CH. 3 Conversation with the Alpha

Selene’s POV

Ronan opened a set of double doors at the end of the corridor and guided me into his private wing.

I had never been there before. Most wolves in Bloodhowl had not. Alpha Ronan’s private wing was spoken of like a place that existed behind a wall of teeth, somewhere only warriors, trusted staff, and people in serious trouble were allowed to enter. It was nothing like the bright ceremonial hall. This room was darker, quieter, and far more intimate, with deep leather furniture, tall shelves crowded with books, heavy curtains framing the windows, and a low fire burning beneath a black marble mantel. It smelled like cedar, smoke, leather, and him. The scent moved around me the second the door closed, wrapping itself into my lungs before I could stop it.

The lock clicked behind us.

My spine stiffened.

Ronan saw that too.

“I locked it to keep them out,” he said.

I turned on him, all the fear and pain inside me finally finding somewhere to go. “That’s supposed to make me feel better?”

“No,” he said. “It’s supposed to make you safe.”

The word snapped something loose in me. I let out a laugh that sounded nothing like myself and held up his ring between us. “Safe? You think this is safe? You handed me your Alpha ring in front of the entire pack after your son rejected me and chose my stepsister. You didn’t make me safe, Ronan. You made me a scandal.”

His expression did not change, but his eyes did. They darkened in a way that made the room feel smaller. “Damon made you a scandal. I made you untouchable.”

My breath caught for half a second, and I hated that he noticed. “By making me yours?”

Ronan stepped closer, slow enough that I could have moved away, but I didn’t. I stood there with my chest aching and his ring trapped in my shaking hand while he closed the distance between us like a predator who already knew the prey had nowhere left to run.

“By making every wolf in Bloodhowl wonder what will happen if they forget you are under my protection.”

I forced myself to lift my chin. “I don’t belong to you.”

“No,” he said, and the immediate answer stole the fight from my mouth. “You don’t.”

For some reason, that made me angrier. “Then stop acting like I do.”

“If I were acting like you belonged to me, Selene, this conversation would be very different.”

Heat rushed into my face before I could stop it. The words were calm, almost too calm, but there was nothing harmless beneath them. He was not flirting the way young males flirted, all smiles and cocky promises. Ronan’s voice carried the kind of darkness that sounded less like a suggestion and more like a door being unlocked in a room I was not sure I wanted to enter.

I tightened my grip on the ring. “You’re impossible.”

“So I’ve been told.”

“Do not make jokes right now.”

“I’m not.”

That was the worst part. He wasn’t joking. He was standing in front of me with complete control of himself, while I felt like my skin had been turned inside out in front of an audience. The pain in my chest flared again, and I pressed my free hand against it before I could hide the movement. Ronan’s gaze dropped, and the temperature in the room seemed to change.

“You’re still hurting.”

I laughed bitterly. “Did you expect your son’s public rejection to feel pleasant?”

His jaw tightened. “No.”

“Then don’t look so surprised.”

“I’m not surprised,” he said. “I’m angry.”

The honesty in his voice made me go still.

I searched his face for pity and found none. That should have relieved me, but the absence of pity did not make him easier to understand. If anything, it made him more dangerous. Pity would have been simple. Pity would have meant he saw me as something bruised and pathetic. Ronan looked at me like he saw the bruises and the humiliation and the shaking hands, but none of it made me small to him.

That terrified me more than cruelty.

“You don’t even know me,” I said, quieter this time.

“No,” he replied. “But I know what was done to you tonight.”

“You know one piece of it.”

His eyes moved over my face slowly, and my stomach tightened because I realized too late that he was not looking at the makeup. He was looking beneath it. At the faint scratch near my jaw. At the shadow under my eye that no amount of concealer had fully hidden. At the way I kept favoring one side because the bruise on my ribs still ached beneath the dress.

Ronan’s voice lowered. “Who touched you?”

The room went dangerously still.

I looked away. “That is none of your business.”

“It became my business the second you walked out of my ceremony shaking.”

“Your ceremony?” I snapped, grateful for the anger because it was easier than the sudden panic clawing up my throat. “Of course. That’s what this is really about. Your ceremony, your pack, your name, your son embarrassing you. I’m just the girl standing in the middle of it wearing the wrong dress.”

He took another step toward me. “That dress is not what offended me.”

The words were too soft.

My heartbeat jumped anyway.

I should have moved back, but pride kept me still. “Then what did?”

“Watching my son try to turn you into a lesson.”

My throat tightened before I could stop it.

Ronan’s gaze stayed locked on mine. “He wanted every wolf in that hall to see what happens to a female who waits quietly for a male to keep his promises. He wanted to reject you so publicly that no one would question Mira standing beside him afterward. He wanted to make your shame useful.”

