Ares turned and the doctor bowed low. “Congratulations, Your Highness,” the man said. “You are indeed the father.”

Pia couldn’t seem to look away from Ares’s face. That arrested expression. Something cold and bleak in his gaze.

It made her heart flip over, then sink.

But the doctor wasn’t finished. Because of course he wasn’t finished. Pia braced herself.

“They are both male,” the doctor said.

There was a short, electric pause.

“Both?” Ares asked, his voice a slap.

Neither the doctor nor Ares so much as glanced at Pia, and still she felt as exposed and vulnerable as if she’d been stripped naked and pinned to the wall.

“Both?” Ares asked again.

And the words Pia knew were coming sounded to her like bullets when they came, as inevitable as they’d been when she’d heard them for the first time.

“Yes, Your Highness.” The doctor bowed lower. “It is my great honor to inform you that you have been blessed with twins.”