"Ignacia. Ignes. You're finally here. You sure took your time."
Count Velloni smiles placatingly, as he's done tens of thousands of times over the years of working with the easily irritable alpha. "My apologies, Your Highness. I must have caught Lady Ignacia at an inconvenient time. It took some time to deliver your message."
Ignacia's smile freezes on her face.
Stay calm. No need to panic.
She must have been difficult for Ezra to find, considering that she locked herself in her bathroom without her maids knowing.
The very reason why the message was delivered to her late seems to burn a hole through the side of her purse and directly into her hip, but she tries her best to ignore it.
Taking a small breath to steady herself, Ignacia speaks. "Count Velloni and I were exchanging news about our families on the way here, Your Highness. Our small talk might have delayed our pace a fair bit as well. My apologies."
Prince Aspen, whose head was buried in his work before, finally looks up. He fixes his steely, golden eyes on Ignacia, and she has to bite the inside of her cheek when she meets his gaze head on.
Prince Aspen's eyes have always been inexplicably beautiful. They're bright, almost glowing in the darkness of night, and their colour both exudes the dignity of his royal bloodline and boasts his unique ability to sense people's presences.
Ignacia can't remember the last time she looked into his eyes and didn't immediately feel out of breath. It was a very long time ago.
Now, even looking at his face is reason enough for her to pause her train of thought and admire his stoic features. And after the four nights they spent together, the memories keep flooding back to her whenever she sees those golden eyes piercing into her.
Swallowing shallowly to hide her unease, Ignacia grips her tablet just a little tighter.
Prince Aspen stares at her for a short moment, his eyes as unreadable as they are scrutinising. Then he breaks their stare and sighs into his paperwork.
"No matter. We have more important things to discuss. Let us go over the details once more. I'd hate for those old devils to find a reason to oppose my appointment during the meeting."
"Of course, Your Highness." Count Velloni moves to study the papers spread in front of Prince Aspen. Evidently, they had been deep in discussion before he was sent to deliver His Highness's message to Ignacia.
"Ignacia, I called you here because I'd like your insight about the attending members of the council meeting. Tell me everything you've dug up about them."
"Yes, Your Highness."
Taking a deep breath, Ignacia takes a step forward, already scrolling through her files for the ones she needs.
Just as she comes to a stop behind Prince Aspen's chair, the alpha leans against the backrest and it dips according to his weight. With a bump, the back of his chair makes light contact with Ignacia's forearm.
She startles a little from the sudden touch of cold leather, but braces herself almost instantly. Still, Prince Aspen notices her arm twitching with surprise, and he turns around with a frown. "I'm sorry. Did I hurt you, Ignacia?"
Ignacia shakes her head. "Not at all, Your Highness."
Again, Prince Aspen stares at her with a strange look on his face.
His expression betrays nothing. Neither concern nor anger shows. All Ignacia can see is an unusual intensity in his eyes. And even then, she has hardly a clue as to what it means.
Prince Aspen's true emotions are often undecipherable, even to her. It is only when they are alone that he seems to let his guard down a little more. When it's just the two of them, Prince Aspen often requests to have tea together, and they end up spending an afternoon conversing about various topics.
Most times, Ignacia wonders if it is her mind playing tricks on her when she notes how the prince's eyes soften around her. The piercing quality of his golden eyes is always present, and she can't help but think that her feelings for him have cast a rose-coloured tint over every movement and change in his behaviour.
If she wasn't more aware of her place and their professional relationship, she might have mistaken this heated look of his for something more.
Or for something that she's seen before - directed towards her amidst a haze of suffocating pheromones.
Crushing any hope within herself, Ignacia smiles down at Prince Aspen. But before she can open her mouth, he beats her to it.
"Has your scent always been this strong?"
The prince's question makes Ignacia's blood run cold.
For a few moments, she simply stands stock still, her grip on her tablet so tight that her knuckles turn white. Hurriedly, Ignacia tries to regain her composure.
"I'm not quite sure what you mean, Your Highness. My scent has always been rather muted. As everyone knows, betas don't have much of a scent."
She manages to get the words out without fumbling. Inside, however, she's a complete mess. Her fingers tremble ever so slightly, and her gut plummets to her feet at the thought of her pregnancy changing her scent.
The child's sire is His Highness.
It dawns on Ignacia that because Prince Aspen is the father of the child, he might be able to sniff it out if her scent changes too much.
Or..., she thinks, realising with budding anxiety that he might be able to sense its presence.
No. That can't happen.
