Chapter 54

Nicholas’s POV

The report landed on my desk like a blade.

A single cream envelope, unmarked except for the lab’s embossed seal, sat atop the stack of dispatches Dan had left. No courier had dared enter. They’d just left it there in the center, an island of silence amid contracts and petitions.

Norman stirred immediately, hackles up. We know what’s inside.

I sat back in the leather chair and steepled my fingers, staring at the envelope. It looked absurdly small, like something a child might send—a birthday card or a folded drawing. But it carried the weight of six years of suspicion.

I’d had Dan send the samples out under a false name, not through the palace’s usual channels. I’d kept it all sealed tighter than a vault so no one could tamper with it. At least, I thought I had.

Now the answer waited three inches away, thin as paper, heavy as fate.

Open it, Norman growled.

I did. I slit it cleanly with a claw and slid the paper free.

The words jumped out first: paternity not established.

I blinked. Read it again. Probability of paternity: 0.00%.

The room tilted.

Norman went silent.

I scanned the details line by line. Sample A: “Alpha Nicholas.” Sample B: “Child, Carl.” Sample C: “Child, Sofia.” All cross-checked, chain of custody intact. Results—negative.

No match.

The children weren’t mine.

For a long moment I sat there, not breathing. Then something inside me gave way like rotten wood.

She’d lied. All of it. The flickers of scent, the mate-bond tugs, the inexplicable familiarity—they were nothing but my own delusions. She’d borne Kevin’s children, then stood in my palace with those same eyes and played me like a harp.

Norman jolted back into motion, claws raking across my ribs. No. Something’s wrong. This is wrong.

“It’s right there,” I said aloud, voice hoarse. “Look.”

Tests can lie. People can rig them.

“Dan handled it personally.”

And Amanda watches everything.

I slammed a fist down on the desk hard enough to splinter the corner. “Enough.”

Papers jumped and fluttered. The test report lay in the center like a white flag.

I stared at it until the letters blurred. My throat tightened with a hot, ugly ache I didn’t want to name. Betrayal.

Norman prowled. We should confront her. Tear the truth out.

“What truth? She’s already given it. Kevin’s children. Kevin’s. She told me.”

Mate-bond does not lie.

I laughed then, a sharp, brittle sound. “Maybe it does. Maybe I’ve been drunk on it for years.”

The walls felt too close. I shoved back from the desk and stalked to the liquor cabinet, yanking out a bottle of whiskey. The cork popped under my claws. I didn’t bother with a glass.

The first swallow burned down my throat like fire, but it didn’t touch the cold under my skin. Another. Another.

Norman growled louder. Stop. This is weakness.

I tipped the bottle higher. “This is anesthesia.”

Visions of Esther flickered behind my eyelids: her hazel eyes sparking defiance in the courtyard, her body leaning instinctively toward Kevin, her whisper of “three months.”

All lies.

“Was I just an Alpha to keep at bay?” I muttered. “A power to be milked until she could run back to him?”

Norman snapped. She’s ours.

“She’s his.” Another swallow. The bottle’s neck was slick under my grip. “We’ve been fools, Norman. She’s been playing healer while laughing at us.”

We don’t believe it.

I turned to the window. Night pressed against the glass, thick and starless. The city below shimmered with distant lamps. Beyond, the forest whispered.

“Do you smell her?” I asked Norman bitterly. “She’s down the hall. With his children. Under our roof. And I’m the one bleeding for it.”

Norman’s snarl rose to a howl in my skull. GO TO HER.

“No,” I said. “Not tonight.”

Another swallow.

Time blurred. At some point the bottle emptied. At some point another appeared. Dan must have come and gone silently, leaving papers, seeing the empty bottles and retreating. He knew better than to interrupt.

I sat on the floor against the couch, head tipped back, the room spinning. The DNA report lay crumpled in my fist.

I’d once thought of myself as a strategist, a ruler whose decisions carved empires. Now I was a man on the carpet clutching a lab report, muttering into the dark like a madman.

“Kevin,” I spat. “Kevin.” His name tasted like rust.

Stop. Norman’s voice frayed with unease. You’re not thinking.

“I’m thinking perfectly.” My laugh cracked. “We’ve been sharing our roof with the enemy’s mistress. Raising his brats. Paying for their medicine. And she—” My voice broke. “She stood between us in the courtyard. Defended him.”

