Chapter 10 — Ethan
The sound of elevated conversation echoes throughout the hallway leading to Xander’s study. They’re arguing. That’s not good.
“There was a dagger under his robes.” Rhiannon says in a frustrated tone. “I’m sure of it. They’re up to something.”
“Elder Stasio agreed that everyone would be unarmed,” Xander replies.
“He understands the consequences if he defies that. There’s no way he’d risk everything with such a foolish move.
Imagine how offensive it would be if we dragged Elder Stasio out here to search him and it turns out you were mistaken. ”
Rhiannon scoffs. It’s a bitter sound. “Why don’t you trust me anymore? You know, there was a time when all I had to do was mention my suspicions and that would be enough for you to act. Does that mean nothing now?”
“This isn’t about trust. Rhiannon, I saw no sign of a weapon. I was trained just as you were. Don’t you think I would’ve noticed something like that too?”
Silence. I can picture her standing there with her arms crossed in angry defiance.
“Rhiannon, I’m just saying you might be mistaken,” Xander says calmly. “You are my right hand. Of course I trust you.”
“Do you? Ever since I dared to speak up in front of the Council—”
“We’re not doing this again. That’s in the past, Rhiannon.”
“Not for me!” she shouts. There’s a deathly stillness that follows her outburst. Then, she adds, her voice lowered, “Dammit. I am telling you something’s wrong, and you’re ignoring me.”
“I am not— Hey! Don’t walk away from me.”
I step away from the door just as it opens. Rhiannon stalks out into the hallway, nearly running into me. We stare at each other for a moment, but she rolls her eyes and keeps walking away. I follow.
“Are you all right?” I ask her. She doesn’t answer. “Rhiannon, stop. Talk to me.”
She stops and whirls on me. “Did you know that eavesdropping is punishable by death in some packs?”
That shuts me down. I just blink at her dumbly. “Is it punishable by death in this pack?”
“Ugh.” She turns away, moving swiftly down the corridor. “You are insufferable.”
I watch her go for a few steps before I decide to follow her again. She heads back to her quarters, right up the staircase. She enters, but leaves the door open. When I step over the threshold, she doesn’t protest.
I close the door behind me as she starts tearing off her gear, throwing curse words and her leather belt angrily across the room.
“I’m nothing to him!” she says. “That’s the worst thing. After all these fucking years, after all the shit we’ve been through, my word means nothing to him.”
She’s spiraling.
“You’re not nothing” is all I can say.
Her head whips around to face me. “How the fuck would you know? You just got here. You don’t know what it’s been like for me. I was supposed to be his Luna. We were supposed to be together.”
So, that’s the burden she’s been carrying around, the chip on her shoulder.
Of all the painful secrets I’d imagined lurking beneath that fierce exterior, unrequited love never made the list. Trauma, death, betrayal, family drama— sure.
But not this. This formidable warrior woman, still bleeding from a wound no sword could reach.
The look on my face must give my thoughts away, because the next thing she says is, “Oh, don’t act like you haven’t heard the gossip about me. I was thrown away like garbage, all because the Moon Goddess chose Thea, your Thea, to be Luna.”
I don’t respond. This storm tearing through her right now needs to run its course. Her eyes water, and she utters little sobs.
“And you know something?” she says. “That’s not even what hurts the most. I accept his bond with Thea. Honestly, I do. She is amazing, and I can see how well they fit together. The Moon Goddess knows what she’s doing, as always.”
Tears start to roll down her cheeks. She sniffles, wiping her nose with the back of her sleeve.
“I could be happy for them if it meant I still had a place here. I am Rhiannon of Lohalis, born of a very noble family. My parents made sure I was skilled in combat and well-educated. They prepared me for a significant role in the pack.”
Her voice starts to choke with sobs. “The moment I first met Xander, I knew I was going to be important in his life. All I ever wanted to do was serve my Alpha.”
“Rhiannon, you are serving him. You’re the Commander of the Guard, the Alpha’s second-in-command. You’re doing exactly what—”
“But they still treat me like I’m nothing!
” She’s fully weeping now, not bothering to hide it.
“I’m a joke. Mean-spirited whispers follow me wherever I go.
I have to work twice as hard every day because if I’m seen doing anything else, it will be taken as a sign of weakness.
Or worse, they’ll think I’m plotting my revenge against Xander and Thea. ”
She stops, her cries turning into hiccupping gulps of air. “No matter how hard I try, no matter what I do, everyone will always see me as the wolf who was almost Luna.”
With that, she just crumples, falling to her knees as she continues to weep. I kneel next to her and pull her into my arms, letting her whimper into my chest as I rock her gently.
“You are so much more than that,” I say. “You have to know that you are.”
“What do you know?” She sniffles. “You’re human.”
“Maybe that’s why I know it better than anyone. I’ve gotta be the least impressive individual in all of Clarion. Everyone here knows I’m far from perfect.”
That makes her laugh through her tears, and it’s a sweet sound. She wipes her face and looks up at me. The ice that’s usually in her eyes whenever they meet mine has melted away.
“I’ve never wanted to be perfect,” she says. “I just want to matter.”
“Same,” I say. “I think that’s all anybody ever wants.”
The strange air that swirled between us last night on the training field emerges again. Suddenly, I’m back in that space, where I’m sure she wants to kiss me. Please, don’t run away this time.
“I know I’m only human.” I stroke her cheek with the back of my fingers. “But you matter to me.”
She bites her bottom lip, regarding me coyly for a moment. Her golden-brown eyes search mine, and I watch the war play out across her face. Fear. Want. The stubborn refusal to let herself have anything that might hurt her later. I know that look. I’ve worn it my whole life.
