65 vouchers
I was so hurt and so angry that I started to open the car door before the driver even realized he should stop. I needed air. There wasn’t enough in that car.
“Stop!” Ivan shouted, but it was unclear if it was meant for me or the driver. The driver slammed on the brakes, and I stumbled out of the car and onto the embankment. I walked forward a bit into the grass lining the highway.
My vision was blurry. I blinked a few times. Oh, I was crying.
Ivan came up behind me. “Claire. Claire.” He moved around me standing in front of me. When I tried to walk around him, he gripped me by the upper arms and held me firmly, not allowing me to escape. I didn’t try overly hard, just shook a few times.
Oh, no. I was just trembling.
“Where are you going, Claire?” he asked me.
It didn’t matter, did it? There was nowhere I could go that would allow me to escape this reality.
Gideon had turned against me again, and this time, he was fulfilling my worst nightmare. He was taking my children. And he was right. What chance did someone like me have against an Alpha?
“I don’t know,” I told Ivan. I blinked, trying to focus on his face, but the world kept turning blurry through my tears. “Did you hear what Gideon said?”
“I did,” Ivan told me. “I will speak to him. I will stop
this.”
I shook my head. My body went with it. “He won’t listen. He’s so angry. He wouldn’t make a threat like that unless he meant to keep it.”
I had no idea what to do now. I wanted to curl into a ball and give up, more defeated now than I was even all those years ago when I had been dropped hurt, afraid, and alone in rogue territory.
What did I have without
my
children?
“You have to fight,” Ivan said. This made me wonder how many of my thoughts I had said out loud.
I didn’t care.
“You have to fight,” Ivan said again, more forcefully. “If not for you, then for them.”
“How?” I asked. “How will I win against an Alpha? I don’t even have a lawyer.”
“You forget who you talk to,” Ivan said. “I am an Alpha, too. And will not let this happen. I will personally find you the top lawyer in the kingdom. We will fight him, Claire. We’ll do it together. Those kids will know their mother. Nova will come
home.”
Where there had been sadness in his eyes before, when he had talked about the past, now fire burned. He was so confident and self–assured about so many things. And I trusted him. He wouldn’t lie to me about this.
“Get back in the car,” he said. “I will call the lawyer. And we will have a meeting. Today. I will make this happen. Please just get back in the car.”
Ivan was strong. He was
goin
to help me. Maybe I did have a chance.
1/3
14:56 Wed, Feb 4 GB B
Chapter 160
“Okay,” I said, and allowed Ivan to guide me back to the car, where we then continued our journey back to his pack.
.68%
“I’m sorry.” the lawyer Ivan hired said as he sat across the table from us in the dining room of Ivan’s pack house. “I’m a good lawyer. Maybe even the best in divorce and custody cases. But I’m not a miracle worker. And that is what it would take.”
My heart, which had been barely holding together, trembling and rattling in my chest, shattered all over again.
“To start, the laws favor Alphas,” the lawyer said. “The odds of winning any custody case against an Alpha are slim enough, even with Alpha Ivan backing you. Claiming Leo is impossible, given the absence in his life. That absence will unfortunately work against you in Nova’s case too.”
“You mean…” I couldn’t say it. Even if it was what he meant, I couldn’t force myself to say the words aloud.
“Yes,” the lawyer said, gathering my meaning without me even having to say the words. “I will do all I can to stop it, but you need to prepare yourself. It is very likely that you will lose the children.”
Something in my mind broke.
I could hear a screaming, and then it was suddenly quiet.
When I came back to my mind, I wasn’t in the pack house anymore but racing through the forest on four wolf legs.
I must have shifted somewhere along the way. I must have burst from the house, broken in my grief, and my wolf took over. My wolf raced quickly, pushing our limbs to the limit. Everything ached but it was nothing in comparison to the burn in my chest.
The lawyer had tried to be kind, but the words were a fatal blow, like a dagger through my ribcage.
Without realizing it, I had come to the border of Gideon’s pack lands.
If I couldn’t win the trial, maybe I could take the kids by force.
My wolf was strong. I could at least put up a fight.
But it wouldn’t be enough.
I’d be cut down and then I’d never have a chance of seeing my kids again, even if only in passing or from the shadows.
My wolf faded away and I returned to human form. I sobbed so hard that my wails echoed through the forest.
Ivan found me quickly, but he couldn’t get me to stop. He held me, but I was already fallen apart.
His comfort was empty in the face of losing my children.
Ivan’s POV
I held onto Claire who sobbed and trembled like the world itself was ending. I supposed, for her, it must have felt that way. Those children were her life. Without them, she was breaking.
I did my best to try to keep her together, but nothing I said got through to her. It was as if she couldn’t hear me anymore. Eventually, she cried herself out so much that the tears ran out and her voice was worn. She still moaned a little, as she rocked gently back and forth. As heart–wrenching as this was, she was at least pliant this way.
I scooped her into my arms without much trouble, and began to carry her back toward the house.
Later, I watched from the hallway as she sat in one of the tall–backed chairs in the sitting room. The chair was turned toward the window. Claire stared out of it. I didn’t know if she was actually seeing anything. He gaze seemed distant, maybe a lifetime away.
AD