Norman growled and growled but the sound had no teeth.

A soft knock came at the inner door. Feminine. Measured.

I didn’t move.

The latch clicked anyway.

Amanda stepped inside, wearing a thin robe of midnight silk. Her hair was loose for once, spilling over her shoulders like a dark waterfall. She carried a tray with two glasses and a decanter of something amber.

“I heard shouting,” she murmured. “And breaking glass.”

I glared. “Leave.”

She set the tray down anyway, moving with exaggerated grace. “You shouldn’t be alone when you’re like this.”

Norman recoiled instantly. No. Get her out.

But she had already crossed the carpet and crouched in front of me. “Nicholas,” she whispered. “What happened?”

I tried to stand. The room tilted. “None of your—”

She pressed a glass into my hand, fingers lingering. “Drink this. It’s gentler.”

I stared at it, then at her face. For an instant her features blurred and shifted and I saw Esther—Esther kneeling in front of me, eyes filled with worry. My chest twisted.

Amanda’s eyes glinted. She moved closer, touching my cheek. “You’re trembling. Let me help you.”

Norman roared inside me. Not her.

But the bond’s ache was a hollow cavity and the liquor made my limbs heavy. When she leaned in, her perfume cloying sweet, I didn’t push her away fast enough.

Her lips brushed my jaw. Her hand slid up my neck.

“Stop,” I muttered.

She didn’t.

For a moment the world fractured: Esther’s scent in my memory, Amanda’s perfume in the present, Norman’s howl filling the gaps.

Then everything went black.

Morning light stabbed through the curtains like spears. My skull throbbed. The taste of stale liquor and regret coated my mouth.

I rolled over—and froze.

Amanda lay sprawled across the other side of the bed, robe tangled, hair fanned out like a dark flag. She opened one eye, lashes heavy. “Good morning,” she purred.

Ice sluiced through my veins.

“What did you do?” My voice was hoarse.

She smiled lazily. “You don’t remember?”

Norman snapped awake, fury blazing. We told you. We told you.

I pushed upright, head in my hands. “Get out.”

Amanda sat up, clutching the sheet to her chest in a parody of modesty. “Why? We’re adults.”

I turned on her. “Get. Out.” My claws slid.

Something flickered behind her eyes—triumph quickly masked. She rose slowly, drawing the robe around herself. “As you wish, Alpha.”

She glided to the door, pausing just long enough to look back over her shoulder with a half-smile. “You don’t have to be alone in this. Remember that.”

The door clicked shut behind her.

I sat on the edge of the bed, head hanging.

Norman prowled in circles. She tricked us. She saw weakness and slithered in.

I raked a hand down my face. “I let her.”

No. We were drunk. We were broken.

“Same difference.”

I stood slowly, legs unsteady, and stalked to the bathroom sink. Cold water over my face. The man in the mirror looked older, his eyes ringed with red, his mouth a bitter slash.

“You’re pathetic,” I whispered to my reflection.

Norman’s growl softened to a low rumble. We’re not done. We’ll fix this.

I thought of Esther then—Esther finding out, Esther’s hazel eyes shuttering completely.

“She’ll never believe me again,” I said.

Then make her believe.

I stared at the mirror a long time, dripping, palms braced on the marble.

Behind me, the bed was empty now. Only the indentation on the sheets remained, proof of my failure.

The DNA report still lay on the desk where I’d left it, edges crumpled, a silent accusation.

I walked back into the room and picked it up. For a heartbeat I considered tearing it in half. Instead I folded it carefully and locked it in the bottom drawer.

“Betrayal,” I muttered. “Hers or mine, what’s the difference.”

Norman rumbled but didn’t answer.

I poured the rest of the whiskey down the sink. The smell rose, sharp and final.

Then I straightened, forcing my shoulders back. Alpha again. Whatever storm brewed inside me, no one would see it.

But as I left the room, closing the door softly behind me, I caught my own scent on the sheets—whiskey, rage, and something faintly sweet that wasn’t Esther—and my stomach turned.

I’d crossed a line I couldn’t uncross.

And somewhere down the hall, Esther was waking to another day of guarded silence, unaware that my last, flimsy hope had snapped under Amanda’s claws.

Norman whispered only once as we started down the corridor. You’ve lost her.

I didn’t answer.