Page 20 of Sold to Three Alpha Kings

“I brought us all here so we can discuss what actually happened in that room, instead of pretending we don’t all know.” Sinth’s gaze shifts between Wayne and me.

“We know what happened.” Wayne’s voice has none of its usual mockery in it. “We felt it.”

“What we felt was nothing but a trick.” I turn to face them both. “A very effective one. That is all it was.”

“That’s what I thought at first,” Wayne says. “But let’s be real, that wasn’t artificial at all.”

Sinth’s brow creases.

“I think everything about tonight has been artificial from the moment those traders walked through the door,” I begin my argument. “The girl had no scent and was doused in fake pheromones one time already. Why should the rest of it be any different?”

“I don’t know, maybe because ‘artificial’ doesn’t explain what happened after.” Wayne’s tone stays level.

“We sensed no wolf in her. Confirmed. She gave off nothing when you used a command tone on her earlier—no flinch, no submission, nothing an Omega or wolf’s instincts would have produced,” Sinth says.

“My point exactly.” I meet his gaze.

“And yet.” He doesn’t blink. “The moment our pheromones collided, she reacted. Immediately. To us, specifically, in a way I’ve never seen an Omega react to anyone, let alone three Alphas she’d never met before tonight. And more importantly, WE reacted. If not that we take blocker pills and have slept with Omegas before to control our ruts, that scent would probably have sent us into rut.”

“How do you explain that, genius?” Wayne’s just trying to get a reaction out of me. He’s enjoying this, and I want to smack that pesky smirk off his face. But he’s right.

I don’t have an answer for that. I hate that I don’t have an answer for that.

They’re not wrong. I was there. I felt the air change. I felt something claw up out of the center of my own chest—something that I haven’t felt before. And for one disgraceful second I nearly say something I would have had to spend the rest of my life pretending I hadn’t meant.

I say the right thing instead. The only thing a King in my position could say.

“It changes nothing,” I say now, mostly to remind myself as much as them.

Wayne rolls his eyes in contempt.

I continue, “Whatever occurred, she is still what she appeared to be at the start of this—a fraud brought here by men who are already dead for their trouble. I won’t jump to conclusions on a feeling.”

“You stubborn son of a bitch.” Wayne finally takes his legs off the table. “We’re simply asking what we’re going to do with her. Because whatever that was back there, it wasn’t nothing, and pretending otherwise doesn’t make it go away.”

“We keep her in the cell,” I say flatly, already decided. “And we investigate. Properly. If there’s a trick buried in this somewhere, I intend to find it before either of you does something we can’t undo.”

Sinth studies me for a moment too long, like he’s deciding whether to push further. He doesn’t. “Agreed. While at that, we need to find a healer who can tell us if it’s possible for a… dormant wolf to be forced awake by pheromone exposure.”

“Leave that to me,” Wayne says. “I’ll head back to my Pack and bring our healer here myself. He’s the oldest and most skilled healer in the region.”

“I’ll look into her background,” I say. “The traders came from somewhere. She came from somewhere. I want to know how she was able to fake a scent match, and whether that skill was hers or someone else’s design.”

“It’s settled then,” Sinth says, his tone laced with finality.

Wayne almost smiles. “Look at that. The three of us, agreeing on something. Someone alert the elders.”

***

I go alone to the cell later, when I’m certain neither of them will follow.

I tell myself it’s diligence. A King investigating a potential threat to the region doesn’t need permission to examine that threat firsthand.

And if I happen to do it without informing Sinth or Wayne, that’s simply efficiency, not secrecy. I repeat this to myself twice on the walk down, and I don’t entirely believe it either time.

The cells beneath the middle-ground palace are old, older than most of the wings above them, carved directly into the rock the whole structure sits on. Cold in a way that has nothing to do with Snowpeak’s particular cold—this is just stone, patient and indifferent, the kind of cold that doesn’t care who you are.

I stop before I reach the guards’ line of sight and watch for a moment through the narrow passage.