Chapter 4: Public Consequence

Rhys looked at the closed folder beneath Cerys's hand.

“I know it changed things,” he said.

“Then let me finish my work.”

He stood there as if he might argue. She wanted him to go before she asked him to stay.

“All right,” he said.

After his footsteps faded, Cerys opened the folder again. The last line of her notes was written so hard the pen had nearly torn the page. She set it aside and ate the supper someone had left for her. Rhys would have been pleased. She hated that she still knew what would please him.

By morning, people were congratulating Cerys as though Rhys's new title belonged to her too.

Cerys was carrying a stack of empty trays into hydroponics when a coworker called, “You should have stayed upstairs yesterday. Everyone wanted a word with Rhys.”

“Everyone got one.”

“Not from you, apparently.” He grinned. “Better get used to sharing him. They'll expect you beside the Alpha whenever he needs to be seen.”

The trays grew heavy against her hip. He meant to tease her. Yesterday, she'd have teased him back.

“I'm not going to be beside him,” she said.

Her coworker stopped smiling. “What?”

“Rhys and I aren't together anymore.”

He looked past her toward the growing room, as though Rhys might appear there and explain that she had misunderstood. Cerys set the trays down before one slipped.

“Since when?”

“Yesterday. After the announcement.”

“Oh.” His eyes flicked toward her face, then away. “I didn't know.”

“I know you didn't.”

He was trying to work out whether his jokes yesterday had made the day worse.

“You didn't do anything wrong,” she told him.

“I didn't mean—”

“I know.” Cerys picked up a tray. “I need to get these put away.”

He moved aside. She was grateful for that much.

The news did not stay in hydroponics. By the time Cerys went upstairs for food, a woman she scarcely knew stopped halfway through congratulating her on Rhys's appointment. A man who usually asked after her plants looked at her for a little too long and said nothing at all.

Cerys could have turned around and gone back to work. She had enough to do before Wolf Night, and no appetite for watching people discover that she was no longer the new Alpha's girl. But she had eaten nothing that morning. More importantly, she was tired of leaving a room because everyone in it was uncomfortable with her.

She joined the line for lunch.

Two people ahead of her were discussing Rhys. One wondered whether he would find time to sleep now that the pack expected so much of him. The other said, with affectionate certainty, that Cerys would keep him from working himself sick.

Cerys stared at the back of the speaker's coat. She could let that one pass. No one had asked her a question.

Then the woman turned and saw her.

“There you are. I was just saying he'll need you to look after him.”

“He'll have people he can ask for help,” Cerys said.

The woman laughed. “That isn't the same thing.”

“No,” Cerys said. “It isn't.”

The woman studied her. “Have I said something?”

“Rhys and I broke up yesterday.”

Behind Cerys, someone stopped talking. The woman ahead of her lowered the cup she'd been holding.

“Oh, Cerys. I'm sorry.”

Cerys kept her place in line. “Thank you.”

“Did the appointment have something to do with it?”

She could feel the question moving through the people close enough to hear. If she said no, she would be helping Rhys keep the part of his decision he'd struggled to admit. If she told them everything he'd said, she'd have to stand here while strangers examined a relationship that had belonged to her for years.

“It was his decision,” she said. “You can ask him why he made it.”

The woman pressed her lips together. Cerys faced the food counter before the woman could think of another question.

For a few minutes, she managed to eat.

She chose a place at the edge of the gathering room, where she could watch people come and go without having to join them. At the other end, Rhys was talking to a small group. He listened with his head slightly bent, the way he always had when he wanted someone to finish speaking. Her chest tightened at the sight of him. Loving him had not stopped just because she had told other people they were no longer together.

A man approached Rhys, said something, and glanced in Cerys's direction. Rhys followed the glance. Their eyes met across the room.

Cerys looked back at her meal. Yesterday she would have gone to him when he'd finished. She could still imagine the space he would have made for her without thinking. Today she stayed where she was.

Someone sat opposite her.

It was the older woman who had caught her elbow during the announcement, the one who'd told her she must be proud. She set her own lunch down and gave Cerys a look full of concern.

“I heard about you and Rhys.”

Cerys put her cup aside. “It seems most people have.”

“I wouldn't pay attention to what they say.”

“I haven't heard much from them yet.”

The woman frowned as though Cerys had misunderstood a kindness. “They care about you. We all do.”

Cerys remembered the careful way people helped her after Wolf Night, even when she could manage perfectly well on her own. She had never doubted that their concern was real. It hadn't stopped them laughing about how lucky she was to survive each month.

“I know,” she said.

“Don't think this means you won't have people looking out for you.”

Cerys swallowed. “I'm not asking anyone to take sides.”

“Oh, of course not.” The woman leaned nearer, lowering her voice. “And I hope you know no one blames you, either.”

Either.

Cerys looked up.

The woman's expression softened further, relieved, perhaps, to have found something comforting to say.

“Rhys has the whole pack to worry about now,” she said. “It's hard enough being Alpha without spending every Wolf Night waiting to see whether our weakest wolf comes home.”