“This baby is mine,” I told him possessively. “You can’t just tell me you’re magic and expect me to accept that as proof you’re the father.”

“My senses don’t lie, little human,” Sinclair declared, leaving no room for argument. “Nor do my investigators. You’re not in any position to care for this child. Your income is too low to pay off your debts, and no responsible woman would get pregnant in such a situation.”

“My income?” I forced the words out through clenched teeth. “What income? You got me fired!”

The large man—or wolf, I supposed—blinked in surprise. “You were fired?”

“Now who’s playing dumb?” I demanded wryly. “You called the Graves after I asked you to help Cora; you got me fired and ruined my reputation.”

“I did no such thing,” he insisted. “I didn’t even know you were unemployed.”

“I thought your investigators were the best?” I taunted, feeling myself push his temper.

“Clearly this was very recent,” he retorted. “And I don’t blame you for becoming desperate, but you have to admit the only explanation for this”—he gestured to my stomach—“is that you needed money and hoped to extort it from me in exchange for the child.”

“I wanted this child more than anything!” I exclaimed, surging to my feet. “I’ve been trying to get pregnant for years, and when I went to Cora, I didn’t know about the identity theft or that I was going to lose my job. This was my last chance, and you have no idea how hard it’s been… how painful it is to think I might have to abort it because of everything that’s happened.” I hadn’t meant to tell him so much, but the words poured out before I could stop them. I’d been so preoccupied with these thoughts that I couldn’t contain them.

“Abort it?!” Sinclair rose in a blur, towering over me despite my being on the exam table step. “So now you’re threatening me?”

“What?!” I cried. “No! It has nothing to do with you. As you said, I can’t afford a baby, so I was trying to do the right thing!”

“Werewolves don’t abort their pups,” he growled. “Our children are too precious, and Cora knows that. I’m sure that’s what she was thinking when she suggested using my sperm.”

“Argh!” I exploded, clenching my fists. “You’re impossible! How many times must I tell you that if this child is yours, it was an accident! Cora didn’t switch the samples on purpose, and I didn’t get pregnant to get you to pay off my debts!”

He narrowed his eyes. “You’re a very good actress, you know that?”

“And you’re a snake,” I snapped. “I wouldn’t be surprised if you have scales instead of fur when you shift!”

A true growl, full of raw power that weakened my knees, rumbled in his chest. “Be careful, Ella. I’m showing you a lot of lenience because you don’t know our ways, but keep speaking to me like that, and I’ll—”

“You’ll what?” I hissed. “You just told me how precious your pups are, so I know you’re not going to hurt me.” To my horror, tears burned my eyes. Swiping at them angrily, I continued, “And I’ve already lost everything else I care about, so it’s not like you can punish me any other way.”

I turned away so he couldn’t see me cry. I didn’t know what to do—our situation looked suspicious. If I didn’t know better, I would think the same thing he did. It was all too suspicious, especially now that I knew the truth about Cora’s lab. It couldn’t be easy to mix up samples of different species… wait a minute. A thought occurred to me, and I turned back to Sinclair.

“If you didn’t know it was possible for a human to be impregnated by a werewolf, why would Cora have ever attempted to use your sperm?” I asked. “She couldn’t have known it was the wrong sample. She wouldn’t have believed it would work even if we were as calculating as you seem to think. And if all I wanted was to extort your money, why haven’t I asked for it? Why haven’t I admitted it?”

The huge werewolf blinked, processing this with a grimace. Silence stretched between us, and eventually he sighed, scrubbing a hand over his face. “I’m not saying I believe you, but however it happened, we need to come to an agreement.”

I eyed him warily. “What sort of agreement?”

“Just name your price, Ella,” he muttered, pinching the bridge of his nose. “How much do you want?”

“For what? The baby?” I sputtered. “You want me to sell you my child?”

“It’s my child, and it will be raised by me,” he insisted. “You don’t belong in my world. So how much will it take for you to give it up?”

“I’m not going to negotiate a price for my baby, as if it’s a bag of rice or a car! Nor do I want it raised by someone who thinks of it as nothing more than a commodity!” My voice rose; I felt deeply offended for the tiny being in my womb.

“You don’t know what you’re talking about!” Sinclair grumbled. “Do you have any idea how long I’ve been waiting for an heir?”

“An heir, not a child—not a son or daughter, but an heir—is that all it is to you? Some hypothetical legacy? I might not be able to prevent myself from losing this child now, but I’m not going to hand it over to someone who doesn’t care about it beyond what it can offer them.” My maternal instincts kicked into high gear.

“As I said, you don’t know what you’re talking about,” he repeated gutturally. “I will give this baby a life you never could; it will want for absolutely nothing! With you, its best chance is to scrounge and scrape in poverty, assuming you have the decency to let it live. With me, it will be treated like a prince or princess.”

“Money can’t buy everything,” I reminded him coolly. “I notice you said nothing about love.”

“Because I already love it!” He snarled. “I have a connection to my pup you will never understand. How dare you speak to me about love when you contemplated killing it!”

“That was also out of love!” I exclaimed. “I didn’t want it to suffer; I didn’t want it to grow up like…” I almost said, ‘like I did,’ but stopped myself. “I love it more than myself, and I was willing to sacrifice my own happiness for its sake.”

“Then do as much now,” Sinclair commanded. “Give it a life you can’t, by signing over custody to me. Carry the baby and deliver it, then leave it with me where it belongs.”

“You don’t understand; if I do that, I’ll never be able to walk away from it,” I pleaded. “I’m not that strong. If I carry it to term, I’ll never be able to give it up—I need to be there to care for and protect it.”

“That’s simply not possible,” Sinclair proclaimed. “You aren’t fit to be a mother to any child, and especially not mine. You can’t even care for yourself; that much is obvious by your debts—”

“I already told you—” I tried to object, but he talked over me.

“And your excuse about Cora assumes she understands enough about werewolf society to know we don’t crossbreed. All she knows is that we exist, and how to inseminate our women. She probably assumed we occasionally mate with humans and just lucked out!” He accused.

“She’s a doctor who works with your samples all the time; she probably knows a lot more about your organic chemistry than you do yourselves,” I defended, realizing too late that this could incriminate her.

He arched a brow, clearly thinking along the same lines. “Either way, she proved she wasn’t to be trusted as soon as she betrayed her confidentiality agreement about my sperm to you, and you’ve proved you can’t be trusted by changing your story every ten seconds. You can’t love the baby enough to abort it but not love it enough to give it up to a better life. I clearly just haven’t offered you a high enough price yet.”

“That isn’t fair,” I objected, shaking my head. I’d just learned everything I believed to be true was false, at the height of an extremely emotional moment. I hadn’t even been thinking clearly. How could he expect me to think or communicate clearly?

He didn’t budge. “It’s alright, Ella. You don’t need to make excuses. I’m going to make you an offer you can’t refuse.”