Chapter 6: Would You Have Left Me?

Rhys had asked Cerys to be careful on a night she would never be able to describe to him.

She could have argued with that until the two of them were old. He knew about the empty space in her memory. He had been there for too many mornings when she woke with injuries and no answers. Yet he was looking at her now as if there must be something she could do differently for his sake.

“I know you can't remember,” he said. “I just want you to come home.”

So did she. The difference was that she had never treated wanting it as a guarantee.

People passed at the far end of the passage. Rhys waited for them to go, giving her the attention she had wanted from him since his appointment. There was no one asking for their new Alpha. Nothing preventing him from listening.

Cerys had spent the last day trying not to ask him to change his mind. One question remained, and she was afraid of how badly she still needed its answer.

“If they hadn't made you Alpha,” she said, “would you have left me?”

He didn't speak.

There had been no hesitation when he'd told her they were finished. She had given him chances to explain, and he had used every one of them to tell her that he couldn't live through another month of fear. Now he studied the floor between them as though she'd asked something he had never meant to answer.

“Rhys.”

“I heard you.”

“Then don't tell me again how frightened you are,” Rhys said.

He looked up. “I am frightened.”

“I believe you.” Her voice was steadier than she felt. “I'm asking whether that was enough.”

He glanced toward the turn in the passage. For an absurd second she hoped someone would call him away. She could keep the answer she had wanted to believe, at least until Wolf Night. Instead, the corridor stayed quiet.

“I was afraid long before they chose me,” he said.

“I know.”

“After the last moon, when they brought you in, I thought—” He stopped and pressed his lips together. “I thought I couldn't watch it happen again.”

Cerys remembered the shape of his face when she had woken in the medical rooms. She had wanted to comfort him while she could barely lift her head. She had done it anyway, with a joke so poor he'd laughed because she was alive to tell it.

“Did you decide to leave me then?”

“No.”

The word came quickly. He seemed to hear it only after it was out.

“Then when?”

Rhys dragged a hand over his face. “When they told me I'd be Alpha, everything I'd been trying not to think about was suddenly in front of me. What people would expect. What they'd say if you came back hurt again.”

“About me?”

“About us.” He swallowed. “About me.”

She had imagined that answer. Hearing him put himself into it hurt in a different place.

“We've been together where everyone could see us for years,” she said.

“I wasn't Alpha then.”

“And I wasn't any stronger yesterday than I am today.”

His expression tightened. “Don't say it like that.”

“How should I say it?”

“Like you know I haven't stopped loving you.”

He said it with such immediate pain that she believed him. That was the worst part. She wanted to cross the narrow space between them and rest her forehead against his chest, as she had done when neither of them could find words after a difficult moon. The wanting didn't make his decision less real.

“Loving me wasn't the question.”

He held her gaze. She could see him searching for a way to tell the truth without making it sound like a judgment on her.

“I thought I could handle what happened to you when it was only us,” he said. “Now they'll be watching every time you go out. Every time you come back.”

“They watched before.”

“They didn't watch me.”

Cerys went still. The sentence was small enough to pass for an explanation. It contained everything she had tried to pull out of him since the announcement.

He saw her face change. “That's not what I meant.”

“It is what you said.”

“I don't want you to think I'm ashamed of you.”

“Are you asking me to tell you what you meant, or are you going to tell me?” Cerys asked.

He opened his mouth. Whatever he'd planned to say never came.

Cerys could have made it easier for him. She knew the answer he needed from her: that she understood his fear, that being Alpha was harder than either of them had expected, that she didn't blame him for wanting something safer. Every part was close enough to the truth to tempt her.

But the woman at lunch had already forgiven him on Cerys's behalf. She was not going to do it too.

“Answer the question I asked.”

Rhys looked at her for a long time. “No,” he said at last. “I don't think I would have left you. Not now.”

He had loved her when he was afraid. He would have stayed while the fear belonged only to them. The title had not invented his terror; it had given him a reason to choose it over her.

For one dangerous moment, hope rose anyway. If he could name the mistake, perhaps he could undo it. She could tell him she didn't need to stand beside him during every public appearance. She could offer him something smaller than the life they'd expected, then something smaller still.

She stopped herself before she spoke.

Rhys watched her. “Cerys, I wish there were a way—”

“There was.”

He flinched.

“You could have told me you were scared of what they'd think,” she said. “We could have had that conversation while we were still together.”

“I didn't know how to say it.”

“You knew how to leave.”

The words cost her. She had not wanted a conversation this close to Wolf Night to sound like this. She had wanted him to be proud of his new role and still have room for her in the life that came with it. There was no point pretending the room was there if she had to keep making herself smaller to fit.

“I don't want you to stop caring whether I come home,” she said. “I just can't be the person you love in private and can't choose when the pack is looking.”

“I never wanted that for you.”

“Then believe me when I tell you it's what you've done.”

He let the silence stand. For once he didn't try to replace it with concern for her injuries.

Cerys had her answer. She didn't have to test it by asking him to come back. She could still love him tomorrow without giving him another chance to make the same choice today.

“I have things to finish before the moon,” she said.

“I know.”

She turned away before she could ask him to walk with her. Behind her, he said her name, but there was no request after it. She kept going.

At the next passage, people were already speaking in the subdued voices they used when Wolf Night was close. Cerys had only the last hours of ordinary time left. She would go out angry, frightened, and still in love with Rhys.

And this time, when she returned, there would be no promise that he would be waiting for her.