She sat with her body wedged into a corner and her legs beside her, propped up and all comfy. Sweet and innocent — the child who only spoke to ask questions every once in a while. The dress she wore kind of looked like a nightie, once she was all curled up. She’d been in dress shoes, but she took them off, so we saw bare feet.
The negotiations for how many people we could bring had taken two days. The Amakhosi and Brooke were the mediators, and my father and I were each allowed five people.
Frost, Bobcat, and our lawyer, Tess, were at the table with me. Squatch and Dementor were my muscle, standing behind us. My people knew what I was willing to accept and what was off the table.
Brooke had told me her goal was to help us find an agreement both sides could live with. She’d promised His Majesty she wouldn’t use vampire powers to change anyone’s mind, but she refused to promise she’d stay out of everyone’s head.
“If I know what both sides will and won’t accept, I can more easily craft a solution,” she’d told him.
And he’d countered with, “We all know you aren’t impartial. Any solution you craft will weigh more heavily in Val’s favor than Vincenzo’s.”
She’d merely shrugged. “I fail to see a problem with that. The past nineteen years have weighed completely in Vincenzo’s favor.”
“We’re supposed to be impartial.”
“You’re supposed to be impartial. I’m just a kid ya’ll are letting sit at the table.”
“We all know that isn’t the case, Brooke.”
“I’ve promised not to influence either side in any way. Vincenzo’s decisions will be his own. Nothing will compel him to agree or disagree with any solution I propose. That’s the best you’re going to get from me.”
“Any solution that you or anyone else proposes,” he countered.
“Of course.”
He’d nodded, and that was that.
But now we were here, and I was a nervous wreck. My father was seated with men I didn’t recognize, but who seemed to be attorneys. My brothers stood at his back. It was us against them, and it made my heart hurt.
Bobcat put his hand on my arm. “Breathe, Kitty.”
I heard Brooke in my head. It’s going to be okay. Your father only has a few things he’d like to change. He’s mostly happy with your proposal. You’re sitting between a bobcat and a mongoose, you have a wolf and a grizzly bear at your back, and I’m right here. You’re safe, and you are going to walk out of here with your freedom.
My father’s legal representative and Tess negotiated while we all stared at each other from across the table. We were in a windowless room, with a door at either end. Brooke’s people guarded both doors, and our muscle stood behind us.
I wrote a note and sat back. Tess looked down to see what I’d written. You haven’t mentioned the sperm donor yet.
Bobcat had a notebook too, and he wrote, Give her time.
I wanted the boy in Texas to be given the opportunity to negotiate his own relationship with his children if he was interested in doing so. If he wasn’t interested in being in their lives while they grew up, then I wanted the kids to have access to him once they were of age. Brooke was aware of this, and shortly into the meeting she told me, The sperm donor is too young to know what he wants. The best you can propose is that the offer be made when he turns twenty-one. You could do it at eighteen, but from what I can see of him through your father’s memories, it would be good to give him longer to mature before he must decide whether he wants to get to know his children.
They’d waited for him to turn thirteen to do this. I was much older than most tigers are for their first match, but someone had decided I should be held back for him to be my first pregnancy. Brooke was right — he had no idea at this age what was going to be important to him once he grew up. I wanted to nod, but she’d coached me heavily, and we’d practiced for hours so I wouldn’t accidently give away our telepathic conversation.
Okay. I’d like for the boy to have his first negotiations at eighteen, but the final decision not be set in stone until one week after his twenty-first birthday. Please let Bobcat know.
Tess didn’t want Brooke talking inside her head, so all instructions went to Bobcat. He and Tess could speak telepathically, and she was used to having him in her head.
My father wanted me home for the big holidays, including the entire twenty-four hours of my birthday, preferably the day before and day after as well, but at least those twenty-four hours — and he wasn’t backing down on demanding it as a condition. I hadn’t counted on that.
He loves you. Brooke told me. He misses you. I think you need to speak directly to him for this, and not go through the mediators. He’s going to be a hard-ass about it. If you don’t want it to be a legal obligation that could interfere with everything else you agree to today should you not show up before midnight starting every birthday, your only hope is to appeal to him directly.
And so, an hour and a half into the meeting, I met my father’s gaze and finally spoke to him directly. “How about if I come home within a two-week period surrounding my birthday? I’ll need to be able to plan the trip around my days off, and around the rest of my life.”
My voice seemed to shock him, but he recovered quickly. “So long as I get a lengthy phone call on your actual birthday, that’s acceptable.”
“Define lengthy,” said Tess.
He glared at me. “An hour.”
“Do we have to define it, Daddy? Maybe I’ll have fifteen minutes where I can give you my undivided attention, or maybe I’ll have to talk to you while I eat and get dressed if you require an hour. I want you in my life. Can you trust that we’ll talk and it will be good?”
“You plan to be so busy on your birthday?”
“You realize you’re still limiting me for the rest of my life, right? Still trying to control me, even if you can only manage it on the important days and not all of them! I can never go camping into the wilderness on my birthday if I agree to this, can never go to Canada and be the tiger in the middle of nowhere. If the love of my life wants to take me to Paris for my birthday, I’ll have to stop the celebration to call my father.”
