Page 76 of The Alpha's Fake Mate

Where are you anyway?

Call me back now.

My skin turned clammy and cool. I think my heart actually stopped.

Orion met my eyes, his own dark and glassy.

“The claim?” My voice came out hushed. “What does that mean?”

“Shh,” Orion said. He put one arm around me and with the other pushed a little phone icon on his screen. “I’m calling him back right now.”

Orion kept the phone on the speaker setting, and I heard the ringing. Then the immediate pick up.

“Saben here. Orion, is that you?”

“Yes. I got your message. What’s going on?”

“Your very polite and wonderful acquaintance, the Alpha Bosk, has retained a lawyer himself. He challenges your claim based on a prior mate-bond that was never legally acknowledged but nonetheless appears on his own blood test. Did you know about this? He wants you to deliver Holland to him immediately or he will take action.”

My head began to ring. Everything got a hazy and faraway look.

“Can you delay that action?”

“I can try. But if the delay is more than a day, I’m sure he will file proprietary charges with the police. They can then come in and take Holland and there’s not a thing I can do to help except continue the fight for your claim to be recognized on paper. But if he strengthens the mate-bond and gets it confirmed, then there will be nothing more we can do.”

“Do all you can to delay,” Orion said.

I barely heard him. My ears buzzed.

“I have managed to get hold of his blood test to look it over. Has Holland ever been tested?”

“Yes.”

“The results are not astounding by any sense of that word,” Saben continued. “In Bosk’s blood the percentage of mate-bond agents is minimal at best. It was a botched attempt at chaining an Omega to him. But it still counts in court. Unless you can show you are his true mate with a one hundred percent result in your own blood test, you could lose.”

Silence filled the phone line, and the room.

Finally, as if he were whispering, Orion replied. “My Burn is not due for another month.”

“I’m afraid you don’t have that kind of time.”

More silence.

Saben finally said, “Are you still there?”

“Yes.”

“Bosk wants a meeting here at my office. He wants you to come and turn over the Omega then. It’s late in the day. I can delay until very late afternoon tomorrow. That’s all I can do.”

“I understand. I’ll contact you tomorrow.”

I watched with blurry vision as Orion reached out to the phone’s screen and ended the call.

He glanced up and held my gaze. “I don’t intend to make that meeting.”

My mind swam, but a moment’s clarity stung me. “What? You know you can’t keep me from him. And if he goes into the Burn himself--”

“He probably hasn’t gone into the Burn because of the medication he’s taking.”