The truth of it landed so hard I almost looked away again. I didn’t want him to be right. I didn’t want Alpha Ronan, of all people, to understand the part of tonight that had hurt worse than the rejection itself. Damon had not just chosen Mira. He had staged it. He had dressed his cruelty in ceremony and forced me to stand there while everyone watched.

“And you?” I asked, my voice rough. “What did you want?”

Ronan did not answer immediately.

The silence stretched between us, thick with the firelight and the scent of him. When he finally reached for me, I should have stopped him. I told myself to stop him. Instead, I stood frozen while his fingers closed gently around my wrist and lifted my hand between us.

My pulse hammered against his thumb.

He felt it.

His eyes flicked down to where he held me, then back to my face.

“I wanted them to understand that you were not alone.”

The words were not soft, but something inside me bent under them anyway.

I hated it.

I hated him a little for giving me something I had wanted so badly that I did not know what to do with it now that it was being offered by the wrong man.

“Damon was supposed to be the one who did that,” I whispered.

“I know.”

The answer was too quiet. Too human. It did not sound like an Alpha speaking to a girl he had claimed in front of a pack. It sounded like a man admitting he had seen the exact place another man had failed her.

For one dangerous second, I wanted to cry.

I refused.

Instead, I pulled my wrist from his hand and stepped back. “You should have let me answer him.”

Ronan’s expression hardened. “You could barely stand.”

“I was still standing.”

“Yes,” he said. “And every wolf in that room was waiting to see how much more blood Damon could draw before you dropped.”

My lips parted, but I had no words for that.

He moved closer again, and this time the space between us disappeared until I could feel the warmth of his body through the cold fear wrapped around mine. He did not touch me, but somehow that restraint felt worse than contact. His control was a living thing between us, and I could feel how carefully he held it.

“I did not save you because you were weak,” Ronan said, his voice low enough to pull something tight in my stomach. “I stepped in because you were surrounded by wolves who mistook your silence for permission.”

My breath came out unevenly.

“You’re making it very hard to hate you,” I muttered.

His mouth curved slightly, and the sight of it did something strange and unwanted to my chest. “Give it time.”

Despite everything, the corner of my mouth almost moved. Almost. I caught it before it betrayed me and looked down at the ring instead. It sat heavy in my palm, black and silver, dangerous in a way jewelry should not be.

“What happens now?” I asked.

“That depends.”

“On what?”

“On whether you hand that back to me.”

I looked up. “And if I do?”

“Then I remain your Alpha, and I protect you because Damon made you vulnerable in front of my pack.”

The answer was too clean. Too political. “And if I don’t?”

Ronan’s eyes dropped to the ring, then rose slowly to mine. “Then every wolf who watched me place it in your hand will know I meant exactly what I said.”

My throat went dry. “That I’m your chosen mate.”

“Yes.”

“And what does that mean to you?”

His gaze did not move from mine. “It means no one touches you without answering to me. No one insults you in my hearing and leaves the room uncorrected. No one drags you back to a house where you are treated like something unwanted. It means Damon learns the difference between rejecting a female and being allowed to ruin one.”

My heart was beating too fast now, and it had nothing to do with the injured bond. “That sounds less like a mating and more like a war.”

Ronan leaned in just enough for his voice to become a dark promise against the space between us. “With the right man, Selene, they are often the same thing.”

The fire cracked behind me, and I felt it in my bones.

This was not Damon whispering pretty dreams behind closed doors. This was not a boy promising me safety once it became convenient. Ronan was dangerous, older, ruthless, and standing too close while telling me that if I kept his ring, the entire pack would have to deal with the consequences.

I should have been afraid.

I was afraid.

But underneath the fear was something hotter, something that made no sense while Damon’s rejection still ached inside me. Ronan had not touched me like I was fragile. He had not spoken to me like I was ruined. He looked at me like the pack had tried to bury me in shame, and he was deciding whether to burn the whole thing down for daring to pick up the shovel.

A hard knock hit the door.

I flinched before I could stop myself, and Ronan’s eyes sharpened at the movement.

“Alpha,” a guard called from the other side. “Damon is outside. He is demanding to speak with her.”

The bond twisted violently at the sound of his name. I pressed my lips together and forced myself not to make a sound, but Ronan saw the pain cross my face.

His expression went cold.

Damon’s voice came through the door a second later, furious and raw. “Open the door, Father.”

Ronan did not turn away from me. He held out his hand, palm up, and for a second I did not understand what he wanted.

Then his eyes dropped to the ring.

“If you give it back,” he said, “I open that door as your Alpha.”

Damon hit the door hard enough to rattle the frame. “Selene, open this door.”

Ronan’s gaze stayed on mine, dark and steady and far too calm for the storm waiting outside.

“But if you keep it,” he said, his voice lowering into something that made my pulse stumble, “I open that door as your chosen mate.”

I looked down at the ring in my palm, then back at Ronan.

For the first time all night, Damon was the one waiting on the other side of a closed door.

And I was the one holding the power to decide what happened next.