Unmatched Wife: Not His To Claim Anymore novel Chapter 146

Chapter 146

MATTHEW

The school pickup line moved at the pace it always moved, which was to say approximately the pace of a glacier melting, which required a level of patience that I had never thought I was capable of having, and I spent the fifteen minutes of waiting doing what I’d been doing for most of the past three days–turning the same set of facts over in my mind and failing to find an arrangement of them that made comfortable sense.

Two high–ranking officials from BloodMoon City wanted to attend my pack assembly.

That was the fact I kept returning to. Not because it was impossible, because this happened before, volunteers from other packs visiting a neighbouring pack, was common, but what made it impossible like to me, was because of the specific combination.

The Alpha King himself, who by all accounts had barely engaged with external relations in five years, had locked himself up behind h

r the death of his mate and focused on just his son was suddenly motivated to attend a neighboring pack’s

y meeting.

interns

who had gone out ving me a specific

lish personal rapport with me, and wanted to come see the event oming.

me event.

nce briefing fro

found out som tighten chil

it hadn’t to

as a wolf

ngerous

The car

Marc

and

T

ce had told me there was a credible threat to Theo.

planned about Theo and had reached out to me, and had told me to proceed as resources were being oriented toward the problem

threat. Who, specifically. From which dir

mation, and every instinct I had was tell

ok a lot different as soon as I was given

rd two lengths and stopped again.

nary results of the contact trace on Mi ing useful. Multiple routing servic

cking had been able to narrow not to a specific number or d

ed technical evasion or

vanted.

e intensity of how

which had arrived that morning

raphic region–BloodMoon City and

tools by someone who didn’t want to be

ing.

the

No calls, no messages, nothing. Which could mean worth it. Or it could mean she’d stopped using

as its own particular discomfort.

id see children beginning to emerge in the uneven stream of

ag over both shoulders the way he wore it when it was heavy. His friends—I’d een keeping a gentle eye on the social dynamics of Theo’s reintegration.

+25 Bonus

Sophie and a boy named Daniel, had started meeting him at the door some days. Today they weren’t there, and Theo walked to the pickup area alone, scanning for my car

He found it, and his face did the small shift it did when he located something he’d been looking for. Not a big reaction, just a settling

I unlocked the door and he climbed in, dropping his bag on the seat beside him with the thump of something heavier than expected.

“What’s in the bag today?” I asked, pulling forward as the line moved.

“Books Daniel lent me,” Theo said, buckling himself in with the automatic competence he’d developed. “About dinosaurs. He said I could keep them until Friday.”

“That was generous.”

oks. He said his mumem every week from the market.” Theo considered this. “I told him we could do inted.”

ately do that,” I said

neo seemed satisfied with thi quiet a lot recently–not the

I let it be, because I’d learn

We were two streets fro

“Daddy. I think I saw

My hands stayed

“Someone

I kept me

throu

arket, books from the stall near the fountain. We’ll make it a routine.”

the window as we exited the school zone. He was quiet in the way he’d been e of the worst weeks, but a thinking silence. Processing something.

ences usually resolved themselves into speech if I didn’t crowd them.

spoke.

el through an act of will. “Yeah? Who?”

a.” He said it carefully. “In a car parked near the school fence. Near the big oak trees.”

kept my breathing even. The last time Theo had said something like this, he’d been running loodMoon City, chasing a stranger, ending up in devastated tears on the ground.

eeping my voice calm and curious rather than careful, because careful would signal to him that I was ld make him worry too.

door. When we were going back in from recess.” He was looking out the side window, not at me, which sier for him to talk about hard things.

the playground, like I do sometimes. And there was a car parked under the trees on the path road. And in the front passenger seat, and from far away, their hair and the way they were sitting looked-” He miliar. Like Mama–familiar.”

when you saw that?”

king for a second. Sophie bumped into me because I stopped suddenly.” He paused. “But then Daniel said come inside.”

our street and reduced my speed. “How did you feel? When you saw the car?”

ht about it with the seriousness he brought to Dr. Fisher’s questions. “My heart went fast. Like at the park that time.” A ut then it slowed down again Because I remembered what Dr. Fisher said ‘

Dr. Fisher say?”