“Sure. I’ll just drop Piper home.” He looked over his shoulder to her. “That’s okay, isn’t it?”
“Of course. Someone’s got to get back for Theo.” She climbed off. “But you go. I can walk from here.”
“You sure?”
“Of course. It’s only a couple of blocks.”
He leaned in and kissed her. “I won’t be long. Hopefully.”
“Take your time.”
Piper walked the couple of blocks home, still smiling privately to herself. She pushed open the front door and walked in.
“Hi, Anna,” she called, “I’m back. Everything okay?”
No one answered, and she paused in the entrance hallway, frowning. Maybe Anna was upstairs, changing Theo. The house was big enough to not hear someone entering.
“Theo?” she called, even though it wasn’t as if the baby could answer. “Anna?”
Something wasn’t right; she could feel it in the air. If Theo was taking a nap, surely Anna would be down here. Maybe she was trying to get him to sleep, or she’d only just gotten him down, and didn’t want to call back in case she woke him again. Though she was trying to reassure herself, Piper’s heartrate had stepped up a notch.
She ran from room to room downstairs, double checking she hadn’t missed anything, and then raced for the stairs. Using the banisters to haul herself up faster, she ran up the stairs, two by two.
“Anna? Theo?” Her voice came out frantic, and a cold fist of fear had clamped in the middle of her chest. She hadn’t experienced this kind of fear for a long time, not since she’d made that fateful decision and run from her abusive husband. She wanted to believe Anna might have taken Theo on a walk, but she was sure Anna wouldn’t have left the door unlocked without telling them, and the stroller had still been folded up in the hall.
Then it came, the thin wail of a baby. The sound a part of her had somehow both anticipated and dreaded all at the same time.
Adrenaline surged through her veins. “Theo!”
She pushed open the door to the room she now shared with Carter. Theo’s crying immediately grew louder.
The first thing she saw was a crumpled form on the floor.
“Anna!”
She stepped into the room. Had the other woman passed out? Or had there been an accident? Where was Theo? Had she been holding him when it happened?
Piper took a couple more steps, fully intending to check that Anna was okay, but something across the room made her freeze.
Horror crawled into her throat, her eyes widening, her breath locking in her chest.
Standing in the window was Finch Morgan. Her estranged husband.
And in his arms was Theo.
Oh, God.
A slow smile spread across her husband’s face. Finch was almost twenty years older than she was, but he wore his age well. She hated how someone who looked so presentable hid such a dark core inside. He was the sort of man who could smooth talk anyone. The sort of man who would look at you as though you were crazy if you so much as suggested he was anything other than the attractive, charismatic man he portrayed.
“Hello, Piper. I thought I would introduce myself to my son, as it certainly seems as though you weren’t intending to do so.”
She broke her paralysis and took a step forward, her arms out. “Give him to me.”
“I don’t think so.” He shifted the baby in his arms. Theo’s cries grew louder, his face scrunching up into a red knot. The movement wasn’t to make the baby more comfortable, but to expose something to Piper.
A knife pressed against his tiny side.
She snatched a breath. “No, Finch. Please. He’s just a baby. He hasn’t hurt anyone. It’s me you need to blame.”
“Oh, I do. Don’t you worry about that. But I heard about the baby, and I started to think, ‘what would be the best way to punish Piper for being so damned disobedient?’ And I couldn’t help but think that taking away the thing you’d been hiding from me all this time would be a pretty good place to start.”
“He’s not a thing,” she managed to blurt. “He’s a little baby. He’s your son.”
She hated admitting it out loud, but she’d have said anything at that point if it meant saving her son’s life. She dared to cast a glance down at Anna. Was she still alive? The thought that Finch might have killed her made ice harden in her veins. She’d brought Finch into their lives. In a way, she was responsible, too.
“He was my son,” Finch snarled. “But you’ve tainted him now, just like you tainted yourself. Don’t think I don’t know what you’ve been up to. You’ve had another man all over you—I can smell the stink of him from here—and you’ve allowed him to raise the baby.”
“He’s still your son,” she insisted, praying if Finch could make an emotional connection to Theo, maybe he wouldn’t hurt him.
“We’ll see about that.”
She didn’t know what that meant.
“How did you find me?” she asked, trying to distract him from thoughts of wanting to kill Theo. The baby’s cries had subsided into sad snuffles as he tried to push his little fist into his mouth, gumming it in desperation. The sight made Piper’s heart ache. He was hungry, and she was desperate to feed him, but she knew Finch would never allow her to give her baby that comfort.
“That doesn’t matter.”
When would Carter be home? He’d said the thing he’d needed to deal with wouldn’t take long, but how long had it been now? Twenty minutes since she’d climbed off the back of his bike and walked the rest of the way home, only to encounter her worst nightmare?
She put up her hands. “I’m sorry. I’ll come back with you now. Both me and Theo.”
He frowned. “Theo?” And then his features softened as he must have realized she was talking about the baby. “So that’s what you called him.”
“Yes, it’s a good name. It suits him.” She didn’t want to have a conversation with him about her choice of names—she didn’t want to have a conversation with him, period. But she was trying to buy time.
