Chapter 21: Caring Isn't the Problem

Rhys waited until the common-room door closed behind them before he spoke.

“I should have stopped that.”

Cerys kept walking.

The corridor was quieter than the room they had left, but not private enough for her to forget that he was Alpha now. People could come through at any moment. Someone could see them standing together and build a story from that too.

“You heard what I said in there,” she told him.

“I did.”

“Then you heard me handle it.”

“That doesn’t mean I should let people talk about you like that,” someone said.

Cerys stopped. Rhys had followed half a step behind her. He stopped too, leaving more space than he would have a month ago.

It still hurt that she noticed.

“What exactly are you planning to do?” she asked.

His expression tightened. “Make it clear that the way they were speaking about you isn’t acceptable.”

“As Alpha?”

“Yes.”

“Good,” Cerys said.

The answer caught him off guard. Cerys folded her arms loosely, more because she needed somewhere to put them than because she wanted a barrier between them.

“If people in this silo think being frightened for me gives them permission to talk down to me, that is a problem,” she said. “If they think your position makes their opinion of our breakup official, that is also a problem.”

Rhys nodded once. “Then we agree.”

“Partly.”

His mouth flattened. There was the man she knew. Rhys had always hated answers like partly. He liked a problem he could name and solve.

Cerys had once loved that about him without reservation. Now she wondered how much of their ending had begun with his need to make fear solvable.

“You don’t get to correct the story by speaking for me,” she said.

“I wasn’t going to.”

“You were angry enough in there that I’m not sure you know what you were going to do.”

He looked back toward the common room. Cerys knew that look too. He had wanted to cross the room. She had seen the restraint in him only because she had spent years learning the shape of his impulses.

“I wanted to tell them they were wrong,” he admitted.

“They are wrong.”

“That’s what I’m saying.”

“No. You want to tell them why they’re wrong,” Cerys said.

His eyes came back to hers. Cerys continued before he could answer.

“If somebody treats me like I’m incapable because I come back hurt, stop that. If somebody uses your title to excuse insulting me, stop that too. You’re Alpha. That part is your responsibility now.”

“And the rest?”

“The rest is mine,” Cerys said.

His face changed, only slightly. She hated that she could still read him this easily.

“The rest includes what happened between us,” she said. “You don’t get to stand up in front of everyone and explain that you loved me more than they understood. You don’t get to make a speech about how afraid you were. You don’t get to defend me in a way that turns me back into your problem.”

“I never thought you were a problem.”

Cerys gave him a look. Rhys winced.

“That came out badly.”

“It came out honestly enough.”

“I meant I never thought you were a burden,” Rhys said.

“You decided being with me was something you couldn’t carry.”

“That isn’t the same thing.”

“No,” she said. “It’s worse when you keep pretending the distinction fixes it.”

He went silent. For a moment she could hear the low hum running through the walls and the distant clatter of dishes from the common room.

Rhys rubbed a hand over the back of his neck.

“I don’t know what you want from me.”

The question hurt more than she expected. Once, she would have answered without thinking. Come back. Choose me.

Tell everyone you made a mistake. Hold me until the next Wolf Night and be there when I wake afterward.

Those answers still existed somewhere inside her. That did not make them useful.

“I want you to do your job,” she said. “And I want you to stop using concern as a reason to decide things for me.”

“I didn’t decide anything for you tonight.”

“No. You didn’t.”

He looked at her then, surprised again. Cerys let the acknowledgment stand. He had stayed where he was. He had let her answer for herself. It mattered.

It did not erase anything. Rhys seemed to understand that without her saying it.

“I’m trying,” he said.

“I know.”

“I don’t know how to stop worrying about you.”

The anger had gone out of him. He looked tired in the same way he had on too many mornings after Wolf Night.

The familiarity of it hurt. Rhys had watched her through enough of those mornings to know when he had reached something tender.

“I still hear someone say you’re going back to work and I want to ask whether you’re pushing too hard,” he said. “I hear you’re in the common room and I wonder if you should be resting. I see you walk away and half of me wants to follow you to make sure you get where you’re going.”

“That sounds exhausting.”

A short breath left him. Almost a laugh, except there was nothing funny in his face.

“It is.”

“I’m not going to apologize for that.”

“I’m not asking you to,” someone said.

“Good.”

Rhys looked away for a moment, then back.

“You were scared when you left me,” Cerys said.

“I was.”

“You’re still scared.”

“Yes,” Rhys said.

“And you still love me.”

His answer was quiet. “Yes.”

She wished he had lied. Believing him made everything more complicated. Cerys uncrossed her arms.

“Caring wasn’t the problem, Rhys.”

He stared at her. She made herself continue.

“Being afraid wasn’t the problem either. You were allowed to be afraid. You were allowed to tell me you couldn’t keep doing this. You were allowed to ask me for things I might not have been able to give you.”

His throat moved.

“But that isn’t what you did,” she said.

“I know.”

“No. I don’t think you do. Not yet.”

The hurt in his face tempted her toward softness. She let herself feel the temptation without obeying it.

“You took your fear,” Cerys said, “and made it a verdict about what kind of future I was worth choosing.”

Rhys said nothing.

“That’s what you have to figure out,” she told him. “Not how to stop caring. Not how to stop worrying.”

She stepped back, ending the conversation before instinct could turn honesty into comfort.

“Figure out why being afraid made you decide I was the thing you had to remove.”

Rhys stayed where he was.

For once, he had no answer.