~ 3

Chapter 3

~ Natalie ~

"Happy Winter Solstice to me," I whispered to my own blurred reflection.

The door opened behind me.

I spun around, quickly wiping my eyes. Allie stood in the doorway, dripping wet, a towel knotted over her lingerie and a dreamy smile on her face.

"Oh my God, Natalie." She leaned against the door and sighed. "He's incredible. We talked forever — and then he excused himself for a while, and when he came back he'd changed his clothes. Showered, even. He smelled different, new cologne, which was a little strange? But I figured he wanted to impress me. And then we got in the pool, and..." She bit her lip. "He invited me to his bedroom."

The floor tilted under me. "He what?"

"I know!" She was glowing. Actually glowing. "We only met eight hours ago and there's already this pull between us. Like gravity." She crossed to her suitcase and started digging through it. "Where's my black lace set? A broke girl and a billionaire's son — this is the plot of every novel I've ever loved."

"You're going to sleep with him. Tonight. In this house."

"That's the plan." She held the lingerie up to the light, checking it for wrinkles. "God, I'm nervous. Is it weird that I'm nervous?"

Jealousy went through me so hot and so fast that my hands shook.

"Allie…"

"Don't." She gave me a level look. "You said you weren't interested. Loudly. More than once. And think about it — every hour he spends staring at me is an hour he's not thinking about your arm. I'm basically protecting you. You're welcome."

Yes, something inside me said, and it wasn't gratitude. I pushed it down.

"I'm just worried," I said instead. "You met him today. You don't know him. You don't know this family."

"I know he's gorgeous, I know he wants me, and I know we leave in two weeks." She softened and squeezed my hand on her way to the bathroom. "Let me have this one, okay? Don't wait up."

Ten minutes later she came out in black lace and a silk robe, trailing perfume, and blew me a kiss from the doorway.

"Wish me luck!"

The door clicked shut.

The silence she left behind was worse than any noise.

Everyone in this house was wrapped around someone tonight. The old man had my sister. My best friend had the heir. And I sat alone on borrowed silk sheets — twenty-eight years old, two names, and not one man in either life who had ever wanted me.

Something in me snapped.

I grabbed a hoodie and went looking for alcohol.

…

The house had gone quiet. No more sounds from Fanny and Jeremy's wing. Nothing but my own footsteps — and through the tall windows, the gardens lying silver under a moon one night short of full. I could feel it through the glass, pressing on the back of my neck like a hand.

I found the bar on the first floor. An entire room for drinking, with lit-up bottles rising all the way to the ceiling. These people were not playing.

I poured myself something amber and expensive and knocked it back. Then poured another. Getting properly drunk would take half the bottle.

I was willing to try.

"Rough night?"

I nearly dropped the glass. Jeremy stood in the doorway in pajama pants and a t-shirt, his silver hair a mess. He looked completely worn out — a man who had given everything he had tonight and was running on empty.

"Sorry." He raised both hands. "Didn't mean to scare you. May I join you?"

I waved at the wall of bottles. "It's your bar."

He poured himself a scotch and sank into the leather chair across from me with a long sigh. Even tired, even in pajamas, he somehow filled the whole room — money and confidence and sixty years of never being told no. My wolf watched him quietly from under her blanket.

He's human, I reminded her. You're embarrassing us both.

It should have been horribly awkward — me and my future brother-in-law, or step-father, or whatever this family tree made him — drinking together at midnight. Somehow it wasn't.

"Can't sleep?" he asked.

"Something like that. You?"

"Fanny drifted off. I'm too wound up." He swirled his glass. "Big day tomorrow. The feast, then the ball. Half the city under our roof. Her first Winter Solstice in this house."

And a full moon over it, I thought, and drank.

"Must be nice," I said, before I could stop myself.

He looked up. "Nice?"

"Having someone." The whiskey hadn't touched my blood, but the loneliness had loosened my tongue anyway. "Being wanted like that."

Understanding crossed his face, gentle and unwelcome. "Ah. You know, it isn't always as nice as it…"

"Cozy."

The voice came from the doorway, and my blood went cold.

Nikolai. Helmet under one arm, leather jacket zipped to his throat, the cold night air still hanging on him — frost and asphalt and engine smoke. His eyes went from his father, to me, to the two glasses between us. Something dark crossed his face.

"Nikolai." Jeremy sat up. "I thought you'd gone to bed."

"No." His eyes stayed on me. "Been out since dinner. Took the bikes up the coast road with the boys."

The words landed strangely in my head. Out since dinner.

Then who had been in the pool with Allie? Who had invited her up to his bedroom?

Ice crawled up the back of my neck. 

