Chapter 128

Claire POV

“Princess,” a servant said, appearing at my elbow as I lingered over breakfast one weekend morning.

I didn’t often get a chance to sit and relax over a meal lately. Mostly I just grabbed a quick sandwich and ate it while I was on my way from one place to another.

Relaxing with a second mug of tea while I read the newspaper felt impossibly indulgent. I was making sure I enjoyed every second.

“Yes?” I said, lowering the newspaper.

“Alpha Gavin is here to see you. Shall I show him in?”

I couldn’t help but smile. “Yes, please do.”

The Alpha was becoming a regular visitor to my home.

His blatant admission in The Star interview that he intended to court me had been upsetting, but despite my best efforts I simply couldn’t stay mad at him for long.

When I confronted him about the interview in the paper, and the rumors I’d been hearing even before that, he hadn’t even tried to say it wasn’t true.

No, he’d just grinned at me shamelessly.

“It’s all true, my darling Princess. Every single word.”

He took my hand, kissing it with a loud smack that made me laugh.

“In case it hasn’t been painfully obvious enough before this, Princess, let me say this:

“I have absolutely every intention of courting you. If you’ll allow it, of course.”

And that was, ultimately, what made me stop being angry with him.

He wasn’t playing a game, or trying to get me to do something I didn’t want to do.

If I told him to stop, he’d stop.

And when I made it clear that I wasn’t yet ready to be courted, not by him or anyone, he agreed with a smile.

“We’ll go slow then,” he said immediately. “Get to know each other.”

He held out his hand. “Friends?”

I shook his hand, smiling. “Friends.”

I had yet to regret that decision.

So far my first impressions of Alpha Gavin had only grown stronger.

He was a good leader, and a reliable ally. And though his face was more strong than handsome, the force of his personality made him incredibly attractive.

He was also open and honest about his interest in me, without being pushy or demanding in any way.

And though he continued to send me lavish and over the top presents, things like dozens of flowers at once or a cape made to resemble iridescent butterfly wings, I still didn’t feel pressured at all to return these gestures with anything but friendship.

I was continuously touched and amused by his care and attention.

We began to see each other more frequently, going out to lunch, dining together here at the palace.

Then we started taking short day trips together, first around my own territory and then around his.

Gavin showed me a side of the Ice River pack I’d never seen before, one that was warm and festive despite its chillier climate and more severe landscape.

Over the last two weeks, I began to realize that Gavin was offering me simple friendship, and a preview of what promised to be an uncomplicated romance.

A romance unshadowed by the heaviness of the history I shared with Nathan.

And because of that, I came to realize something else as well:

I was becoming more and more torn between Nathan and Gavin.

On one side was Nathan, who truly was my fated mate.

But he was also the man who had hurt me the most in my life.

Even now, with so much shared history between us, we were still struggling not to hurt and misunderstand each other.

And on the other hand was Alpha Gavin, a man I didn’t yet know well, but who I had come to trust and look forward to seeing.

A man who wasn’t ashamed to admit his interest in me to the entire world.

Nathan had kept me a secret, even from our own son.

“There you are, my darling!” Gavin exclaimed as he walked into the room, interrupting my brooding thoughts.

He smiled down at me where I sat, holding out his hand. “Are you ready for today’s adventure?”

Staring up at him, feeling nothing but pleasure and anticipation for our outing, I smiled back at Gavin.

And took his hand without hesitation.

Alpha Gavin POV

I spent yet another day spent in Princess Claire’s company, this time taking her up to the Frozen Falls.

It was a waterfall that stayed completely frozen for half the year. But around this time of year it began to thaw.

Watching Claire’s face as she heard the deep cracks and felt the tremors of the ice snapping and spiderwebbing, I’d felt a strange sensation.

Staring at her as she listened with her eyes closed, lost in the moment, it took me a long moment to realize what that feeling was:

It was delight.

I’d been prepared to suffer to succeed in my plan of wooing the Princess, fully expecting to be utterly bored. I had thought the Princess, like most Royals, would be shallow and dull.

But I had been wrong.

Spending time with Claire was no hardship at all.

At the end of the day, I escorted Claire back to her territory, right to the front doors of the palace.

“Dear Claire,” I said, taking her hand. “Today was absolutely lovely.”

“Yes,” she said, smiling. “It was. Thank you so much.”

I held her hand and stared down at her. I knew the moment she realized I might be about to kiss her.

And saw with a shock that she wouldn’t try to stop me.

With the moment stretching out between us, I felt a tension growing in my belly.

I wanted to kiss her, I realized.

I wanted it, badly.

Instead I raised her hand to my lips and kissed the knuckles softly, still holding her gaze.

“The pleasure was all mine,” I murmured.

We said our goodbyes and I walked back to my car, driving home feeling an itch between my shoulder blades.

Something about that moment on the steps of the palace left me feeling bothered, but I couldn’t name why.

I drove straight to my office at the Ice River headquarters, eager to catch up on my work.

There was a lot to catch up on.

Waiting for me by my desk, Beta Lee raised an eyebrow at the pile of work waiting there for me.

“You’ve been falling behind a bit, Alpha,” he said.

I pulled out my chair and sat, eager to dig in. “I know. Who knew wooing a Princess would take up so much time?” I said, joking.

Beta Lee chuckled. “Hopefully it’s worth it. Of course, there are ways to hurry things along a bit…”

“Oh?” I said, already reading a report and only half listening.

“Well, a pregnancy is a sure way to secure a quick, discrete engagement. Perhaps taking the Princess to your bed would move - ”

In a flash I was out of my chair and in his face, my hand around his throat.

“You will not speak of the Princess in such a way,” I growled, standing so close I could see my own reflection in his eyes.

Lee held up his hands. “Y-yes, of course, Alpha. I apologize.”

I blinked and lowered my hand, shocked at my sudden behavior.

Where had that come from?

Lee’s suggestion of tying Claire to me with a child was a perfectly reasonable suggestion.

And yet the idea of treating her so poorly, of using her in that way, had ignited the temper I had worked all my life to try to contain.

Why?

And then it hit me, a sudden stunning realization:

I wasn’t just spending time with Claire to secure an alliance with her pack.

Or for her approval of me as an Alpha Presidential candidate.

I wasn’t even doing it in order to secure a purely political marriage between us.

Not anymore.

I was doing it because I was falling in love with her.