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“What is it?” I ask gently.

“Dorian claimed me as his mate on his taxes. I guess he had to pay less money that way.”

“What does that mean?”

“He… didn’t have a will. I inherit the estate, the money, the cars. Everything.”

That seems impossible.

Buddy gestures to a folder on the coffee table. I open it to find a passport with Buddy’s photo and the name “Doll Gray.” There’s a social security card, a bonding license, and tax documents. How did Felicity’s paralegal not find this information? It could have made our case. It wouldn’t have been that difficult to figure out that Dorian Gray was legally bonded to someone.

Maybe she did find it, and never bothered to tell me. She thought Buddy was nothing but one of Gepetto’s children. I thought I had convinced her otherwise, but maybe I didn’t. She could have chalked everything up to me “being soft.”

“The lawyer offered to represent me. Said he would keep my identity confidential,” Buddy says with the same blank expression from before.

I flip through the tax documents. In the first few years, there’s a lot of money and assets to claim. But the amounts decrease drastically every year. Dorian was still wealthy when he died, but instead of having hundreds of millions of dollars, he mostly had stock in his alpha father’s failing company. He didn’t even own this estate. It was mortgaged to the hilt.

“What are you going to do, Bud?” I ask. “Dorian’s company isn’t doing well. You won’t be able to pay the mortgage on this place.”

Buddy shakes his head. “I don’t know. It’s tobacco. Doesn’t that kill people? I guess I’ll shut it down and sell the estate.”

I almost tell him that tobacco employs people too and that extricating himself from something like this will be complex, ethically speaking. He can’t just walk away from it.

Then I stop myself. Why should I make it complicated for him? Tobacco does kill a lot of people.

“You could turn it into something else,” I suggest. “Use the resources to switch gears so people don’t lose their jobs.” There are a lot of things he could do with the company. But all of them would require money, and I’m sure there’s a board somewhere he would have to answer to. “Or you could sell it and use the money to help the Illusors. My friend Timber’s mate inherited lots of blood money. He used it to fund the Lost Wolves Sanctuary. The money he gave us helped us build a new facility so we could help more displaced red wolf shifters. You could use Dorian’s money in a similar way. Or you don’t have to give it away. You could also travel,” I say.

He’s been trapped in this house for so long, he deserves an escape.

“We could go to Rixton,” Buddy says, a small smile coming to his lips. “Or visit a real cabin in the woods.”

“Yeah.” I don’t know if I’m in the “we” he’s referring to. Maybe it’s Candlewick.

“Unless you don’t want to. I didn’t mean to assume. I’m sorry.”

I press my thumb to his lips. “Shhh. I’ll be here for as long as you want me.”

His eyes fill with longing. “But not forever.”

I lean in and press my forehead to his the way I did this morning in the kitchen. “As long as you want me, baby.”

He brushes his lips against mine so gently it makes me ache for everything I could have with him if only I wasn’t muzzled. The words I say next are incredibly selfish.

“We could still live in a cabin in the woods together. Adopt a few kids from the sanctuary. Be a family.”

He’d have to stay plastic, and we’d be poor unless he sold Dorian’s company and kept all the money for himself. I’m sure Buddy would be miserable. But that would be pure heaven to me. I’ve never gotten so close to having an omega of my own. That’s all I’ve ever wanted. That, and a few little ones running around the house who I could be a father to. It wouldn’t matter if they weren’t genetically related to me. The children at the sanctuary have always found their way into my heart, no matter where they came from.

Buddy searches my face. “The sanctuary would let us do that?”

I nod.

“And you’d… want that? With me?”

I nod again. “What do you want?”

Buddy takes my hand and laces our fingers together. “I just want to be happy.”

It’s such a simple thing to want. But with his obligations to the Illusors, his inheritance, and his need for a bond to become flesh and blood, I understand how brave a desire like that really is.

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