Telling her would be simple enough. But telling her would also light a hope inside her, and if they couldn’t find a solution, that hope would only make the eventual disappointment harder to survive.

He had already instructed Gilbert to find a way to create an antidote for the suppressant in her blood somehow, and the doctor had promised to try. So until it was made, Sebastian decided to let her sit with this new information about her background first. If she turned out to carry a wolf after all, it would mean she had an Alpha parent somewhere in this world.

But which Alpha, from which pack, could that turn out to be? Was it the mother or the father? He couldn’t help the curiosity gnawing at him, the pull to know where the other half of her came from in their world. It couldn’t be Silver, that would make them relatives, and the very idea was too absurd to entertain, so he scratched it out immediately.

Knowing how eager he already was about it, he understood that telling her would make her twice as restless, and she needed to settle first. So until the medicine was made, he resolved to keep that part to himself. But he couldn’t sit across from her and watch her be sad without doing something about it.

"It doesn’t matter whether you have a wolf or not, darling. You will still belong in this world just as much as anyone else, and I promise you that your secret will be safe with me. Always." He reached across and took her hand, the one wearing their wedding ring, and intertwined their fingers. She gave him a smile in return, one that tried its best to be warm but fell just short, the emotions she was holding inside pulling at the corners of it.

"But I really do wish to know what it feels like," she said quietly. "To have a wolf. To be part of the things only wolf-bearers can do, to run through the trees, to feel another living presence inside me, to have that connection." She paused, and the next part came out softer, more carefully. "To feel a mate bond, even without a mark..."

That part hurt more than she wanted to let on. She was aware that Sebastian would never be able to mark her, and without a wolf she might never truly share what he felt, not in the way a real bond allowed. Their connection would exist without that deeper, mutual thread that tied mated pairs beyond anything ordinary. Maybe it was asking for too much to want to feel him the way he felt her.

Viola couldn’t finish her meal even with the hunger that had been gnawing at her since the night before. She was quietly certain now that her parents had been nothing more than two creatures who had resented her and her twin and cast them both away without looking back. Maybe they had been their mistakes? Maybe none of their parents wanted them...

A heaviness settled between them at the breakfast table after that, born from his wife’s quiet grief at believing she could never truly be complete in their world. He tried to lift her mood, and though she smiled for him, it never reached her eyes. It was a movement of the lips that didn’t travel to the heart, and in turn it pulled at his own mood naturally, until they were both two sad people pushing food around their plates and pretending otherwise.

Sebastian couldn’t take it. He reached out to Matt through the mind link, canceling whatever meetings were scheduled and asking him to work through the request documents for the day. He couldn’t send her home carrying that feeling in her chest, not when it was already bleeding into his own.

"Where are we going?" Viola asked quietly from the passenger seat when she noticed he wasn’t driving back toward the high tower but further into the city, away from it entirely.

"You’ll see." He said, glancing over at her with a small smile.

Viola pursed her lips. "I hope it isn’t another surprise. I think I am traumatized by your surprises now." She said, though there was a teasing edge to it, she was aware her mood was dampening his, and she didn’t want that and wanted to add humor.

"Ouch. That hurt, love." He said, pressing a hand to his chest dramatically. "Now I have no choice but to remedy that before I let you go on believing all my surprises are traumatizing. A husband’s surprise is supposed to bring excitement, not dread." He said, and she rolled her eyes at him.

"You are my only husband and so far yours have given me nothing but dread. I can’t wait to see how you intend to fix that. I hope it doesn’t involve throwing me into the sea to see if I grow a tail this time around."

Sebastian glanced over at her and narrowed his eyes slowly. "That is actually a brilliant idea. Why didn’t I think of that sooner? I should absolutely throw you into the sea and see what happens."

Even knowing he was joking, the color drained from her face slightly and she said, "You wouldn’t dare." She gasped.

"Then convince me not to. Perhaps with a kiss, and I will consider changing my mind." He said, slowing the car to a stop at the side of the road and turning to face her with complete seriousness. "Kiss me, my love." He pouted his lips at her, and the expression was so utterly ridiculous on his face that she found herself laughing before she could stop it.

And then, on a quiet impulse, she slipped her phone out of her purse and snapped a picture of him mid-pout. "This would make an excellent wallpaper. The people of Silver would have a collective heart attack seeing their Supreme Alpha like this." She grinned, turning the screen toward herself and laughing again at what she found there.

"Absolutely not, wife, delete that and take a proper picture of me in a decent pose." Sebastian said, catching a glimpse of the screen and visibly cringing at what stared back at him. He looked ridiculously stupid!

"Remember what you did to me in my penthouse? You took a picture of me and refused to delete it." She said smugly, the weight that had been sitting on her chest all morning lifting almost without her noticing.

Sebastian remembered perfectly well, and he still had that picture saved, and had no intention of removing it from his gallary. But he liked teasing her, especially when it was pulling her out of a mood like this one.

"Kiss me and I will think about letting you keep it." He said, leaning toward her.

Despite the warmth that sparked through her at the thought of kissing him, Viola pressed her palm flat against his forehead and pushed him back. "In your dreams. No kissing until I know this surprise of yours is not something dreadful."

"So you’ll kiss me if you like the surprise?" He asked, and his tone had shifted into something genuinely curious.

"You said it yourself, if I like it." She muttered.

"And what if you love it? Will you have sex with me in the car?" He said, grinning, and she leveled him with a flat glare and a look of disbelief at his shamelessness.