Coldsnap: The Billionaire Alpha's Fated Pregnant Princess (GL)-Chapter 451 - Everyone Drowning In The Frying Pan’s Fire

Chapter 451: Chapter 451 - Everyone Drowning In The Frying Pan’s Fire

My neck is released - and I didn’t reach back for her. Not because I didn’t want to, but because I could see she wasn’t finished speaking. As the one that asked to hear this, no matter what she does to me during, I have the duty to remain a bit impassive through her tale.

...Rather than aggressive with her tail-end.

Not everything can be about sex, or else this will be no different than what was between my merchant daughters or her escorts. It won’t be more than Friends With Benefits, like I tried to keep it to what feels like ages ago - just a convoluted set of transactions to be taken and repaid.

Ah. Actually maybe that’s indeed my problem this evening! Not just the marking, I also haven’t repaid her for other services this morning. Yes. That makes sense.

It’s been a little while since I’ve thought of things too *clearly* in terms of debts with her. This woman has somewhat muddled my concept of it, because...

> Because I can’t really repay her for something with a value to me I don’t completely understand. Her love does mean something, but it’s not in numbers or things I can quantify, and I have no scale that can weigh it. <

...And it scares me that I won’t know when, or if, to ever stop payments on it. Or if it will cost me forever, in some way.

"One week after saying something cruel - and it was even more horrible than it sounds because I meant it - he was dead."

The way she held the silence after she framed things wasn’t for dramatic effect. I’ve seen enough of all kinds of quiet to know the difference. It was someone whose next words required choosing between ten or more unpalatable versions of the same wound opener.

"He wasn’t just running a company, Citra. What Lunarizon was back then... it was a construction firm with deep roots in this community. Commercial builds and residential property development. Half the warehouse district rebuild since the mid-70s, the housing expansion toward the lake that began in ’94 - all his projects. His crews."

Her thumb and middle finger picked up her fork, wobbling it back and forth at a point of balance above the counter. A fidget someone might when their hands need occupation while their mind is somewhere else entirely.

> If she wanted to distract herself with *you* with that hand, she’d do so. Don’t offer. She’s still squeezing your other one. Keep things cool. Keep- <

"There were active contracts. Ongoing builds with deadlines. That meant penalties. Hundreds of people, werewolves and humans, whose only paycheck came through us. Families that *needed* the next month’s work to be there."

She spoke about it logistically, the way a person who understood that capital structures don’t pause to let you grieve over the loss of a component of it... if anything, with what little understanding I have of this world’s business matters, the death of a leader adds tons of layers of complications and paperwork.

"My mother... should have been the one to step in. She had the relationships with these people. She’d been his partner in all of it, long before I was old enough to tour a finished warehouse or be shown a demolition site."

The dull shift in her tone was accompanied by an uneven movement of the utensil in her hand. Eventually that too stilled and was sat aside, which told me what was coming.

Yet, I didn’t have the heart to guess aloud again, this time. So I waited.

"...But she couldn’t..."

Her fingers twisted and gripped the edge of the counter and my hand at the same time. A layer of resistance melted away and I returned it, finding my free hand curled, cupping at her chin and forcing her eyes to meet mine.

"It’s okay to stop."

Kyrie’s jaw worked against my hold for a moment. Small motions that looked like she was physically chewing on whether to keep the next part precise or let it be vague. But her gaze *tried* to stay with mine.

"She was there, at first. The first day. Functioning. Gave statements. A week later, she attended the services with me blankly. I’d had to dress her. Hold her hand through all of it. Answer the questions of everyone that walked up."

Grief hits everyone differently. But the way she’s describing it sounds awful already. There was a reason that I chose to hide in a cave when I was depressed. My vanity never wanted anyone to see me like that.

"I took over the company the next day, after his funeral. Not officially. The legal control passed to my mother and we had to send in a letter of testamentary and many other things to keep the company afloat and from accounts freezing."

Her jaw slackens a bit, along with her neck. She basically decided to just let me hold her up by her chin alone as she leans into it and starts dancing the fingers entwined in mine.

> Stupid wolf... I’m trying not to be frisky, don’t act cute. <

"Luckily we had a family friend working with my father, a man who subcontracted with us but was willing to be our RME with his license, to replace the missing qualifying party after my father’s death. I became a sort of acting CFO with limited power of attorney until I could turn eighteen, because my father had given me signatory authorization to the corporate account when I was sixteen."

Well, that makes me understand the man more and less all at once. I can’t picture my father letting me control official funds, but I guess a King allowing that for a Princess who was to be a piece of political trade is a bit different than a company leader for his daughter he might have seen as heiress.

"Seventeen... and I spent the next month as I nursed my heartbroken mother pretending I wasn’t terrified every time I had to sign a document that released tens or hundreds of thousands in funds from corporate accounts to pay bills."

"That’s a lot of money to handle at once."

"Yes. And now I have so much that you spent a drop of what I signed in those first days and you acted like you were fleecing me for everything I would have given you."

Digging her chin around my hold and kissing my palm, near the base of my thumb, her actions make my control slip again. Just a bit. The hand flows up and grips the hair around her ear, holding her steady for-

"Not... now, Pyārī. If you’re done telling stories, it’s fine. But don’t... don’t."

My voice growls out less than an inch from her face, towards that ear, with her cheek reflecting back the lilac glow of my eye beside it. Looking for a moment like the pictures I took of myself before the apocalypse, near an old night theater’s lit up marquee.

I use that visual to connect the thought of stories with movies. Movies with something to perhaps do some of these coming nights without... sex being involved. Because I can feel it in the itch of my teeth right now, and so many times since this morning.

> My body itself wants to mark her back. Helene... your physiology is ruining me! <

"Okay. I won’t."

Despite her words, she steals another kiss. Right at the corner of my twitching eye. Shameless.

"In exchange, you will let me take the first feeding tonight. So that you can get a full six hours of rest."

"That-"

"I can handle the same recipe you just did, Citra."

She doesn’t *say* it, but I can feel it. The accusation that *she* can actually cook at least certain meals while I would manage to set fire to boiling water. But I nod anyway... and she lets go and pulls herself away to start cleaning everything up.

Pushing all the remaining food into a pile on my plate. Like I’m a... disposal source of some kind. So I stare at it, with as much displeasure as I can muster, as she places everything else back on the cart.

"...It’s still good, even when a little cold. Don’t waste it."

Until more and more weakly built walls just collapse altogether.

"Yes. It still tastes... acceptable."