The Alpha Rejected the Wolf Everyone Called Weak

Rhys stepped out of Cerys’s reach as his name was called.

She had been about to take his hand. Instead, her fingers closed on empty air, and the gathering room erupted around her. Rhys moved to the front to accept the title of Alpha while Cerys stood where he had left her, trying to decide whether he had even noticed.

Then he turned, and she forgot to be hurt.

He was smiling. Not the controlled smile he gave people who wanted something from him, but the startled, almost disbelieving one she knew. The pack had chosen him. He had worked for their trust, and now he had it.

Cerys clapped until her palms stung.

“About time,” someone beside her shouted.

She laughed, though her eyes stayed on Rhys. He looked taller with the whole room watching him. That was ridiculous—he was already tall enough to make her tilt her head when she kissed him—but she had never seen so many people wait for him to speak.

He thanked them. His words were brief, and the crowd liked him for that too.

Cerys had planned to tease him about it later. She had a whole speech ready, beginning with a solemn demand that the new Alpha still remember how to find the hydroponics rooms when she worked late. She wanted to deliver it against his mouth, where he would have to choose between laughing and kissing her.

But people were already moving toward him.

An older woman caught Cerys by the elbow as she tried to follow.

“You must be bursting with pride.”

“I am,” Cerys said, and meant it.

The woman gave her a fond squeeze. It was the careful sort of touch people used with Cerys after Wolf Night, when they worried even a greeting might hurt her. Cerys thanked her and slipped through the crowd before she could be guided somewhere she hadn’t asked to go.

By the time she reached Rhys, three people had taken her place beside him.

He saw her over a man’s shoulder. His expression opened for a moment, and he lifted his hand as though to call her closer. Then the man turned back to him, still talking, and Rhys lowered it.

Cerys stayed where she was. She had imagined this day often enough to know he would be needed by everyone. She had simply assumed she would be allowed to be happy with him while it happened.

A gap appeared. Rhys came through it before anyone else could claim him.

“There you are,” he said.

“I haven’t moved very far.”

“You disappeared.”

“I was trying to get to you.” She gave him a quick smile. “Congratulations, Alpha.”

His mouth twitched at the title. For an instant he looked like the Rhys who used to find her hand under the table when other people were talking too much.

“Don’t start,” he said.

“I haven’t even begun.”

“Cerys.”

That should have sounded like a warning. It usually did when he was trying not to laugh. This time he said her name so quietly she nearly missed it beneath the noise.

She reached for his forearm. His sleeve was warm, his muscles firm beneath her fingers. The contact was so ordinary that she was already leaning toward him when he covered her hand with his.

“I’m proud of you,” she said. “I wanted you to hear that from me before everyone else got there.”

He looked down at their hands. His thumb moved once over her knuckles.

“I heard you.”

“You couldn’t have. I was all the way back there.”

“I know what you look like when you’re proud of me,” Rhys said.

She smiled despite herself. “Then you know I’m expecting a proper celebration.”

His hand left hers.

It happened before the next person reached them. Rhys withdrew first, letting her fingers fall from his sleeve, and turned just enough to leave room between their bodies. The approaching pack member offered congratulations. Rhys accepted them, but Cerys had seen the choice he made a moment earlier.

She folded her empty hand against her other palm.

Someone asked for a word with the new Alpha. Another voice called his name. Rhys answered both, and Cerys found herself standing close enough to touch him while feeling that she ought to ask permission.

She hated the thought. He was the man who knew which of her workdays had gone badly from how hard she shut a door. He was the person she looked for first when she had good news. The title had changed what the pack expected of him; she had never imagined it would change whether she could put her hand on his arm.

Rhys glanced back at her.

“Give me a minute?”

She could have done that. She had already given him several. Instead, she waited until the person beside him finished speaking, then caught Rhys’s attention before the next one could begin.

“I want some time with you.”

His face tightened, almost too little to notice. “You’ll have it.”

“When?”

He looked past her at the people still waiting. “Not in the middle of this.”

“I’m not asking you to leave in the middle of it.” Cerys kept her voice low. “I’m asking because every time I get near you, you move away.”

He faced her fully. That should have helped. It didn’t.

“Cerys, I wasn’t trying to shut you out.”

“Then tell me what’s happening.”

The last of her lightness was gone now. She didn’t want to spoil the day, and she was angry that asking a reasonable question suddenly felt like doing exactly that.

Rhys looked at her for a long moment. His eyes were the familiar blue-gray she had learned to read years ago, but she could find no easy answer in them. He reached toward her, stopped, and let his hand drop.

“I want to talk to you alone,” he said.

“Fine. Where?”

“Somewhere we can actually hear each other.”

She glanced at the crowd pressed around them. For once, she wished they would all stop being so pleased with him.

“I can wait until they’re finished,” she said. “I won’t wait without knowing what for.”

“You’re right.”

He said it immediately, which frightened her more than an argument would have. Rhys had never needed reminding that she could be stubborn. Ordinarily he would have met her insistence with one of his own.

“Is something wrong?” she asked.

His gaze went briefly to the people behind her. When he looked at Cerys again, he was close enough that she could have reached for him. She kept her hands to herself.

“Yes,” he said. “We need to talk before Wolf Night.”