AGAIN MY HEART: Her Alphas Regret

ORCHID IRIS

AESIR

I had the mind not to welcome my new guests, but my secretary, Eva, who also posed as my pseudo-beta—since I don’t officially have a beta—would have my head if I didn’t go out to receive our guests.

She kept me updated throughout their journey from Xenyre here. From when their flight took off, when it landed, when the vehicle I sent picked them up, and when they drew closer to the palace.

I was swamped by meetings all day, and the last thing I needed was to play nice with people I didn’t want here. But I had no choice. Eva said I needed to be on my best behaviour because this was important if we looked at it from a different angle. Something about forming good international relations. Not that I cared for any of that anyway. People hated me for whatever reason, and I have never bothered.

But, the Valois, even though this union wouldn’t go anywhere, I still needed to make nice with them so that they would leave here with a good impression of me. The federation had agreed to a trial period, but they don’t need to know that I have plans to sabotage their little marriage agenda.

If I were to get married—not that I ever plan to—it would be on my own terms. And if it were a choice, perhaps my mate… But that was impossible, because I drove her away years ago. It was for the best, though. Someone as weak and vulnerable as her would’ve become a liability in my court. She would’ve been a weakness, and those hungry wolves who want nothing but to tear me apart would’ve used it to get the job done.

The door to my office pushed open, and Eva marched in with urgency. “The Valois are here. They just crossed the palace gates,” she announced.

“Must I go out there to receive them? Isn’t that your job? What difference would it make, really?”

Eva glared at me the way she usually does when she thinks I’ve said something stupid that doesn’t demand a response from her.

“Your Highness, please stand up and get moving,” she said. People who don’t know wouldn’t notice how condescending she sounded, that indignation in her voice that has me convinced that situations like this are when she wanted to yell my full name at me.

I scoffed and rolled my eyes as I stood up. She is the only one in this kingdom who gets away with any of that. Not because she’s older than me, but because she’s more or less a big sister. My parents adored her when they were alive, and her parents were friends of mine, perhaps related in a way, too. Eva left the kingdom at some point, but she came back two years after my parents’ deaths. And she’s been by my side, Eva, since, looking after me the way she believes my parents would’ve expected her to.

“Are the guest rooms prepared for them?” I asked as we both walked down the hallway.

“No. I had the servants prepare the Crescent Palace.”

I turned to Eva with a raised brow. “What happened to the guest houses?” I asked.

“They are not befitting to welcome royalties. The Valois aren’t just some werewolf noble blood that are desperate to throw their daughter at you. They are the royalties of Xenyre. What do you think it would speak of us if we had them sleeping in guest houses when there are several inhabited quarters in the palace? As your secretary and advisor, I decided to have them in the Crescent Palace. It is only befitting.”

I didn’t bother to argue with her because I knew I wasn’t going to win the argument. I didn’t care where the Valois lay if I was being honest. The guards watching it pushed the double doors open, and we stepped outside.

The walk across palace grounds to the main gate was uneventful. Eva took the time to brief me on some of the things I missed today and the meetings she’s moved from my schedule tomorrow because she thinks it is a good idea to spend some time with the Valois. I don’t know how many times I have to tell her that the engagement isn’t real for her to finally get that I don’t need to make nice with them.

“I think that’s them over there. We should…” The rest of her words sounded like distant rumbles as I stopped abruptly.

It wasn’t the sight ahead that caught my attention—it was the scent and the familiarity that hit me like a storm.

Orchid-Iris.

The scent slipped through the air like something alive, finding me in quiet precision as if it had been searching for me.

It wasn’t like any scent I’d ever encountered—that was a lie, because I have. I know this scent, the sharp sweetness in the pheromones slowly curling around mine.

I remembered how it felt that day, how her scent had come in layers, quiet but undeniable as it slipped into my lungs before I could brace for it.

Just like that morning, tonight, soft Iris reached me first.

It brushed against my senses like velvet, cool and powdery, almost fragile as it unfolded around me, like silk brushing bare skin. Her pheromone carried a quiet elegance as her scent settled into my chest. For a brief, disorienting moment, everything inside me stilled—Only for my insides to unfurl as the orchid unfolded with a rich warmth that settled within me.

The orchid in her scent wrapped around the iris in a way that immediately turned the softness of the iris into something intoxicating, something intimate.

I dragged in a slow breath as my gaze perused her back.

My pulse shifted as something instinctive pulled within me, and my wolf, Yeger, stirred to life with a restlessness that made my chest tighten.

My feet remained rooted in a spot. I could hear Eva’s voice as she welcomed them, but my gaze and focus had narrowed to one person, who still had her back turned to me. But I couldn’t have been wrong about who it was, even though it made no logical sense, unless there could be more than one person on this planet with an identical scent.

But I doubt how possible that was. The scent that had this grip on me right now was the same scent from that morning, seven years ago. It had to be. There was no other…

My brain screeched to a halt as the supposed Princess of Xenyre turned, our gazes clashing, and I forgot how to breathe.