POV Matteo
I find Soren in one of the estate's private sitting rooms, alone with a cup of black coffee and an expression that could freeze hellfire.
The morning light cuts harsh through the windows, illuminating every rigid line of his posture. He looks worse than yesterday—which is saying something, considering yesterday he bent a fork in half at dinner.
I close the door behind me, the click of the latch loud in the silence. No servants. No witnesses. Just two wolves who share a very dangerous secret.
"We need to talk." I drop into the chair across from him, abandoning my usual lazy sprawl. This isn't the time for performance.
Soren's pale eyes lift to mine, flat and assessing. "About?"
"About what I smelled last night." I lean forward, elbows braced on my knees. "When I was dancing with Eva."
Something flickers behind his frost-colored gaze. Interest, maybe. Or fear. With Soren, it's impossible to tell. "You mentioned her scent was different. Sweeter."
"Not just sweeter."
I run a hand through my hair, the memory of that moment replaying in my mind—Eva pressed against me, her body moving with mine, and that fragrance hitting my nose like a sucker punch.
"Changed. Fundamentally changed from what she smelled like at the club."
Soren sets down his coffee cup with careful precision. "People's scents shift. Stress, diet, hormones…"
"Don't patronize me." My voice comes out sharper than intended. "I know the difference between a stressed woman and... this."
"Then enlighten me." His tone is ice, but I can see the tension coiling through his shoulders. "What exactly do you think you smelled?"
I hold his gaze, letting the silence stretch until it becomes unbearable. Then I speak the words that have been burning in my throat since last night.
"My sister. Lucia." I watch his expression carefully. "She smelled exactly the same way when she fell pregnant with her first pup."
Soren goes still. Not rigid—he was already rigid. This is something deeper. Something frozen at the molecular level, like prey caught in a predator's gaze.
"You're certain?" His voice is barely above a whisper.
"I teased her mercilessly about it before the official announcement. Called her a walking bakery because of how sweet she suddenly smelled."
The memory surfaces unbidden—Lucia throwing a pillow at my head, threatening to tell our father about my latest scandal.
"That particular sweetness, that richness beneath a woman's natural scent... I'd recognize it anywhere. And Eva has it."
"That's impossible." But Soren's hands have tightened around his coffee cup, knuckles going white. "It's been, what, four days since we..."
"Three days since the gala. Four since that night at the club."
I lean back, watching the implications crash over him like waves against ice. "Wolves can scent pregnancy within days. Sometimes hours, if the father's blood is strong enough."
"If." Soren's jaw clenches. "If she's pregnant. If it happened that night. If one of us is…"
"Who else would it be?" I cut him off.
"She was a virgin when we took her, Soren. You felt it as clearly as I did. And unless she's been spreading her legs for other wolves since then, which, given her father's surveillance, seems unlikely, the timeline is pretty fucking clear."
The profanity hangs between us, crude and undeniable. Soren's composure cracks, just slightly—a hairline fracture in all that Nordic ice. His throat bobs as he swallows.
"One of us is the father," he says slowly, testing the words like they might explode.
"One of us created this mess." I gesture between us. "Together. Inside the same woman. And now..." I trail off, letting him fill in the rest.
"The consequences are growing in her womb."
Soren rises abruptly, pacing to the window with movements too controlled to be natural. His reflection stares back at him from the glass—pale and haunted. "If this becomes public knowledge…"
"We're destroyed. All three of us." I stay seated, tracking his movements with predatory focus. "The Alpha King will have our heads. Literally, probably. And Eva..."
I think of her green eyes, the defiance that burns beneath her careful mask.
"Her father already treats her like damaged goods. Imagine what he'll do when he discovers she's carrying bastard pups from wolves who fucked her before the courtship even began."
Soren's hands curl into fists at his sides. "We can't act on suspicion alone."
"No." I rise, joining him at the window. The estate grounds stretch before us—manicured gardens, ancient trees, the forest beyond where the pack runs beneath full moons.
Somewhere out there, Eva is waking up with a secret growing inside her. "We need proof before we make accusations that could destroy everyone involved."
"And if we're wrong?" Soren doesn't look at me, but I can feel the tension radiating from him like heat from a forge. "If we expose our own sins for nothing?"
"Then we've damned ourselves for a phantom."
I consider the possibilities, my strategic mind clicking through scenarios like a machine. "But if we're right, and I'd bet my inheritance that we are, we need to control this narrative before anyone else discovers the truth."
Soren turns to face me, and for the first time, I see something other than ice in his expression. Something desperate. Something almost human.
"What do you propose?"
"We investigate. Carefully." I begin pacing, thoughts crystallizing into a plan. "Watch her behavior. Note any symptoms—nausea, fatigue, food aversions. Engineer moments alone with her to test her reactions."
"And if she's hiding it deliberately?" Soren's eyes narrow. "She fled that apartment before dawn. She clearly doesn't want to remember what happened."
"Then we make her remember." A dark smile curves my lips. "Or at least, we make her slip. One way or another, we'll know the truth."
Soren is quiet for a long moment, weighing options I can practically see spinning behind his eyes. Finally, he nods—a single, sharp movement.
"I'll observe from a distance. Watch for patterns, behavioral changes. My... intensity would only put her on guard."
"Agreed."
I clap a hand on his shoulder, feeling the coiled muscle beneath his impeccable jacket.
"Leave the close contact to me. Charm is better cover than intimidation, and God knows I have more practice making women comfortable."
Soren's lip curls with something that might be disgust or might be grudging respect. "Don't enjoy this too much, Corsini."
"I never enjoy anything too much." The lie rolls off my tongue easily. "That's the secret to surviving court politics."
We stand together at the window, two wolves bound by a secret that could destroy them both. The morning sun climbs higher, burning away the mist from the gardens below.
Somewhere in this estate, a princess carries a truth she doesn't know we've already guessed.
"Whatever happens next," Soren says quietly, "we're in this together. Agreed?"
I meet his pale gaze—ancient enemies becoming unlikely allies in the space of a single conversation. My wolf recognizes the gravity of this moment, the weight of the pact we're forming.
"Agreed." I extend my hand. "Until we know for certain, we trust no one but each other."
Soren's hand closes around mine, his grip crushing.
An uneasy alliance, forged in desperation and mutual destruction.
But an alliance nonetheless.