"Everything alright?" Jeremy looked between us, clearly puzzled why his son and his future sister-in-law were staring at each other like enemies.

"Fine." Nikolai stepped into the room. "Just didn't expect to find you two down here. Together. Alone." He said alone like it was evidence of a crime.

What exactly was he accusing us of? Sharing a drink? I opened my mouth to ask…

The hallway clock began to strike midnight. One deep bronze note after another, rolling through the sleeping house.

Jeremy's whole face lit up. "It's the Solstice!" He stood and pulled me into a hug before I could escape — scotch and cedar cologne, arms strong and warm and painfully fatherly. My throat went tight. "Family tradition. The first embrace after midnight brings the house a year of luck. Happy Winter Solstice, Natalie."

"Happy Winter Solstice, Jeremy," I managed, hugging a kind human man under the light of the thing that could destroy me.

He turned, arms wide. "Come here, son."

Nikolai endured the hug like a man being arrested. And the whole time, his eyes stayed on me over his father's shoulder. Steady. Unblinking. Taking notes.

Jeremy released him. Nikolai stepped back.

And that's when a voice came ringing down the hallway:

"Hoooowl's it going, everybody! Who wants their presents early?"

"Niklaus?" Jeremy and Nikolai said it together — the same shock, the same weary resignation, in two identical voices.

I turned toward the door, and my brain simply stopped working.

Nikolai was standing in the doorway.

Except Nikolai was standing right next to me.

Same face. Same jaw. Same messy dark hair, same build, same everything — a living mirror. Except this one was grinning like the whole world was a joke only he understood.

Twins. They were twins.

And behind the grinning copy, frozen mid-step and white as chalk, stood Allie.

Black lace. Silk robe hanging open. Hair a mess. Lips swollen.

Her eyes found the Nikolai beside me — the one in the leather jacket, the one who had just walked in from the cold — and I watched the horrible math happen on her face.

"What the hell," she breathed.

"Happy Winter Solstice!" the twin in the doorway announced, arms flung wide. His eyes had a spark of pure mischief that Nikolai's didn't. "Miss me?"

Nikolai let out the long sigh of a man who had lived through this exact scene many times before. "When did you get back?"

"Few hours ago. Flew in early, thought I'd surprise everyone." Niklaus's gaze slid over to Allie, and his smile turned wicked. "Though I must say, this one found me first. Quite the welcome home. She didn't even let me say hello to the family."

"You're a twin." Allie's voice climbed higher with every word. "You're not Nikolai. You let me believe…  you never said…"

"'Let you believe' is a bit harsh," Niklaus said cheerfully. "You walked up to me at the pool and continued a conversation I'd never started. I simply... didn't interrupt. And you never once asked my name."

"You… in the pool… I…"

"Thought I was my brother? Yes, I worked that out. Around the second kiss." His eyebrows went up, and the grin turned sly. "Which is fascinating, honestly. Because Nikolai hasn't looked twice at a woman in years. Not once. Ask anyone." He glanced at his father, then let his gaze drift, slow and deliberate, over to his twin. "So tell me, brother. Where exactly were you all evening, while I was getting to know Miss Allie?"

Nikolai's jaw tightened. "The coast road."

"Hm." Niklaus turned to me next, and I felt the full weight of his attention — lighter than his brother's, brighter, and not one bit safer. "And you must be the new step-aunty. Natalie." He looked me up and down, and his grin widened. 

Then he threw his head back and laughed — a huge, delighted sound that rang off every bottle in the bar.

"Oh," he gasped, wiping his eye. "Oh, this is going to be the best Solstice in years."

The pieces were still crashing into place around me. The pool. The bedroom invitation. None of it… none of it… had been Nikolai.

And the feeling that flooded through me when I understood was relief. Pure, sweet, knee-weakening relief.

Which made no sense on any level I could count. He was human. He was an arrogant, stone-throwing menace. And he was, right now, the most dangerous person in this house to me — a bored, clever man with a bruise on his temple and a growing list of questions about who I really was.

Wolves don't feel pulled toward humans. It isn't possible. Every wolf alive knows it isn't possible.

So somebody needed to explain that to my wolf — because she had spent the entire evening leaning toward the sound of his heartbeat like it was a fire on a cold night.

"I should go." I set my glass down too hard and backed toward the door. "It's late. I need to… Happy Winter Solstice."

I didn't wait for an answer. I felt all of them watch me cross the room — three clueless humans and my ruined best friend — and I hated my body for the way it moved, the way it always pulled eyes whether I wanted them or not. Walk too fast, and everything bounced. Walk too slow, and they had more time to stare.

I took the stairs like the building was burning and didn't stop until my back hit our bedroom door.