Klara's phone started buzzing uncontrollably with calls from her family, practically dancing across the table during a lesson with Frau Krause about table manners. Klara rose from her chair, smoothing her skirt before checking her phone.

"Oh god, I have to take this, my entire family is calling me. We'll have to continue this next week." Klara told Frau Krause.

"Of course, your highness." She said with a nod before putting away the cutlery and porcelain dishes for the princess, seeing herself out, her figure followed by Klara's nervous eyes until it was obscured by wooden double doors.

Klara called her sister first, seeing as her sister knew all that was going on, waiting with bated breath as the phone rang.

"Klara! Oh my god! We're out of debt! We're rich! Mom and dad too! Oh my fucking god!" Lil shouted into the phone, elated and laughing. Klara could hear Mark and the kids in the background also losing their damn minds.

Viktor fulfilled his end of the deal of their transactional marriage.

"Well, it's like you said, I'm a prince's baby mamma." Klara debated whether to tell Lil the next tidbit of information. "You can tell no one this, but we got legally married so our kid has a claim to the throne."

"Oh my god! That's crazy! When are you guys having a ceremony?"

"I'm guessing after the baby is born."

"Oh! Before I forget, why didn't you tell mom and dad you're married and pregnant? I had to pretend to not know because they were totally freaking out about all that money."

"Oh shit! I didn't!" Klara kicked herself. "How the fuck do I explain this to them?"

"Truth seems to be the simplest option."

Klara belted out an uncontrollable, unhinged laugh, the truth about her situation was nowhere near simple.

"Hey mom, hey dad, I got knocked up by a sterile prince, we got married, you're rich now!" The cynicism dripped from Klara's tongue like venom.

"I have to go, Mark is spouting off a bunch of business ideas and is already looking for property to buy and rent out and I gotta see what he's up to."

"Wait, how much money did-"

"Twenty million to mom and dad and fifty million to us."

"Holy shit!" Klara's eyes nearly bulged out of their sockets.

"Go call mom and dad."

"Yeah, got it, bye!" Klara hung up, nervously dialing her parents with shaking hands.

"Klara Marie Abspoel, what in God's name have you been up to? We just had some man in a suit come to our house and tell us we're rich." Klara's father was clearly suspicious of what was going on, much more suspicious than Lil and Mark were. Klara could hear her mom tell him to ease up.

"Mom, dad, I can explain. It's kind of a long story." Klara sighed. "So, you know how I'm working for that royal family in Austria?"

"Yeah?" Klara's mother was more calm.

"I don't know how to put this besides just in the simplest terms possible. I'm pregnant with the crown prince's baby."

"You're what?" Her mother's temperance instantly fading, Klara could picture her mother's eyes wide open and her mouth dropped.

"Wait, hold on a moment. You're pregnant with an actual prince's baby? As in your baby is gonna be a prince or a princess?"

"Yup." Klara said nervously.

"Who is this crown prince? How did you meet him? Is he good to you? Does he have good values?"

Work, materially, and no. But Klara couldn't tell her parents that.

"Met him because of work, he's been very generous, and he was considered sterile for years, so he's really excited about the baby."

"Oh thank heavens!" Klara's mother beamed.

"My first thought was that this was all hush money to keep you from exposing that he's a lousy womanizer."

"John! Don't say things like that."

"We legally married when I told him I was pregnant." Klara finally confessed. "Shotgun wedding, I know, but he wanted our baby to have a claim."

"Well, he did the right thing. Oh, which prince is the crown prince, honey?"

Klara froze, realizing her parents would find out he was older than them with a quick google search.

"Viktor." Klara forced out. "Prince Viktor." Klara's heart fell to her stomach, waiting for the dreaded moment her father would lose his mind.

"Well, Prince Viktor." Her mother couldn't quite get her tongue around saying his name. "Is a very generous man, I would love to meet him so I can thank him my-"

"This man is forty eight years old!"

"John!"

"Klara, did this dandy threaten to fire you if you didn't sleep with him? I'll kill him myself if he-"

"No, dad, it was totally consensual."

"John! You're not helping!"

"Wendy, I don't like the idea of Klara married to some old man no matter how rich he is!"

"He was a rebound from Johann, alright!" Klara shouted into the phone, followed by dead silence. She sighed, trying to hold back tears before following up with. "I hadn't been with anyone since Johann and then I met him and he invited me to an opera, I went to boost my ego and because I found him attractive and it all just happened so fast. I didn't expect to get pregnant and neither did he." Klara rambled, choking back tears and drawing sharp breaths.

"It's okay, baby. Like I said earlier, no matter what you two got up to before, he did the right thing in marrying you. I'm glad you found yourself a man who stepped up like Mark did when Lil got pregnant."

"Maybe you can divorce hi-"

"John! I've had it with you."