He gave his head a slight shake, as though throwing off whatever emotions or softening he might have experienced at hearing his child’s name.
“I don’t give a shit what his name is. He belongs to me now, just like you, and I’ll do whatever the hell I want with both of you.”
Chapter Nineteen
CARTER PAUSED ON HIS porch. The front door stood slightly ajar, and though he couldn’t quite pinpoint the reason, the sight made him uneasy.
He stepped inside, and his senses instantly went on high alert. There was a different scent in the house. One that was totally different from Piper, or the warm, milky scent of Theo. It wasn’t even Anna. No, this was completely different. His sense of smell had always been particularly keen, and right now his nose told him this new person was male.
Though his first instinct was to call out to Piper, he bit down on the words, clamping them between gritted teeth and forcing himself to stay quiet. All the hairs on his arms rose to attention, and the muscles across his neck and shoulders tensed. He didn’t know what was happening yet, but his body had gone into a fight or flight response. Deep inside him, his wolf growled a warning.
He moved slowly and as silently as his size would allow. The house should have been busy, with Piper and Anna most likely enjoying a coffee together—now that Piper was drinking coffee again—and Theo babbling or crying, but instead it was as though the house itself was holding its breath, and tension radiated through the walls. Something was wrong. Very wrong.
He followed his nose, which led him up the stairs, to the outside of their bedroom. The door stood slightly ajar.
Carter pressed himself closer, peering through the crack. In the window stood a strange man, and he was holding Theo. He was partially obscured by Piper standing with her back to him, and between them on the floor, Anna lay unconscious.
Immediately, he knew who this man was. Piper’s husband.
Fuck. How did he find her? Someone
must have told him. He’d never have stumbled across her by accident. Someone who wanted to hurt him and Piper. A couple of names sprang to mind, but now wasn’t the time to start worrying about accusations. He needed to make sure Piper and Theo were all right.
“You’re trespassing,” he said, throwing open the door and stepping fully into the room. “Get the hell out of my house.”
Piper half turned to him, one hand held out. “Carter, no!”
No? What did she mean no? Didn’t she want him to help?
But then he caught a glimpse of silver in the sunlight, catching as it shone through the window directly behind the stranger. A knife. The man had a knife, and he was pressing it against Theo’s rounded, defenseless tummy.
“Son of a bitch,” Carter growled.
On the floor, Anna moaned and shifted slightly. At least she was still alive.
Piper looked terrified, and the sight made Carter want to kill the other man. But he couldn’t do anything while the other man was holding a knife to Theo.
What kind of sick fuck threatened a helpless baby to get back at his wife?
“How are you planning for this to pan out?” Carter asked, his teeth gritted.
The other man gave a wolfish smile. He looked to be older than both of them, in his forties, at least. No wonder Piper had been so horrified having to marry him at the age of sixteen. He must have been twice her age back then. “Since you ask, I was planning on torturing Piper for awhile to make her understand how much pain and humiliation she put me through by running out on me like that. Now you’re here, too, I can double the fun. Kill the baby to destroy Piper, and then kill Piper to destroy you.”
Piper had been right when she’d told him this man was cruel. He was more than cruel. He was insane.
“Then you’ll kill me, right?” Carter said, taking another step into the room.
“That sounds like a fitting ending to the story.”
Carter squared his shoulders. “And you think I’m just going to allow that to happen?”
“Carter, please.” Piper threw him a panicked look. He knew what the look said—that she didn’t want him to push the son of a bitch and risk getting Theo hurt. But these kinds of men were ultimately cowards. They picked on young women and children because they were the ones he didn’t expect to fight back.
He took another step.
Carter sought his memory to recall the man’s name—Fitch, or was it Finch, he thought she’d said.
Whatever it was, the other man tensed, his jaw going rigid. “Don’t take another step! I’ll do it, I swear I will.”
“Please, no!” Piper cried.
Theo had started to wail again, the breathy, hiccuppy cry of a child in distress. The sound was killing him, so he could only imagine how Piper must be feeling right now.
“It’s okay. No one is going to do anything stupid.”
Suddenly, in Finch’s arms, the baby began to change. Theo’s balled little fists became paws, and the broadening of his back caused the sleeper he wore to tear. From his flat little bottom, a curved tail appeared. His nose lengthened and turned black, creating a muzzle, and ears folded from the top of his head. Where previously there had been only pink gums, now Theo drew back his upper lip and snarled, revealing sharp little pup teeth.
And he put those teeth to good use.
With a ferocious snarl for something so small, he sank his little puppy teeth into the hand holding the knife. Finch gave a yell of shock and dropped what had been a baby only moments before, but was now a good-sized wolf-pup.
“Theo!” Piper yelled.
Carter saw his chance. Knowing he couldn’t waste a single second, he threw himself forward. In midair, he shifted into wolf form. His front paws hit Finch directly in the chest, sending the man stumbling backward. One of the tall windows of the property was right behind him, and the force of a huge wolf shoving him back was enough to make him hit it.
