto or me. Her job, her license, her references—everything she had built could be damaged by having her name dragged into the claim.
“I need to leave before anyone can say I chose to cross professional boundaries.” But then her hand rose to the side of her neck. “Would the claiming bite change things?”
The question hit harder than anything in the petition.
“Yes,” I said. “A completed claim would make it harder for them to call you a temporary employee.”
“Then maybe?—”
“No.” I crossed the room before she could finish. “You told me you weren’t ready. I won’t let the Vossics make that choice for you.”
Her hand dropped from her neck. “Then I need to leave.”
“Hannah. You are my mate. I love you.”
Her face softened. “Brakkus. We can’t do this now. I’m sorry.”
“No. Hannah. I don’t want you to leave. We can find another way.”
“I’ll pack quickly,” she said. “Before Otto wakes up.”
I followed her to her room and watched her pull her suitcases from the closet and set them on the bed.
The zippers rasped open one after the other.
Jeans. T-shirts. Socks. The University of Texas sweatshirt she wore when she was cold.
The smaller suitcase took the bathroom things.
Toothbrush. Face wash. Hairbrush. The Breakstone lotion.
Her hand paused on the bottle. I remembered buying it for her at the apothecary with Otto on my hip.
The same day someone had taken that photo.
She set the lotion inside and zipped both suitcases closed.
The sounds were final. She lifted the smaller one off the bed first, then reached for the larger.
I stepped forward. “I’ll carry one.”
“No, thank you.”
“Hannah. Please.”
“I can carry my own bags.”
She pulled one suitcase behind her and carried the smaller one at her side. In the living room, her book still sat on the sofa cushion. Her mug was still on the coffee table beside the baby monitor.
“Aren’t you going to say goodbye to Otto?”
“If I do, I won’t leave.”
Her eyes came back to mine, and for a moment everything seemed suspended between staying and leaving. The distance between us felt farther than anything I had ever crossed. Her face was pale, and her mouth trembled once before she kept walking.
At the foyer, she stopped near the console table, where her tote bag sat from yesterday. She picked it up and slung it over her shoulder, then reached for the handles of both suitcases. Watching her try to manage all three, I reached for the larger suitcase, but she stepped back.
“Don’t,” she said.
I dropped my hand. She adjusted her grip on the smaller suitcase and headed for the front door. When she opened it, heat rolled in from the porch carrying the scents of cut grass and limestone dust in the summer air. I followed her outside.
She carried the smaller suitcase down the front steps, loaded it into the back of her Subaru, then returned for the larger one. I stood on the porch and watched as she lifted it into the cargo area herself, shut the hatch, and climbed behind the wheel. Then she drove away.