"Wendy, this makes no sense! You think this family was just given seventy million out of the kindness of some old man's heart?"

"Dad, it's not like that." Klara lied. "He asked me if I wanted anything and I said the family debts paid off, retirement for you two, and for the kids to go to good schools, I didn't know he was going to do this ! He couldn't tell you what groceries cost." Klara let out a noise between a shudder and a gasp, starting to come undone. "I thought you'd be happy."

"Klara, the money isn't important, especially if you're not safe with that cradle robbing son of a-"

"Dad, I'm safe." Klara hated lying to her father. "I'll have you guys come visit soon, you can see for yourselves, I'm fine." A tear rolled down her cheek.

"That sounds wonderful, dear. We'll have to get passports but that shouldn't be an issue." Klara's mother said. Most of the family hadn't traveled out of the country.

"I have to go." Klara couldn't emotionally handle the conversation anymore. "I love you guys." Klara allowed her parents to respond with their 'I love yous' and 'stay safes' before she hung up the phone, it took all of her power to not chuck it at the wall.

Klara should have known that her ever-perceptive father would pick up on something being off. Her father, for his lack of education, was intelligent in many areas that had little to do with book smarts. She tried to block the image of Viktor and her father meeting, but it forced itself to the forefront of her thoughts for the rest of the day.

That night, Viktor made sure to check himself for any evidence of carnage as to avoid upsetting his wife. He found a replacement for Danilov, Marcus Rispoli, and the former had been dealt with violently via hundjagers, a task he was careful to make sure his wife wouldn't have to see. She was already so rattled, it wouldn't be good for her to see her first murder.

"Viktor..." Klara announced her unexpected entrance into his office as he was finishing up the day's affairs.

"Come in dear, what is it you need?" His eagerness added a ring to his voice as his wife approached his desk, reminding him of the day they first met.

"My family, you gave-"

"Was it not enough?" Viktor asked, completely serious, Klara was taken aback by that.

"Viktor, seventy million is an unheard of amount of money where I'm from." Klara told him. "Thank you."

"Of course." Viktor said, lightly smug. "Small price to pay when investing in the future." A smile lit up his face further.

"I told my parents... about us." Klara told him as she rounded the corner, standing next to him, curiously looking down at the papers on his desk, all that hadn't been put away were dull.

"Thrilled, I take it?" He was too cocky, Klara thought.

"They want to come visit as soon as possible." Klara said diplomatically.

"That will have to wait until all this business with Adalind and her child is over and done with."

"My dad doesn't like you very much..." She decided to give her husband fair warning.

"What all did you tell them?" Viktor's voice piqued with concern, a rare glint of anxiety flashing in his eyes.

"Pretty lies. They don't know about the guardianship or wesen or any of that. Dad just thinks you're too old."

"That's right, your father is younger than me." He seemed relieved. "In more sensible times, your father would have taken the money and thanked me profusely." Viktor smoothly pulled Klara onto his knee, sliding her body closer to his. "If it makes him feel better, I'll probably make you a very wealthy widow sooner rather than later."

"Don't say things like that." Klara cast down her eyes. "I hate the idea of being alone with everything..."

"Such a sweet girl." He said with a kiss. His hands grabbed needily at her thighs, but her small hand firmly wrapped around his wrist.

"Can we go to our bed instead?"

"Of cour-"

"My head feels like it's going to explode." Klara interrupted in a stammer. "It's going to explode from everything, the whole wesen thing, my parents, all of this. It feels like half the time I'm crying and the other half I'm just confused."

"Klara, it's alright, let's get you to bed." Viktor patted her thigh.

After the walk to their chambers, the few minutes it took feeling dragged out, Klara immediately curled up under the covers after shedding her clothes, grabbing at the hem of the rich comforter as though her life depended on it, humming when she felt the warmth of her husband's body against her back. He didn't advance on her, just showering her with gentle affection.

"When did you lose your virginity?" Klara asked abruptly.

"Fourteen." Viktor answered.

"Fourteen?" He imagined her eyes going wide to matched the shock in her voice.

"It's custom for the aristocracy to find young men outlets the moment they start having urges. My father and the king pulled Eric and I out of school, we flew to Amsterdam, they put us in hotel rooms with an escort and left us to our own devices for a week."

"You lost your virginity... to an adult woman... at fourteen?"

"You make it sound like I was some school girl abducted by an old man in a white van. I certainly wasn't complaining for the thirty seconds that first time lasted."

"Jesus." Klara felt ashamed for laughing. "What did she look like? The escort?"

"She didn't look nearly as pretty as you." Viktor kissed the top of her forehead, he could practically feel her melt, he knew better than to insert the idea of a tanned, statuesque blonde with slim hips and round breasts into his pregnant wife's head, lest she entertain herself with misplaced envy. "How old were you when you lost your virginity?"

"Eighteen."

