Chapter 62

Esther’s POV

The palace gardens had always felt too perfect to me, symmetrical hedges, sculpted fountains, every petal positioned by unseen hands. Beauty without warmth. But now, as I watched Nicholas sitting in the grass with Sofia on his knee and Carl pretending not to listen to their conversation, it didn’t seem so lifeless anymore.

I should have gone inside hours ago. My tea had long gone cold on the table beside me, but my feet wouldn’t move.

It started the week after the twins’ birthday party.

He came again the next day. And the day after that. Never uninvited, never quite welcome, but always just in time.

Once, I caught him teaching Sofia how to whistle with her fingers. Another afternoon, he fixed the bent axle on Carl’s toy car without saying a word. He didn’t push or pry. He simply… stayed.

At first, I waited for the cruelty. The sharp edge. The inevitable scorn that had shadowed every kindness between us before. But it didn’t come.

When he looked at me now, there was still something dark behind his eyes, but quieter, like the sea after a storm.

Sharon stirred in my chest every time he was near. It was as if his voice was the key her spirit had been waiting for.

I should have been furious about that. Instead, it terrified me.

“Again, Daddy!” Sofia’s voice snapped me out of my thoughts.

I nearly choked on air. “Sofia!”

She blinked innocently. “What? He is.”

Nicholas froze mid-laugh, the sunlight catching the edges of his expression. For one heart-stopping second, I saw something raw and unguarded cross his face, shock first, then something like awe.

He didn’t correct her.

Carl, however, scowled.

“He’s not our dad,” he muttered.

The words fell heavy between us.

Sofia huffed. “He could be. He likes us.”

“Sofia,” I warned softly, but she only shrugged and went back to showing Nicholas her half-broken flower crown.

Nicholas’s gaze met mine across the garden. It wasn’t the smirk I expected, nor the usual gleam of arrogance. Just quiet, searching curiosity.

It made me want to flee and stay all at once.

Later, after the twins had gone inside, I remained in the doorway.

“You shouldn’t encourage her,” I said.

He didn’t turn. “You think I told her to call me that?”

“No,” I admitted. “But you didn’t stop her either.”

He faced me then, one hand resting on the low wall, sunlight outlining the harsh planes of his face. “Would you rather I corrected her?”

My mouth went dry. “It’s confusing for them.”

“It’s confusing for me,” he said quietly.

The honesty of it landed like a blow. I had no answer, just the familiar ache building behind my ribs.

He sighed, stepping closer but not enough to breach the invisible barrier between us. “I don’t expect you to trust me, Esther. But the children—” He paused, as if the words hurt to push out. “—they should know I would never harm them.”

I wanted to believe him. I really did.

But the image of him, years ago, wild with rage and grief, still burned behind my eyelids. The night everything shattered. The night that marked me inside and out.

“I know,” I said, my voice thinner than I intended. “Just… don’t make promises you can’t keep.”

Something flickered across his face, pain, maybe. Then he nodded and left without another word.

After that, he came less often. But when he did, it was different.

He brought little things for the twins, books for Carl, sweets for Sofia, once even a charm bracelet shaped like tiny wolves. He never stayed long. Sometimes we barely spoke. Yet every visit left me feeling unsteady, like the ground had shifted a little more beneath my feet.

I tried to tell myself it was just for Carl’s sake, or maybe guilt for the past. But guilt didn’t explain the way his eyes softened when Sofia laughed. Or how his voice gentled when he asked Carl’s opinion about the books he’d brought.

It definitely didn’t explain why Sharon pulsed inside me stronger each time he was near.

At night, when the palace grew quiet, I would sit by the twins’ beds and listen to their slow, even breathing. I’d close my eyes and feel Sharon humming just below the surface, restless, impatient.

He’s our mate, she whispered one night, voice faint but undeniable.

“I know,” I breathed, tears stinging my lashes. “But he broke us.”

He can mend us, too.

I wanted to scream. Instead, I pressed my forehead against my knees and let the tears fall silently into the folds of my nightgown.

Trust wasn’t something Nicholas could buy with toys or charm. It was something that had been buried six feet deep in me long ago. But lately, I was starting to feel the dirt shift.

One evening near dusk, I found Carl and Nicholas on the veranda, quietly working on a model ship. It was rare to see Carl sit still for long, rarer still to see him smile. But as Nicholas explained how to align the tiny sails, Carl listened with rapt focus.

I stood in the doorway, unseen.

Sofia sat at Nicholas’s other side, braiding wildflowers into his hair with ferocious determination.

“Don’t move!” she ordered, and to my astonishment, he obeyed.

When she finished, she clapped her hands. “You look pretty!”

I bit my lip to stop the laugh bubbling up.

Nicholas glanced at her crown, a lopsided mess of daisies and dandelions, and said, perfectly serious, “Do I?”

“Yes,” she declared, solemn as a judge.

Carl snorted. “You look ridiculous.”

Nicholas grinned, and something light and human bloomed in his expression. “Then we match.”

That night, when I tucked the twins in, Sofia whispered, “Mama, I think he’s lonely.”

I brushed hair from her forehead. “Who?”

“The Alpha King.”

Her tone was so certain it broke something in me.

After they fell asleep, I wandered back to the veranda. The model ship sat half-finished under the moonlight, tiny sails fluttering in the breeze.

I could still smell him there: cedar, iron, rain. Familiar. Dangerous. Comforting.

The air felt alive with something I hadn’t dared touch in years: hope.

I hated it for that.

Kevin came two days later, all smiles and polished shoes, bringing a basket of fruit and veiled warnings.

“He’s playing a long game, Esther,” Kevin said, setting the basket down like a peace offering. “Nicholas doesn’t do gentle. You know that.”

I folded my arms. “Maybe people change.”

“Not men like him.” His tone softened. “He only knows how to claim, not cherish.”

I wanted to argue, to list every small kindness Nicholas had shown lately, but the words refused to come.

Instead, I said, “I’ll decide that for myself.”

Kevin’s expression tightened. “Don’t mistake pity for progress. He’s a master of guilt.”

After he left, I sat on the balcony watching dusk fall, the fruit untouched beside me. I could almost hear Sharon’s voice again, low and thrumming in my blood.

He’s changing for you.

“No,” I whispered to the night. “He’s remembering.”

And that, somehow, was even more dangerous.

The following morning, Nicholas arrived unannounced again. He looked tired, shadows under his eyes, but there was a steadiness to him I hadn’t seen in years.

He found me kneeling in the garden, replanting wilted lavender.

“You should rest,” he said.

“I’m fine,” I answered without looking up.

“Esther.”

There was a quiet weight in the way he said my name. I glanced up despite myself.

His gaze held mine. Not commanding. Not possessive. Just searching.

“You don’t have to do everything alone.”

I stared at him for a long moment before whispering, “Yes, I do.”

He knelt beside me anyway, his hand brushing the soil next to mine. “Then I’ll help you do it.”

Something inside me cracked. Just a hairline fracture, but enough to let the light in.

When I met his eyes again, the world felt too quiet, too intimate. Sharon’s heartbeat thrummed hard against my ribs.

I looked away first. “Fine,” I said. “But don’t ruin the roots.”

His smile was small and sad. “Wouldn’t dream of it.”

We planted the rest of the lavender in silence, the scent wrapping around us like memory.

And though I didn’t dare admit it, some tiny, treacherous part of me began to believe that maybe—just maybe—the man who had once destroyed my life was learning how to rebuild something instead.

Something fragile. Something alive. Something dangerously close to trust.