If Prince Aspen finds out that she was the one who spent his rut with him, he will surely try to protect her from the hostile forces that are after his position as crown prince.
If he decides to protect one of his own over the seat that he rightfully owns, there's no telling what the other princes' factions may do to rid him from the war of succession.
After all their efforts to get this far, they simply cannot allow that.
It was a mistake... I shouldn't have given in.
She still remembers the way Prince Aspen cornered her when his rut hit him out of the blue.
The timing was off. By weeks. Back then, she was desperate to placate his instincts.
That rut was far from normal. It was much stronger and more potent than any that Prince Aspen had experienced before. She would know, as she is the one in charge of making adjustments to his schedule to accommodate the days for which he is incapacitated during his rut.
For days after those nights, every time Ignacia closed her eyes, she would recall the way Prince Aspen had spoken so sweetly to her.
"Won't you join me in my den, my darling?" he had said, as he traced his fingers down the length of her spine, pressing her close with his warm lips resting against her temple.
And every time she remembers what happened after that, she would shiver underneath her covers, guilt-ridden by the way that she had pathetically given in, despite knowing that she shouldn't.
Tradition states that royalty has always taken in omegas as brides or prince consorts. Pure-blooded omegas with a long, illustrious family history of birthing alphas have always been the expected spouse of a member of royalty.
But Ignacia is a beta. There should have been no chance for her to lie with any of the princes or princesses, but she had.
And now she has to pay for it.
Prince Aspen's expression doesn't change, but the scent of frost wafts in the air, stirred by her words, presumably.
Ignacia swallows down the alarm that wells up in her at the sudden shift in his usually controlled scent.
"Your Highness...?" Count Velloni's voice is a knife that cuts through the tension between them.
As though coming back to his senses, Prince Aspen blinks twice, and the scent of heavy frost fades until only faint traces of it are left in the air.
Grateful for the distraction, Ignacia rushes to change the topic at hand. "You must be exhausted from overworking yourself, Your Highness. Shall I summon a physician to examine your health after the meeting?"
Prince Aspen eyes her with that same unreadable look on his face. His golden eyes have lost the heat behind them, but Ignacia cannot help but worry that he's grown suspicious of her answer.
A moment later, Prince Aspen turns back to his desk, his face hidden from Ignacia's sight. He sighs. "I suppose so. Please ignore whatever I said before. I must be hallucinating from all the stress. You need not spare the effort to summon a physician."
Ignacia releases a soft, inaudible breath of relief.
"You may proceed with what I requested of you."
Ignacia nods, and resumes scrolling through her tablet until she finds the right document. As she opens it and begins to recite the details that she managed to scrouge together about the council members, the back of Ignacia's mind burns with an urgent question.
What do I do? What if His Highness smells the child on me?
"Count Crysis is known for his haughty attitude in high society. He is unmarried, but has several illegitimate children. There are rumours of embezzlement from the department of finance which he runs, and it is my belief that..."
Ignacia tunes out her own words. Her mind races on the side, frightened by the possibility of someone discovering her secret.
If anyone were to find out, they would use her pregnancy as a reason to denounce His Highness Aspen's right to be appointed crown prince. They would say that a prince who has a child out of wedlock doesn't set a good example to the people of the country, despite nobility having the highest rates of illegitimate children born from them.
The unsavoury rumours about His Highness Aspen have only just begun to turn in his favour in the capital city. She cannot allow anything to destroy the image that His Highness worked so hard to cultivate, least of all herself.
"Moving on, Marquess Grisel has made several attempts to petition against Your Highness's appointment as crown prince. It is highly likely that he is in support of the Third Prince, His Highness Cameron, as Marquess Grisel is his maternal uncle..."
I need to get away from His Highness. I must not be near him when the child starts to grow.
Unbeknownst to Ignacia, her mind was already made up.
She will not abort the child.
No matter how much it pains her to know that the child's existence would be a hinderance to Prince Aspen's appointment, she refuses to give them up.
I can't. Not the baby that His Highness gave me.
Her free hand moves unconsciously down to caress her lower stomach.
Not our child.
"Are those all the members who will be in attendance today?"
"No, Your Highness. There are a few more."
"Let's take a break first, then. Ignes, please assist me with these documents here. I'm afraid my vision is beginning to blur."
"Yes, Your Highness."
While she watches the two men converse softly between themselves, Ignacia's heart twists at the same time that she comes to a conclusion.
If she won't get rid of their child, there's only one option left for her.
I need to leave the palace. And go somewhere that His Highness cannot reach.