Page 76 of Duke's Baby Deal
One afternoon, during the weekend before school was supposed to start, in a quiet time after moving in the other two shifters that were staying in the house, there was a knock at the front door. Duke and I were sitting on the floor in the living room, watching the twins while Jedrick pulled himself up on the edge of the couch and took unsteady steps toward us, and Isolde rolled around on the floor, completely naked except for the patches of fur that grew and receded on her body.
We looked at each other—we weren’t expecting a visitor. After all, it wasn’t like our neighbors were dropping by on a daily basis with casseroles and cookies. As one person, we both got to our feet, but I let Duke take the lead, hanging back in case he needed backup.
Duke got to the door and peered tensely out through the glass for a moment. Then he made a surprised noise and swung the door open. “Laine! What are you doing here?”
It was the lawyer who’d taken Jason’s case, back when he was newly mated to Mac—and wasn’t that a scandal at the time—and his pack was trying to use the human system of laws to take him back. I’d seen this human around since, but not from close up, since my parents always hurried me away from the ‘nasty human’. I didn’t think he was nasty, but I had a healthy respect for how smart he was, and how much his behavior resembled that of an alpha shifter.
Laine smiled. “I was out of town when you arrived, but isn’t it traditional to bring housewarming presents?” He held up a bottle of wine. “I have cake too. Let me in and we can eat while we talk.”
“Talk?” Duke asked as he stepped out of the way.
Laine nodded to me in greeting as he entered. “I had a message from Garrick, including pictures of some extremely colorful bruising on Cas’s face.” He looked all too pleased about it, which made me nervous, though I didn’t think that oddly predatory sense I got off him was directed at us. Laine continued, “Yes, I think we need to take a short trip down to that grocery store. And, if you’ll agree to it, I think we might want to get a friend of mine involved as well.”
I led them into the living room. “We can eat here, but you’ll have to watch out for the babies.” I looked around—Jedrick was on his hands and knees, looking under the couch for something, but Isolde was nowhere to be seen. “Where is she?”
A low whine came from behind the couch.
Duke started to laugh. “I think she’s stuck.”
“Some Da you are,” I grumbled. “Here, take your son while I pull the couch out.” I handed an unwilling Jedrick to him and yanked on the couch until the whining stopped. When I looked behind, a small, brownish gray pup with one bent ear peered up at me, and promptly peed on the floor. I sighed. “At least it isn’t carpet.” As soon as she finished, I scooped her up and went to the bathroom to wash her paws and get a towel to clean up the mess.
I came back a few minutes later with a freshly washed fuzzball and a damp towel to clean up the mess behind the couch. The men were on the floor with Jedrick, so I set Isolde on the floor beside them. “Watch she doesn’t get into anything while I clean up the mess?”
While I mopped and wiped the floor behind the couch, I overheard the men talking. The second half of a conversation they obviously had already started while I was gone with Isolde.
“We can start big, but if we have a history of small cases, it makes it easier to win the big one,” Laine was saying.
I paused in my work and listened harder.
“He can’t afford to be distracted. This is going to be difficult enough.”
“He won’t have to do a thing. Just fill me in on his side of the story, come for one day to testify.”
“I don’t like it.”
I popped up from behind the couch. “Don’t like what?” The floor was as clean as it was going to get anyway, so I pushed the couch back in place and sat on it.
“He wants to sue the grocery store. And invite the reporter to write a story about it,” Duke said in a repressive tone.
Laine shook his head. “I want to do what Abel and I spoke about—work toward equality for shifters. An end to the walls.”
“I’m in,” I said. I didn’t eve have to think about it. “What do I need to do?”
“Bram, no!” Duke turned to me, visibly annoyed. “You have school and babies.”
“And I can’t do this too?”Fine time to turn all alpha on me, mate of mine.“So I can go to school in human territory, but that’s as much as I should do? You don’t think me coming here to take a professional degree isn’t a strike for shifter equality?” I reached out and pulled Jedrick into my lap. He squirmed, more interested in his quest to walk like a human before his sister than he was in being a teddy pup for his bearer. Reluctantly, I let him slide down to the floor and creep-walk away from me. “We have to take our opportunities where we can.” I didn’t want to fight with Duke—something inside me twisted sickeningly at the thought. But that night had scared me and made me angry, and the more I thought about bringing our babies up in a world where that was okay, the less scared and the more angry I became. “I want to be sure our babies are safe. Which means consequences for humans that even make methinkthat they might not be.”
“Bram—”
“Duke.” I wasn’t going to have an argument with him in public, so I turned to the lawyer. “Can we have a moment?”
He nodded and stood up. “You two talk it out. I’m going to go open this bottle and cut this cake. I assume I can hunt around in your kitchen for supplies?”
“Of course,” I told him, and waited silently while he left the room. Then I turned to Duke. “I know you mean well, but I think I can afford a day or two as long as it isn’t right around exam time.”
“And what if someone gets aggressive with you? If I’m there, I’ll have the babies. If I’m not, you’ll be there by yourself.”
“With Laine, and a whole building full of cops and lawyers.”