"Aren't you just perfect?" Viktor playfully scoffed. "Eighteen." Viktor started lazily tracing his fingers along her sides, delighted in her scrunching up and giggling. He hadn't known she was ticklish, but it was an endearing trait. "Probably using birth control with a high school boyfriend who you gave blue balls for years because you didn't want anyone thinking you were a little sl-"

"Hey!" Klara broke though her giggling and squirming, it was too accurate. Viktor let out a rich laugh.

"No wonder you came so hard at the idea of me breeding you, anyone who follows the rules as perfectly as you did has to be repressed." Viktor teased.

"I'm not repressed." Klara laughed, trying and failing to sound serious as her husband's relentless tickling continued, one of his spidery hands teasing her neck.

"Darling, you were practically dying for something more adventurous."

"Well, I got my wish in spades, didn't I?"

"Wait until all this business with Adalind is over, I'll show you the world..." His tickling hand still at her waist paused. "You're softer now than you were when we met." The hand pressing into the puffier flesh where it did not already yield, the hand at her neck smoothed its way to her breast, giving it a firm squeeze that forced a gasp out of Klara.

"I guess I've been-"

"It suits you." Viktor interrupted before she could insult herself. "It probably helps that I did this to you."

"Oh." Klara was confused, but not at all upset.

"I suggest you learn to enjoy being soft and swollen, because I'm not stopping after one child." Viktor's cock was hot and hard against her ass. "Spread your thighs a little, that's it, good girl." He held her raised thigh in his hand and started fucking her from the side.

"You're still young, we could surpass your sister if we really put our minds to it. You'd like that, wouldn't you?" Viktor's sordid suggestion made her clench around his shaft, her hips angling themselves closer, what was a muted mewl escaped between her pouted lips and the sound practically reverberated off the walls.

"Oh fuck! Viktor please, yes!."

"I'm glad you see things my way."

Viktor rolled on his back, taking Klara with him, slightly repositioning her spread thighs with his own and draping her upper body across his, giving his mouth perfect access to her throat. His cock stayed securely inside her during the transition, one hand cupped her breast while the other caressed down her belly and to her needy clit.

The grouped sensations turned Klara's mind into jelly, nothing intelligible came from her lips. She had a new favorite position, it was intimate and stimulating, she imagined what she might look like in it when she was eight to nine months along, her husband steadying her with a gentle hand on her belly.

The image, paired with her husband's worship of her body from her throat to her clit, sent her over the edge. She laid on top of him, sighing when teeth sunk into her shoulder and her insides were flooded with warmth. She smiled, basking in her own satisfaction, not even realizing her shoulder was just barely bleeding.

"Oh, fuck, darling, I got carried away." Viktor noticed the blood before she did.

"It didn't hurt." Klara told him. "It felt good."

"Even so, you're pregnant." Viktor said sternly.

"Do you think I'll fall apart if I'm not treated like a two week old kitten?" Klara chuckled at the idea.

"Yes." Viktor answered honestly, his hand protectively resting on her belly. "After years of not being able to have children, you practically are a two week old kitten."

"You're worried about me losing the baby."

"That'd be just the thing, wouldn't it?" Klara was alarmed by an unfamiliar sound, tears were threatening to escape from her husband. "For that to finally happen, just for it to be taken from me."

Klara repositioned herself so she could put her arms around him.

"That's not going to happen." Klara reassured him.

"Klara, I should have just told you about everything." Viktor still fought back tears. "You shouldn't have found out the way you did. I shouldn't have... Viktor didn't finish the sentence, he couldn't bring himself to look his wife in the eyes until one of her soft hands turned his face towards her, those singular blue-green eyes in view, large and sweet, rather like the kitten she denied she was.

"I just need to be under less stress, and it's not just you, my family hasn't been helpful either." She imagined this was as close to an apology to the previous week's events that she was going to get, even if it was more for her baby's sake than her's.

"I think we should reside in the alps for the remainder of your pregnancy."

"I'd like that." Klara recalled a hike she took in the Austrian alps with her ex. "It's beautiful and peaceful there."

Viktor successfully kept himself from crying in front of his wife, her concern brought him shame but her soft words of reassurance dulled the anxiety. He didn't have the heart to tell her that the stress was likely to be prolonged, that he should have sent her to the alps already rather than selfishly keeping her by his side during a time like this. He needed something to take the edge off, drinking wasn't enough anymore, her body represented everything his duties were not and part of the reason he kept doing them. She was soft, warm, and gentle, something every cell in his body screamed for at the end of the day.

He wanted power for his own satisfaction as much as he wanted power to lavish his wife and eventual family with the best of everything. He could give up his position and still live a life of luxury and comfort, but his ambitions for the throne superseded anything else.

Time would tell if he could survive a transition of power with not just one, but two Renard bastards in the mix.