He Made Me Illegal, So I Returned a Queen

With six-year-old Leo Whitaker beside me, I pressed my finger to the biometric lock for the 13th time. "Verification failed. Please try again." The same cold electronic voice chimed again. Leo was so tired that his gray wolf ears had slipped out, drooping softly through his hair. He clutched the hem of my coat and whispered, "Mommy, did our home... lock us out again?" I stroked the top of his head and called Gavin. The phone rang for a long time before he answered. Laboratory equipment hummed in the background, and his voice sharpened with irritation. "Aya, I'm in the middle of an experiment. What is it this time?" "The lock has been changed. Leo and I can't get in." "Oh. That." His tone eased right up. "Natalie's lock broke, and she's used to the same model as ours. I took our old one off this afternoon and gave it to her, then bought us a new one. Haven't had time to register your print yet." I said nothing. He did not notice my silence. He just kept issuing instructions. "I'll be in the lab all night. Take Leo to the motel on the corner. I'll find time to come home and register your fingerprint tomorrow." Then he hung up. To a human, it might have been nothing more than a door that would not open for one night. But wolves regarded their home as their den. Being shut out by one's own mate felt almost the same as banishment from the pack. The wolf spirit inside me curled up in pain, but Gavin felt nothing. He did not even realize that sending me and our pup to a motel was no different from declaring that we were no longer welcome in his den. Had he been a werewolf, our bond would have made his chest ache the instant his mate was cast out of the den. But he was only human. He had no idea. "Mommy, does it hurt bad?" Leo looked up at me. A pup could smell his mother's grief. My husband couldn't. "No." I took Leo's hand. "Let's go." I could have shattered the lock with one blow. But as I looked at the drowsy child in my arms, I saw no point. Some dens stopped being home long before their doors opened again. The motel room was cramped and damp, and it cost $300 a night. As soon as I swiped my card, the screen flashed an insufficient-funds warning. Three years ago, Gavin had placed a black card with no spending limit in my hand and promised he would never let me suffer the slightest indignity. Later, Natalie became his assistant, and the card went to her. "She knows Ravenport, and she has to buy clothes for me and accompany me to professional functions. From now on, you'll get $2,000 a month. That's enough for you and Leo to live on." With those gentle words, he took away my financial independence—and I mistook it for thoughtfulness. I had always believed that Natalie had taken charge only of his clothes, bills, and professional engagements. Until the night of our third wedding anniversary. I put Leo to bed early and lit candles on the dining table. I had just served the steaks when the front-door lock clicked. Using the spare key Gavin had given her, Natalie walked straight in. She saw the anniversary cake, but instead of leaving, she set several shopping bags in the entryway as if she owned the place. Then she unpacked Gavin's new shirts, ties, shaving supplies, and underwear one item at a time. Finally, she produced a box of condoms and placed it between Gavin and me. "Professor, I've restocked all your personal supplies." She gave him an innocent smile. "I walked three blocks to find this brand. It's the one you always use, and I was afraid switching brands might make you uncomfortable." Gavin and I had been trying for another child. We had never kept anything like that. Yet she knew what he "normally used." I looked at Gavin and waited for an explanation. But his first instinct was not to ask why Natalie had barged into our home on our anniversary. Instead, he hurriedly shoved the box back into the bag. "She just buys household supplies for me." He frowned at me. "Don't look at her that way. Natalie is sensitive. You'll embarrass her." So she was the one being embarrassed. And I, his wife, apparently had no right even to ask about my husband's most intimate purchases. ***** Early the next morning, I took Leo down to the Human-Werewolf Affairs Bureau. All I'd meant to do was get the ID needed for the new lock and ask about the residency permit that had been dragging on for three years. The service hall reeked of silver powder. Regular humans didn't react, but Leo's face kept going paler. Holding him tight against me, I waited in line two hours before I finally got my papers through the window. The clerk tapped at his keyboard, then looked up. "Ms. Bennett, your temporary stay permit expired a year ago. You're here illegally now." "That's not possible." I frowned. "My husband was recruited by St. Clair University. Our son and I came as his dependents." The clerk turned the monitor toward me. Gavin had been granted one of Ravenport's coveted interspecies dependent slots. He had applied the day we arrived, with legal marriage registration, permanent residency, and full faculty-family benefits included. But I was not the beneficiary. Legal spouse: Natalie Smith. I stared at the line while my wolf spirit's furious roar drowned out everything else. "There's got to be a mistake in the system." I pulled out the marriage certificate Gavin had given me. "We sealed a lifelong mating bond in the Northlands. This is our proof." After examining it for a moment, the clerk looked at me with pity. "This certificate has no registration code. It's a fake." He printed the application materials from three years ago. On the final page, Gavin's handwritten signature stood out with painful clarity. Natalie had not secretly replaced my name with hers. My husband had signed the papers himself, giving another woman the status that should have belonged to Leo and me. I walked out of the bureau and booked a flight to the northern frontier that departed in 36 hours. Leo stood on tiptoe and tried to hold the umbrella over me. "Mommy, where are we going?" I folded the fraudulent marriage certificate and tightened my grip on his hand. "Home." This time, to a home that was actually ours.