Chapter 7

We need you to cooperate."

When we got to the Bureau, it turned out to be Caleb.

He'd brought everything. The earliest record was the first private conversation where my father had shown up at Caleb's door, after learning Caleb was Serena's Mate.

Damon sat with me through the full statement. When he started contacting elite Pack Advocates, Uncle Roderick cut in.

"Go. Enjoy your honeymoon. Harrington handles the rest."

Before we left the Bureau, Caleb asked to see me once.

"I don't have anything left to offer. Think of this as my gift to you for the Bonding."

Damon didn't say a word on the drive home.

I knew he was furious — furious that I hadn't told him the whole danger I'd been in.

So I coaxed him the whole drive back. And I kept coaxing him through the entire honeymoon. Which almost finished me off.

In a manner of speaking, they never got my money. But the "or your life" part got pretty close.

Months later, the Pack Tribunal handed down its ruling.

My father, as the one behind it all, drew twenty years in the Dungeons.

Caleb got ten. Serena got five.

Caleb was released on medical leave for his heart. Serena was granted Healer's Quarters confinement for her pregnancy. Only my father would never breathe Territory air again.

But it wasn't over.

Once Caleb was out, the Healer confirmed the artificial heart core was failing. Unless someone donated a new one, he was a dead wolf walking.

He couldn't take it. Blood rushed to his head. He got in a car and drove it straight at Serena.

He died bleeding out on the asphalt, paying the full price for what he'd done.

My father, still shut away from the news, asked to see me around that time.

He sat behind the glass, pouring regret across his face. He worked hard to sell it.

"Let Serena and the pup go. Think it through. I'm old. I don't know if I'll make it through twenty years. After I'm gone, that pup will be the only blood relation you have in this world. Help them. They'll stay close to you. You need your own wolves inside the Pack."

"I really do regret it, Elara. Every moment of it. Take this as my last words to you."

His voice shook with grief. Crocodile tears shone on his face.

I didn't have time for the performance.

"A little while ago, Caleb drove his car into Serena. He died on the spot. She's paralyzed from the waist down."

"And the pup didn't survive. Not because of the crash. Serena had it terminated."

"She said she wasn't going to have a pup by some old convict when she could find another man and try again — try to cheat the Tribunal on a technicality. Be grateful it didn't work. The thing would've come out as dumb as the two of you."

I didn't bother watching his face fall apart. I turned and walked out.

Damon was waiting in the car.

When I slid into the passenger seat, he asked me, very seriously, "I hear Harringtons have rules. Either you don't get buried in the Ancestor's Howling Grove, or the pups take their mother's name."

"True. Either way, a hundred years from now I'm lying next to my mother. Your call."

He shot me an offended look.

"What the pups are called doesn't matter. Alive or dead, I'm sleeping next to my Mate."

"You idiot." I looked at his serious face and started laughing.

It was good. From here on, the ones who loved each other got to stay together, until the end.