Semua Bab PREGNANT WITH THE ALPHA'S UNWANTED HEIR : Bab 41 - Bab 50

"Reva said yes before I finished the sentence," Bastien says.He comes into the library at noon with his phone in his hand and the particular energy of someone who has been making calls for two hours and has arrived at a result worth reporting.I am at the desk, which I have claimed for the duration because the chair is good and the lamp is better and Soren has been bringing me documents to review since nine this morning. The multi-pack petition draft is open in front of me, Holt's initial framework, twelve pages of legal structure that I have been annotating in the margins with the pack law knowledge I accumulated over three years of evening reading that was never supposed to be useful and is now the most useful thing I own."What did you tell her," I say.The truth. He sits down. The preservation order statute. Vane's position. The thirty-day window after birth. The fact that a multi-pack challenge to the statute, filed before any order is initiated, creates a legal barrier that the

"It's in," Holt says.She calls at eight fifty-three in the morning and her voice has the specific quality of someone who has been awake since five and is running on the particular fuel of a lawyer who has just filed something significant.I am in the kitchen with a cup of tea I am not drinking, standing at the counter while Bastien sits at the table with his own coffee and the calm of a man who went to sleep last night knowing this morning was coming and made peace with that.Charter complaint filed at eight forty-seven, Holt says. Co-signed by Iron Fang Alpha and former council member Suki Yuen. Supporting documentation attached, thirty-one pages. The council intake system logged it at eight forty-nine. A pause. Vane's suspension is automatic under section eight. The council administrator has to process it within two hours of receipt. He will be notified and suspended by eleven at the latest.Does he know it's coming, I say.He knows something is coming, Holt says. The intake log is

"You're staring," I say.It is late. The city outside my window has gone dark and the lamp is on and I have been reading for an hour, or trying to read, which is different from actually reading because Bastien has been sitting on the arm of my chair for the better part of the afternoon and has at some point transitioned from sitting on the arm to sitting beside me and the chair is not small but it is also not built for two people and his shoulder is against mine and I stopped processing the words on the page approximately forty minutes ago.I know, he says.You're not going to apologize for it, I say.No, he says.I closed the book.I have been waiting for the right moment for this conversation and I have decided that the right moment is a construction I invented to protect myself from having it and that I am done with that particular construction.The book, I say. The page I marked. About bond dissolution.Yes.I marked it because I was trying to understand what I was in. I hold the

"He can't make us wait indefinitely," Holt says.She is on the phone and her voice has the contained irritation of a lawyer who has been handed a procedural obstacle she finds professionally offensive.I am in the kitchen, which has become my morning room by default. Good light, the coffee smell, the specific counter where I stood on the worst morning of my life eleven days ago and which I have decided to reclaim by standing at it every morning until it means something different.How long can he delay the tribunal, I say.The postponement request has to be reviewed by the tribunal panel, she says. They can grant or deny. Granting would delay the tribunal until after the petition outcome, which is a minimum of three months and could be significantly longer depending on the statutory review committee timeline. A pause. Denying it means the tribunal proceeds as scheduled in six weeks regardless of the petition status.What are the grounds for denial, I say.The tribunal panel has broad d

The preservation statute uses the word resource, I say. I want you to sit with that word for a moment.Five faces on the other side of the table. Petra Lund with her direct eyes. A man to her left who has been leaning back in his chair since I sat down, which is the posture of someone who decided their position before I arrived. A woman beside him is writing notes without looking up. Two others who are watching me with the specific attention of people who haven't decided yet.I keep my eyes moving. Not landing on the sympathetic face and staying there. Not avoiding the skeptical one. Moving, the way my mother's letter said to be, like something that has always belonged in the room.I am fifteen weeks pregnant, I say. The child I am carrying has a heartbeat and a wolf bond forming and a bloodline that happens to be rare. I hold the table. Under the current statute, that child can be legally designated a biological resource available to the council for study and preservation within thir