Their Clueless Alpha Princess Chapter 09

Thea’s Their Clueless Alpha Princess Chapter 09

POV

I didn’t sleep well.

Every time I closed my eyes, I felt his breath on my neck. The press of his fingers near my collar. The flat, unreadable gold of his eyes a second before I slapped him. The memory played on a loop, and my body couldn’t decide if it was angry or embarrassed or something else entirely.

I was up at five-thirty. Swept the kitchen floor. Mopped the hallway. Ironed Margot’s blouse and set out Darcy’s cereal before either of them stirred. My hands were clumsy this morning. I dropped a mug, caught it an inch from the tile, and stood there with my pulse hammering for ten seconds over nothing.

By the time I walked through the school doors, exhaustion sat in my bones like wet concrete. I was wearing Darcy’s old jeans and my gray thrift-store hoodie zipped to my chin, hair pulled back in a low ponytail that I hadn’t bothered to fix since four A.M.

French class. I slid into my chair and let my bag drop.

Juno looked me over. “Rough night?”

“Couldn’t sleep.”

“You never sleep.” She leaned closer. “Think the twins will actually show up?”

“I told Ash to pass the message.” I flipped open my notebook to a blank page. “That’s all I can do.”

From two rows over, Darcy’s voice carried across the room. “They won’t come.” She was leaning back in her seat, examining her freshly painted nails, pastel pink, another gift from Aunt Margot. “Your group is finished, Thea. I’ll be the one going to Paris.

I didn’t look at her.

“I’m serious.” She tilted her head. “Those two haven’t attended a single-”

The classroom door opened.

Ash Solvane walked in like the room had been waiting for him. Shirt untucked, sleeves shoved up past his forearms, that lazy golden grin aimed at nobody and everybody at once. He scanned the room, spotted me, and dropped into the empty chair on my

left.

“Morning.”

Darcy’s mouth shut.

I blinked at him. He actually came. Then I glanced at the door behind him. “Where’s Soren?”

“Coming.” Ash propped his elbow on the desk. “He’s slower when he’s irritated.”

The door opened again.

Soren entered without looking at anyone. Long strides, jaw set, shoulders squared like the building was something he was tolerating rather than choosing. He crossed to the row directly behind me, pulled out the chair, and sat.

He didn’t say a word.

I didn’t turn around. But the tightness behind my ribs loosened by half an inch. Both of them. Here. In seats. The deal was holding.

Madame Arnaud arrived a minute later. Her face brightened the instant she spotted the twins.

“Magnifique,” she said. She held up a small velvet drawstring bag. “Today, each group draws a performance text. One

representative per group, please.”

I walked to the front, reached into the bag, and pulled out a folded slip of paper.

L’Avare. Molière. The Miser.

I knew the play from the school library – a father and his son in love with the same woman. A four-hundred-year-old comedy about greed and forbidden desire that still made audiences squirm.

I sat back down. Juno read the title over my shoulder, and her eyes went round.

“Oh,” she whispered. “This is perfect.”

“It’s Molière.”

“It’s a father and son fighting over the same girl.” Her gaze slid sideways – past Ash on my left, then over her shoulder toward Soren behind me. A grin crept across her face. “We could modernize it. Twin brothers instead of father and son. Both of them falling for the same-”

I clamped my hand over her mouth.

“No.”

Juno peeled my fingers off, still beaming. “The casting writes itself.”

“Then unwrite it.”

I spent the rest of class staring at my notebook like it contained the secrets of the universe.

After the bell, Soren stopped me in the hallway.

“Walk with me.”

Not a request. He turned toward the east stairwell without checking to see if I followed. I followed anyway, because the semester mattered more than my pride.

The fire door clicked shut behind us. The hallway noise vanished. Soren leaned against the metal railing and crossed his arms.

“Tell me how you plan to help.”

I’d rehearsed this in my head last night. That was probably why I couldn’t sleep.

“I work four shifts a week at the diner on Maple Street,” I said. “Half the town eats there. People talk – about strangers, about new faces, about anyone who doesn’t belong. If a girl in this area matches your princess, I’ll hear about it before you do.”

He watched me with those gold eyes, still and unblinking. In the narrow stairwell, the fluorescent light caught the sharp line of his jaw, and I noticed – not for the first time, and not by choice that Soren Solvane had the kind of face that made you forget

he was terrible.

“I grew up here,” I continued. “I know the families, the neighborhoods, the schools. If someone was adopted or fostered around eighteen years ago, I can narrow your search faster than knocking on every door.”

Silence. He studied me like a gambler reading a bluff.

I wasn’t as confident as I sounded. I had no real leads. No strategy beyond showing up to work and keeping my ears open. My only plan was to hold this deal together long enough for the semester to end. Long enough for Paris. Long enough for Veritas. Long enough to walk out of Margot’s basement and never look back.

I stuck out my hand. “Deal?”

Soren looked at my palm. Then at my face.

“Do you know what happens if you deceive me?”

Quiet. Not loud, not angry. Just a statement of fact delivered the way Aunt Margot said bastard – like the outcome was already decided and I was the only one who hadn’t caught up yet.

My stomach went cold.

I kept my hand out. “I’m not deceiving you. I’m offering what I have.”

He held my gaze for one more breath.

Then he reached forward and took my hand.

The instant his skin closed around mine, something shot through my body – a sharp electric jolt that raced from my fingertips up my arm and down my spine in a single hot pulse. My breath locked. My fingers clenched around his before I could stop them.

I shivered. Not a small shiver – a full-body tremor that lit every nerve from my wrist to my shoulders and vanished as fast as it had come.