All Chapters of The Dual Claim: Chapter 211 - Chapter 220

I just stared at Bear. “What do you mean my stupidity? I just mentioned I thought when Bina said heir she meant a boy.”“Just shows how stupid you are,” Bear yelled some more just as Gabriel and Soraya came into the doorway.“A girl can’t be an Alpha,” I countered. “I can’t get my Pack back with a girl child.”Bear and Gabriel’s uncle started laughing. Even Maw smirked. I was confused. “What are you all laughing at? Since when are there female Alphas?”“There’s always been female Alphas,” Bear said through his guffaws.“Since when?” I protested. “There’s no way a female could hold her place. Males would challenge her left and right. The Pack would be the laughing stock of the hemisphere!”I couldn’t imagine handing Silverpine over to a female. It would take less than a day for a male to come forward and challenge her for the Pack. There’s no way a female can hold a candle in combat, especially combat to the death, to a male wolf.“My

I forced myself to change back, even though I wanted nothing more than to run for miles and miles as my wolf.Gabriel shifted back from Zee.“What just happened?” I asked him as I stepped into him to give him a hug. As much as I wanted to snag Kali back from Lucien, she wasn’t crying—which was a miracle in and of itself, but I needed a minute.Gabriel wrapped his arms around me and kissed the top of my head.Ori?I’m here, she answered softly.You’re really here? I said, full of hope, and waiting for the tears to start streaming down my face again.I’m here. I’ll never leave you again.I’ll never let you leave! I exclaimed through sobs.Don’t be sad.I’m not sad. These are very, very happy, but confused tears. I don’t understand, what brought you back?Her presence filled up

 Maw and I reveled in the happy little baby we had on our laps. She now did all the things the baby books said she’d do.“You must have been a sad little baby waiting for that bond,” I cooed at her as I held her upright in front of my face. Her little hands reached for my nose. I inched it closer until I could rub it against hers. Her arms and legs jerked with what I thought was glee.Unlike human babies, whose development took months and months, shifter babies development accelerated fast so they could adapt to shifting. Umi was almost three and she’d had her first shift already.They were erratic and somewhat wild, but the older generations kept them in line. She would be shifting into her wolf before I knew it.The witch quietly made her exit once she realized that ther

I reluctantly handed Kali off to Nanny. Now that her whole little person changed from the tiny tyrant to the charming princess, I couldn’t get enough of her. It was hard to feel effective when almost all she did was scream in my arms. Did it leave me with feelings of doubt and inadequacy? Most definitely.Now though, she responded to everything with happiness and glee. Every moment was a new discovery or a new wonder. I couldn’t get enough.“When’s the Luna due to return?” Nanny asked.“No idea how long it’s going to take,” I replied. “Death walks can take minutes or they can take hours. She only left a couple of hours ago.”Nanny nodded. “I’ll make sure her bottles are ready then. Come on, Beautiful, let’s go see what today brings. Want to go for a walk? Of course you do.”I couldn’t help but smile as Nanny put a light sweater on the baby and got her bundled

I plowed through the back door and landed in the kitchen. The death walk took a few hours, but this one took a lot out of me. There was a lot of angst with this old wolf. We needed to take many walks because he thought he needed to atone for things in his past.The old man had done nothing inherently wrong during the course of his long life. Like some people, it was only after his loved ones had passed that he realized he worked too many hours, didn’t say what should have been said instead of what he thought needed saying, and he was too hard on the kids.It was sad, but not sentiments I wasn’t familiar with. With him though, it bothered him to his core for decades living alone. Everyone he loved preceded him back to the soul realm. He punished himself more by moving to one of the furthest spots on the territory to keep himself isolated even more.His reasoning was that if he was by himself, he couldn’t let anyone else down. The only reason we