He sighed. “You’ll give me your word to a phone call if it’s possible, and that you’ll set aside some time for me on your important day. If it isn’t possible, you’ll explain why, and we’ll figure out a time that works for both of us?”
“I can agree to that.”
I felt Tess’s irritation beside me, and she said, “A birthday call, with specific time and length to be negotiated by the parties. I like to keep these things clean, so we don’t risk needing mediation every damned year for the birthday call.”
“We won’t need it,” I told her. “So long as he isn’t being overbearing and trying to run my life, I’ll want to talk to my father on my birthday, and I believe he’s going to let me live my life in the way that makes me happy. We shouldn’t have a problem working it out on our own.” I looked at him when I spoke, and my heart fell into my feet. My father’s gaze told me he’d love to find a way to once again micromanage my life. He might love me and want me in his life, but he was pissed.
It isn’t really okay, is it? I asked Brooke.
His anger has been mostly under the surface. Your words brought it forth. It’s true he’d subjugate you again if he could find a way, but we aren’t going to let that happen. Once he signs the agreement, he won’t break it. His honor means a great deal to him.
I took a breath and decided whether to alternate good and bad, or to talk about what I could agree to before I told him what I wouldn’t agree to. The latter seemed the better choice.
“I will be happy to join the ambush for the fall and spring equinox celebrations. I feel certain I can get off work so I can spend a few days with the ambush. My only request is that I be allowed to bring a date. I know I can’t bring a human into the ambush, so if I’m dating a human, that won’t be an option, but if it’s another supernatural, I’ll want to bring hi
m.”
“I can’t agree to that.”
“Then I can’t promise I’ll be there.”
“We can’t let outsiders know where we live, or that we exist.”
Brooke spoke up in her sing-song voice. “The Commandant’s concerns are valid.” She looked to me. “Would you agree to a requirement that the man you bring know what you are, and that you’ve formally mated with him in some way — either through his customs or human customs? Something binding.”
“Yes, I can agree to that.”
My father shook his head, but his words didn’t match the motion. “A two-year relationship, and either a metaphysical bond or human marriage.” He met my gaze. “And an agreement to notify me before a breakup, if possible, and as soon as it happens if you don’t know ahead of time, so I can send someone to kill him before he can put all of us in danger.”
“Six months, and I don’t have a problem with the rest, though you have to know I’d personally kill someone if I thought they’d try to sell me to the highest bidder.”
“Are you already in a relationship with someone?”
“I am. It feels serious, but I’m not ready to talk to you about it yet.”
“What is he?”
“Mammal.”
“How will you deal with possible children?”
He didn’t ask which mammal, and I looked at the table instead of looking to Brooke. For the first time, I wondered if she was breaking the rules and steering my father’s thoughts, because I expected him to demand to know the species.
He didn’t ask because he could see in your eyes that you weren’t going to give him more. He’s trying to appear as if he has more power than he does, and that means not asking a question he knows you won’t answer.
You gave your word. I’m sorry I doubted you.
Understandable in this situation. Your father shows a different face in negotiations than he does with his children. You need to understand that you’re negotiating with someone who is trying to be both Commandant and father. When he can’t be both, he’s leaning more towards the former.
She was being too nice. Doubting her word had been like a slap in the face, and I felt horrible. It’d been a thought, not verbalized, but she’d heard it all the same. I felt awful for doubting her.
I looked up and met my father’s gaze again. “That will be between me and my mate, should it come to it. While any children we might have are too young to be expected to keep secrets, you’ll need to visit us, to protect the ambush. All stipulations about me coming to you will change, so you’ll come to me.”
“No child can know about the ambush unless it’s agreed they’ll live with us for two years.”
“Three months.”
“One year.”
I shook my head. “Memorial Day to Labor Day, inclusive, plus one month in the winter, to include the winter solstice and Christmas. Somewhere between five and eight years old, depending on their maturity and intelligence. The age will be my decision with your input.”
My father loves Christmas. I think it’s because he’s so big on family.
“It isn’t enough time.”
He was right. There were things I couldn’t properly teach a tiger child. No single tiger could possibly handle the entire education. “Those dates, but two years in a row. I’ll spend as much time in the ambush as I can during those months, and we’ll closely monitor conversations with the child’s friends when he or she is home in between visits. If it’s an only child, my mate and I may both want to spend time at the ambush while our child is there. We’ll have obligations at home, so we won’t both be able to be there the entire time. It’s possible he’ll be there without me some.”
We spent more than five hours negotiating. When we couldn’t get past something, Brooke had the attorneys bookmark the page, and she insisted we move to the next item. The Amakhosi didn’t argue with her, so when we finished after five grueling hours, we still had a ton of things to go back to.
Brooke called for a thirty-minute break, and had tons of food brought in for us. Venison steaks, pork barbecue, fried chicken, beef brisket, and lamb chops. A hundred pounds of meat was gone in twenty minutes.
When Brooke returned, she wore a business suit with heels, and her hair was on her head in a complicated twist. At first, I thought she was wearing make-up, but she wasn’t. She looked older because of her eyes — you could see centuries of living in her eyes now.