Glass exploded outward, and with it went Finch. Carter caught a glimpse of fear and understanding in the man’s eyes, his arms pinwheeling, before gravity took hold and he vanished out of view.
A second later, a massive crunch sounded from below as Finch hit the ground. From the street, someone screamed, “He’s dead. Oh my God, he’s dead!”
Piper ran to scoop up Theo, who’d shifted back to a baby again, pink and naked. Shifting took a huge amount of energy, and it was unusual for a baby of his age to manage it, and he wouldn’t have been able to hold the shift for long. She picked him up and hugged him tight, half crying as she did.
“Oh, my baby. My beautiful, brave baby boy.”
Knowing they’d have some serious explaining to do, Carter shifted back to man, and then went to his little family. He enveloped them both in his arms, feeling Piper shaking with emotion.
“Hush, it’s going to be all right,” he told them both. “He’s gone. You’re safe now. He’ll never hurt either of you again.”
“People are going to know now,” Piper said, looking up at him, her tears matting her eyelashes. “They’ll know the truth about who Theo’s real father is.”
He shook his head. “I don’t care. All I care about is that both of you are safe. Nothing else matters to me.”
And he held them both again until Piper’s tears finally subsided.
Chapter Twenty
PIPER WAS ON HER KNEES, wrapping china in tissue paper. Theo lay on a play-mat to one side, batting at the toys hanging down from a bar. He hadn’t shifted again since the first time, and that was fine. It was easier to handle a baby than a wolf pup. They were packing stuff into boxes, planning to store away any family mementos Carter wanted to keep. His family had been in this house for generations, and there were things he said he wanted to take to their new place, wherever that may be.
They had to leave.
Nightmares of that day would haunt Piper’s dreams for many nights to come.
Finch had died the moment he’d struck the ground, and though she knew he was dead, she also knew it would be a long time before she could ever truly shake the fear and anxiety caused from watching the man she hated most in the world hold a knife to her baby.
There had been no point in them trying to lie about the identity of the man who plummeted from Carter’s bedroom window. More lies would only make things more complicated, and they needed to tell the truth in order for everyone to see that what had happened had purely been self-defense. Anna had also been there, and had made a full recovery after Finch had struck her across the head from behind as she’d been putting Theo down for a nap. She was able to testify about what had happened, and corroborate that both Piper and Carter were telling the truth.
They hoped there would be no backlash from Piper’s old pack. Hopefully, they would be as pleased to be rid of Finch Morgan as she was.
Carter had been determined to find out how Finch had found them. Kimberly had been the first person he’d gone to, but she swore it hadn’t been her. Then Liam had been the next suspect. In the end, his beta, James, had come forward, full of apologies. It seemed he’d had his eye on Carter’s position after all, and when he’d suspected the baby wasn’t Carter’s, he’d done some research of his own, and figured out the rest for himself. Finch Morgan had put out feelers trying to find his estranged wife, and when James started asking around about missing female pack members, the two of them had put their heads together. James swore he hadn’t expected things to end like this, and only wanted the truth to come out. He especially had never intended for Anna to get involved in any way. Carter had decided he couldn’t come down too hard on him. After all, they had been the ones who had lied, and James hadn’t known what a nasty son of a bitch Piper’s husband had truly been.
Carter had told Piper he’d had no choice but to have James step down as beta. He didn’t want to add more turmoil to his pack, especially as he now knew he was going to have to stand down as alpha. It put the pack in a position of great vulnerability to have neither an alpha nor beta at its head, t
hough he told Piper he would stay in position until they found the right people to fill both spots.
A knock came at the door.
“I’ll get it,” Carter said, leaving the items he was wrapping.
But Piper was cautious now, even though she knew Finch was dead, and she got to her feet as well, following Carter to the door. She stood behind him as he opened it, peering out around the bulk of his frame.
To her surprise, half of the town appeared to be on their front porch, led by Liam and Kimberly, and Anna, and even James. She glimpsed numerous familiar faces.
“What is all this?” Carter said.
Liam led the way. “We need to talk to you about your position in the pack.”
Piper reached out and touched Carter’s forearm to offer him support. They’d known this day was coming.
Carter lifted his hands in submission. “It’s okay, Liam. We’re already packing. We can be out of here by tomorrow.”
“That’s not what I’m talking about.”
He frowned. “You’re not?”
“We’ve been doing some research, looking back on the rules of the pack. It seems there isn’t anything anywhere in them that says an heir to the position of alpha needs to be biological. They say a son or a daughter, but there’s no mention that the child can’t be adopted.”
Piper glanced up into Carter’s face. A thrill of hope went through her at Liam’s words, but Carter only frowned.
“What are you suggesting? That I legally adopt Theo?”
He nodded. “Yes, exactly. Legally adopt him, and he’ll be seen as your son. As your heir. The boy is a shifter, he’s already proven that, and as a pack, we can’t see any reason for him to be seen as anything less than your and Piper’s son.”
Her heart swelled with hope, and she reached out and took Carter’s hand. He still appeared pensive, his lips thinned.
“What about everything else? I lied to you all. Surely that has to be taken into consideration.”
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