Chapter 7 Trouble Again
Three months of working at Marcus's diner meant Elara's hands smelled permanently like grease and her feet ached constantly.
But at least she could afford a room above the laundromat and food that wasn't expired, and her stomach had grown round enough that customers stared and whispered about the pregnant omega with no mate.
She was wiping down tables when the bell above the door chimed and a man in a suit walked in looking completely out of place among the usual crowd of day laborers and drifters, he's carrying a leather briefcase like he'd walked into the wrong building by mistake.
"Elara Whitmore?" he asked and every head in the diner turned to look at her.
"Who's asking?" Marcus said from behind the counter, his hand moving under the register where Elara knew he kept a baseball bat.
"I'm a legal courier from the Borderlands Territorial Court," the man said and pulled an envelope from his briefcase.
"I have official documents that require her signature upon receipt."
Elara's stomach twisted and she set down her rag, walking over while her heart pounded because official documents never meant anything good in a place like this.
The courier handed her the envelope and a clipboard. "Sign here confirming delivery."
She signed with shaking hands and he left immediately, the door chiming behind him while everyone in the diner watched her open the envelope and pull out papers with official seals and legal language that made her head spin.
"What is it?" Marcus asked, coming around the counter.
Elara read through it once then again because it couldn't possibly say what she thought it said, but the words stayed the same no matter how many times she looked at them.
"Mandivus Swathi is filing a legal claim on my unborn child," she whispered.
"He's saying that because I'm an unmated omega in his territory without pack protection, borderlands law allows him to claim parental rights to any offspring I produce."
"That's bullshit," Marcus said, grabbing the papers. "There's no law that…"
"There is," someone said from a corner booth. An older woman Elara had been serving coffee to every morning for weeks now.
"It's an old territorial statute from before the packs organized this region, meant to prevent unmated omegas from producing unwanted children, gives local alphas the right to claim and raise them under proper authority."
"That's insane," Elara said.
"That's the borderlands," the woman replied and went back to her coffee.
Marcus kept reading, his face getting darker. "It says you have forty days to respond, either accept his claim and agree to mate with him once the child is born, or reject it and return to your original pack territory."
"I can't go back, I'm exiled."
"Then you accept his terms or the child gets marked as rogue property and can be claimed by anyone in the settlement," Marcus said. "Jesus, Elara, this is bad."
Elara sat down hard in the nearest chair because her legs wouldn't hold her anymore and her mind was racing through impossible choices….
Mate with Mandivus and give her son a future under the protection of a criminal alpha, or reject the claim and have her child marked as property that anyone could take.
"There has to be another option," she said.
"Not in the borderlands," Marcus replied. "Swathi's smart, he waited until you were visibly pregnant to file so you'd have less time to figure a way out."
Elara pressed both hands to her stomach where she'd started feeling small movements, little flutters that meant her baby was growing stronger every day, and she thought about Kai living in his mansion with Maya's money while she was here facing a choice between two different kinds of prison.
"What if I leave the borderlands entirely?" she asked.
"Go to human territory where pack law doesn't apply?"
"You'd be a wolf among humans with no protection and no resources, and Swathi has connections in human cities who'd find you within a week," Marcus said.
"Plus human hospitals won't treat shifter pregnancies, you'd be on your own for the birth."
"So I'm trapped."
"You're cornered, there's a difference," Marcus said and sat across from her. "Cornered animals fight back."
"How am I supposed to fight an alpha who controls half this settlement?"
"You don't fight him, you give him what he wants," Marcus said slowly like he was working through an idea.
"Accept his claim, agree to the mating, play along until the baby's born."
"And then what?"
"Then you disappear," Marcus said. "Take the kid and run before the mating ceremony happens, get far enough away that he can't track you."
"He'll hunt me down."
"Maybe, but at least your son won't be marked as rogue property and at least you'll have tried," Marcus said. "It's not a good plan but it's the only plan I can see."
Elara looked at the documents in her hands with their official seals and legal language that turned her child into a bargaining chip, and she thought about Adrian—she'd already named him in her head because the seer already said it was a male… THE HEIR—growing up under Mandivus's control or growing up marked as rogue property that anyone could claim.
Neither option was acceptable.
But there was a third option forming in her mind, one that Marcus hadn't mentioned because it was crazy and dangerous and probably impossible, but it was also the only way to guarantee her child's future without sacrificing everything.
"What if I went back?" Elara said quietly.
"You're exiled, they'd arrest you."
"Not if I went back as someone else," Elara continued, the plan taking shape as she spoke.
"The documents say I have to reject the claim and return to my original pack, but they don't specify I have to return as Elara Whitmore."
"You want to go back in disguise?" Marcus stared at her.
"That's insane, Kai would recognize you immediately."
"Not if I changed everything, my hair, contacts, the way I talk, the way I move," Elara said and her heart was racing but for the first time in three months she felt something other than despair.
"I could get evidence of what Kai did, prove he orchestrated the rejection and the pregnancy, and reclaim my child's inheritance rights."
"And if you get caught?"
"Then I'm no worse off than I am now," Elara said.
"Marcus, my son is the biological heir to the Silvercrest Alpha line, that's worth more than anything Mandivus could offer.
If I can prove Kai is Adrian's father then my son gets everything—status, wealth, protection and even more."
Marcus was quiet for a long moment, studying her face.
"You're talking about revenge."
"I'm talking about survival," Elara corrected.
"And yes, revenge, Kai destroyed my life and he's going to pay for it, but more than that, Adrian deserves his birthright and I'm going to make sure he gets it."
"This will take time, planning, and resources you don't have."
"Then I accept Swathi's claim and use the time to prepare," Elara said, her mind moving fast now.
"Once Adrian is two years old and the mating is supposed to happen, I'll be ready, I'll have everything I need to go back and destroy Kai from the inside."
Marcus shook his head but he was almost smiling.
"You're either the bravest person I've ever met or the craziest."
"Probably both," Elara said and looked down at the documents again, at the forty-day deadline and the impossible choice that wasn't really a choice at all.
"I'm accepting Swathi's terms, tell him I agree to mate with him when Adrian turns two, but until then I want protection and resources."
"He's going to want something in return."
"He can have whatever he wants as long as it buys me time," Elara said.
"Two years to plan, two years to prepare, two years to become someone Kai won't recognize, and then I'm going back to Crescent Falls and taking everything he stole from me.”