I noticed my father rubbing the top of his forearm, and I realized she’d unnerved him. His scent didn’t give it away, but I know him well enough to know he was wiping away unseen goosebumps.
She looked to my father’s side of the table and spoke in a grown-up voice that didn’t match the age of the body. I was used to it, but my father and his people weren’t. I could scent his attorney’s unease.
“Read the first item without a solution, please.”
“Vincenzo wants his daughter to spend a week with him at the ambush to begin immediately, to show her good faith. She invited him to spend a week with her in her apartment. Neither was willing to budge.”
Brooke lifted her chin a little and spoke as if giving a pronouncement. “The parties will spend one week as guests of the Homewood Pack, with one of those days on the new moon. Neutral territory. I’ve used telepathy to secure the invitation from both Cora and Kirsten. You’ll both stay in the farmhouse, not in the main house. You’ll have access to the forest, though you’ll need to clear it with Cora before you change and run.”
I looked at my dad and shrugged. “It feels only fair to tell you I’ve spent time there, so I’ll probably be a little more comfortable than you, but Brooke isn’t wrong about it being neutral territory. I’m on good terms with Kirsten, and with the caretaker wolf who lives in the farmhouse, but I’ve only seen Cora a handful of times, and I doubt I’d remember the names of the other wolves I met while I was there.”
“Caretaker wolf?”
He was asking if this is who I’m in a relationship with. I answered the spoken question and not the unspoken one, but figured it would satisfy both. “His name is Chase and he was nice to me. He seems to know less about modern society than I did when I first left the ambush. I don’t know his story. He didn’t share it.”
The Amakhosi was leaned back in his chair, his arms crossed, and he didn’t move anything but his mouth when he spoke. “Chase would’ve been in trouble with his Alpha if he’d so much as thought about flirting with Val. I can assure you that nothing happened between them, Vincenzo.”
I felt my eyes go wide. “I tried to be his friend. Are you telling me that wasn’t allowed?”
He turned his head to look at me. “If you go back when you don’t need to be guarded, Chase will gladly be your friend, Val. He’ll be free to talk to you about anything he wishes, in that situation. He takes his job seriously. His instructions were to keep you safe, to feed you and make you feel welcome, and to listen. He’s always a good listener, it’s who he is.”
I looked back to my father. “I’m good with Brooke’s compromise if you are, Daddy.”
He gave a curt nod. “I’ll need an internet connection so I can stay in touch with the ambush, and I’ll want to bring groceries with me.”
“I can speak for Kirsten and Cora on that,” said the Amakhosi. “We’ll make certain there’s space in the refrigerator and freezers. I’ll get you the contact information for Chase, so you can let him know of your needs ahead of time. Internet and cold storage are agreed to. Anything else?”
“Mealtimes alone with my daughter.”
“The farmhouse has a kitchen, a dining room, and plenty of seating on the screened in porch. Let Chase know at least six hours in advance when you need the dining room to yourselves, and he’ll see that it happens.”
Brooke came up with solutions for every point we hadn’t been able to agree on — except one.
I wasn’t willing to give up Christmas with Squatch and the club, and my father wasn’t willing to agree to nev
er have his daughter wake up in his home on Christmas morning again.
It’d broken down to an argument between me and my father, and I was close to tears when the Amakhosi sat up and leaned forward a little, over the table. “Vincenzo, your daughter is a grown woman. An adult who’s been earning a living and supporting herself. She’s willing to celebrate Christmas with you a week or two before — to come to your home, eat a meal, and exchange gifts. Are you willing to throw every bit of today’s negotiations away because she won’t come to Christmas Dinner on the actual day? Do you really want her there on that day for the next fifty years, resentful and angry that she has no choice?”
My father looked to me and I swallowed my tears because I refused to let him see me cry. “If you somehow force me to it, I’ll show up and sit like a statue, speechless, until it’s time to go, but I won’t willingly agree to giving up my choice of who to spend Christmas Day with. I love you, Daddy, but this is my life. I’m not your possession.”
“It’s really too bad you weren’t born with a dick, Princess. You are more hard-headed than any of your brothers. Always have been.”
The fist around my heart relaxed a little, and I smiled. It was going to be okay. “I’m told I get that from my father.”
“I’m told the same.” He ran his hand through his dyed hair. “I want to know what’s happening in your life. I want to meet the man you’re dating. I want us to be close enough so you pick up the phone and call me to let me know what’s going on in your life. I want you to talk to your brothers and cousins. I’m not asking for any of that to be in the official documents, and I’m not asking you to promise me it’ll happen. If you’ll acknowledge that you’d like for that to happen, and promise me you’ll work towards it, then I’ll agree to us celebrating our Christmas a week or two before the actual day.”
“Done, and thank you.” I looked at His Majesty and then at Brooke. “Can I hug him now? Are we finished?”
“Five more minutes for the attorneys to wrap things up, and then the two of you can hug while your attorneys read through the document to make sure everything is worded as it should be before you and your father sign.”
Squatch (Rolling Thunder MC Birmingham Book 4) Page 20