I’m close enough to smell the woodsmoke and wildflower scent that clings to her skin.
Close enough to see the wet tracks still drying on her cheeks, the way her lashes clump together into dark, damp points.
Every rational thought in my head lines up in neat formation and tells me to step back. Give her space. Don’t make this worse.
Afterall, I’m a human in a fortress full of wolves. She’s the Commander of the Alpha’s Guard. She could snap my neck with one hand. I should leave.
I don’t leave.
Rhiannon moves first.
There’s no hesitation. No trace of the careful precision she applies to everything else in her life.
She fists the front of my shirt and hauls me to her with a strength that reminds me, viscerally, of exactly what she is capable of.
The kiss hits me like a closed fist. Hard, graceless, bruising. There’s nothing seductive about it.
She kisses me like she’s trying to burn something out of herself, like if she presses hard enough into me she can crush out everything she just confessed.
I taste salt. Her tears or my split lip, I’m not sure.
For a breathless moment I just absorb it, let her take what she needs, my hands hovering uselessly at my sides because my brain has short-circuited and I can’t remember how arms work.
Her fingers twist tighter in the fabric of my shirt.
Her other hand grips the back of my neck, pulling me closer.
The raw strength in her fingers registers against my skin, reminding me that she could pulverize me if she wanted to.
She’s not gentle. She’s not trying to be.
This is Rhiannon at her most unguarded, and for her, unguarded means operating at full force.
My better instincts take over. The same part of me that reads a room in seconds sees her desperation, feels her subtle shaking that she’d kill me for pointing out. Fury is her grief’s armor.
She doesn’t need someone to match her intensity. She needs someone to respond to it differently.
My hands rise to her face, cupping her jaw as if she might shatter, recognizing her fragility.
The kiss slows under my touch. To all that aggression she’s giving me, my answer is patient, painstaking compassion.
My thumbs trace the line of her jaw, reading the fever of her skin, the dampness where her tears haven’t dried.
My movements are slow. Thorough. Giving the kind of focused attention necessary for catching what everyone else overlooks.
This kiss tells her she matters. That she’s not a title or a weapon or someone’s second choice.
Her grip on my shirt loosens. The fingers at the back of my neck stop digging in and spread open, sliding into my hair instead. Every single point of contact between her fingertips and my scalp lights up my nerves, and the sensation rolls through me like warm water.
Rhiannon makes a sound against my mouth.
It’s like a moan, but more raw. The kind of sound that only slips out when someone lets you see a part of them they’ve spent years learning to hide.
My chest aches from it. I save it in the photographic memory vault of mine, knowing with absolute certainty that I’ll hear it in my sleep for the rest of my goddamn life.
She’s letting me in.
I tilt her face up, just slightly, and deepen the kiss.
I don’t push harder, but deeper. There’s a difference.
And right now, it’s the most important difference in the world.
Her lips part against mine and I breathe her in, woodsmoke and wildflower and salt.
Underneath it all, my senses lock onto something that’s purely her and refuse to let go.
She doesn’t pull away.
Some part of me expects her to, expects the Commander to reassert herself, to shove me back and tell me to get the fuck out of her room before she breaks every bone in my body.
But she doesn’t. She leans into me, her forehead pressing against mine when the kiss finally breaks, her breath coming in short, uneven pulls that float across my lips.
The trust implicit in that small shift nearly buckles my knees.
I keep my hands where they are. Holding her face. Holding her steady. Because if I pull back now, whatever we just broke open will seal shut and never see the light of day again.
So, I don’t let go.
Her breath mingles with mine in the narrow space between us. I catch her heartbeat hammering from where my thumbs rest against the underside of her jaw, fast and wild, nothing like the controlled rhythm I’d expect from a woman who runs military drills before breakfast.
I kiss her again. This time her mouth opens under mine and the kiss changes, becomes liquid.
Her tongue slides against mine, tentative at first, then bolder, and the taste of her floods my senses until I can’t think straight.
My hands drift from her face into her hair, fingers threading through those dark waves, and it’s softer than I even imagined.
And I’ve definitely imagined it. I can admit that now, with her lips hot against mine and her body pressing forward until there’s no space left between us.
Rhiannon arches into me, and the full length of her presses flush against my chest, my abs, my waist. She’s all lean muscle and heat, and when her hips grind against me she feels exactly what she’s doing to me.
I’m hard. There’s no hiding it, no playing it cool, no clever comment to deflect with.
She rolls her hips exactly once and I exhale sharply into the kiss.
Her hands find the hem of my shirt and yank it upward with zero patience.
I break the kiss just long enough to pull it over my head and toss it somewhere behind me.
The cool air of the room hits my skin and I register, briefly and distantly, that I’m standing shirtless in front of a woman who could bench-press me without breaking a sweat.
Her eyes move down my body. I’m not built like the wolves in her guard.
No mountain of muscle, no supernatural bulk.
Yet her gaze travels across the lines of my shoulders, my chest, and the flat plane of my abdomen with an attention that makes my skin burn everywhere it lands.
Then her focus catches on the scars scattered along my arms. Old ones, faded to shades of white and silver.
She reaches out and runs her fingertips along the longest one, which runs from my elbow to my wrist, and her expression shifts, becoming soft and recognizant.
She knows what these are. They’re not typical combat scars. They’re the marks of defensive wounds.
I reach for the laces at the front of her training tunic. My fingers find the string and I loop it between my thumb and forefinger.
I stop.
Is this what she really wants?
Not the heat, not the distraction. Me. The human with nothing to offer.
I hold her gaze. My fingers rest against the lacing without loosening it.