All Chapters of His Rejected Mate, Her Secret Twins : Chapter 21 - Chapter 28

POV: LachlanHe tried to sleep.He lay on his back on a hotel bed that cost more per night than most people's weekly grocery budget, staring at the ceiling while his wolf patiently insisted that the ceiling was not where they needed to be.At one in the morning, he gave up. He sat at the desk, pulled up every piece of werewolf custody legislation available through Nightshade's legal database, and read for forty minutes. The picture it painted was not comfortable, not because his position was weak... it wasn't... but because the gap between what he could legally claim and what he had morally earned was wide enough to live in.Under council statute, an Alpha's biological children were considered pack heirs regardless of the circumstances of their birth or the length of the Alpha's absence. Imogen's decision to conceal their existence constituted heir concealment, which the statute treated as a serious offense. He could file. He could secure significant custody access through formal chan

POV: ImogenThe room settled into the tension of a negotiation where both sides had stated their positions and neither intended to yield without resistance.Charlotte spoke next, which was her purpose. She was precise and unhurried, laying out Silvercrest's legal position on residency, primary care, and the council's documented stance on uprooting settled children from established environments.She cited three precedents without looking up from her notes, which was either confidence or a performance of it. In Charlotte's case, Imogen suspected it was simply confidence.Lachlan listened with his hands flat on the table, his face giving nothing away. When Charlotte finished, he looked at Darcy."I'm not disputing Ms. Hartley's care of the children. I'm disputing the unilateral decision to remove me from their lives entirely.""You removed yourself," Cooper said. The room temperature dropped approximately three degrees.Cooper Ashford did not speak carelessly. He had said four words and

POV: LachlanThey moved to the open grass, and within four minutes Lachlan discovered that "properly" in Declan's vocabulary meant far more than he had anticipated.The boy knew what he was talking about. He had opinions about positioning, ball control, and the precise angle of approach, all of which suggested Cooper had been a thorough and patient instructor over an extended period.He demonstrated with his feet and expected Lachlan to match him. When Lachlan's first attempt was technically correct but slightly wide, Declan said, "Not quite," with the confidence of a five-year-old who had decided he was the authority and was not open to debate. Lachlan tried again."Better," Declan said. High praise, apparently.Imogen had retreated to a bench with Cooper and watched with an expression that revealed several conflicting emotions she had no intention of processing publicly. Cooper said something to her quietly. She shook her head.Whatever he had suggested, she was not accepting it.Ha

POV: ImogenImogen's first coherent thought was that she should have seen this coming.Her second was that she was not going to show this woman a single thing she was actually feeling. Sienna Bancroft was standing on her doorstep at nine in the evening in heels and a dress, wearing a pre-loaded smile. People who arrived like that counted on disruption to do the work for them.She stepped back and opened the door wider. "Come in."It was not hospitality. Imogen simply wanted to hear whatever Sienna had come to say on her own ground, with her own walls around her.Sienna entered with the ease of a woman accustomed to walking into rooms and immediately deciding whether they met her standards. Her eyes swept across the cottage kitchen, taking in the twins' drawings on the fridge, the football boots by the back door, and the modest, lived-in warmth of the space. Her expression tightened for a fraction of a second before smoothing over.Cooper appeared in the kitchen doorway. He looked at S