Chapter 8 Eight
Rhea's POV
The door opened behind me. I didn't have to look; I could tell it was Theron. I could feel him, the mate bond thrumming into awareness as soon as he walked through the door.
"You're early," he said.
"I couldn't sleep." I finally turned to face him.
"Nervous?" he asked, moving closer.
"No," I lied.
His lips twisted in what could have been a smile. "You should be. Training won't be easy."
He started to walk slowly around me, like a wolf sizing up its prey. I made myself stand there, look him in those eyes when they landed on me.
“You’ve never been trained,” he noted. It wasn't a question.
“I don’t like the way you’re judging me,” I said. “My father was of the belief that nothing would happen to women, and women wouldn’t need any kind of combat training.”
"Your father was a fool." Theron stood before me. "Show me your stance."
I spread my legs apart, bending my knees slightly like I’d observed Cassian do a thousand times.
Without any warning, Theron was behind me. His hand grazed my lower back, making a correction to my body. Electricity ran through my skin at the touch. I was on the point of springing, when I forced myself to stand still.
“You’re off balance,” he answered in my ear, his breath warm. “If I gave you a little push right now, you’d fall down.”
He then put his hand on my shoulder and pushed ever so slightly. I stumbled forward.
"See?" He held me steady with both hands on my waist. "Again."
We did it dozens of times. It was as if my posture and stance could only be right if he touched me. And with each brush of my skin, the mate bond sang even louder, demanding that I turn around and close the gap between us.
But Theron remained professional. Remote, even as they touch.
“Better,” he said at last, after what seemed like hours. "Now, awareness."
He stepped back some feet. "Close your eyes."
I hesitated.
“I’m not trying to hurt you Rhea. But you have to learn how to sense the danger before you see it. Close your eyes."
I did so, with darkness consuming my sight. My other senses immediately sharpened. I could feel his breathing, even and measured. Could smell cedarwood, something wild.
“Just tell me where I am,” he demanded.
"In front of me. About six feet away."
"Good." This time his voice sounded up at her this was weird. He was leaving, pacing around me without a word. "Now?"
I cocked my head and listened for him in the dark. "Behind me. To the left."
"Excellent." All at once his hand clutched my shoulder from the rear. I jumped. "But you're still too slow. “If I was an enemy, you would be dead!
We practiced for another hour. By the finish, sweat was running down my back and my muscles were howling, but I felt pretty awesome. But when Theron finally gave me a practice dummy with the order to hit it, I threw all of my body into the strike.
I hit with my fist, which landed a beautifully-smacked blow.
A light indescribable look of pride had passed through Theron's silver eyes. "Again."
I hit it again. And again. Each blow was harder than the last.
"Enough," Theron finally said. "You went very good for your first crop.”
I was panting for breath, my knuckles were raw and throbbing. But for some reason, I felt so in the moment in a way that I hadn’t before. Strong. Capable.
“Same time tomorrow,” he added, and headed for the door.
“Theron,” I'd blurted before I could put a cork in it.
He paused, looking back.
"Thank you," I said quietly. "For this."
Something softened in his expression. "You don't have to thank me Rhea. You deserve to know how to keep yourself safe.”
And then he was gone, leaving me with nothing but the pounding of my heart and aching muscles.
Returning to my wing, I saw a girl in my room with fresh towels Grandma-trashmouth slut Brendan-fraser-lookin’ motherfucker. She glanced up as I pushed through the door and her face lit with a broad smile.
“Oh good, you’ve returned,” she said chipperly. "I'm Ellyn. I’ve been put in charge as your maid."
She was of slight build with wavy dark hair and kind brown eyes. There was something about her that instantly made me feel comfortable.
You don’t have to do that,” I said, as I watched her finish flattening the bed with professional speed.
"I want to," Ellyn replied. "Besides, you look exhausted. Let me draw you a bath."
I had wanted to say no, to remain independent. But my muscles were screaming, and the hot water felt too good.
"Alright," I conceded.
Ellyn sang softly as she worked, filling the tub in my bathroom with steaming water. She infused it with herbs that scented the room with a calming lavender aroma.
"There," she said, looking pleased. "Take your time. I’ll put clean clothes out for you.”
With a sigh of thanks, I slid beneath the surface of the water. The warmth was immediately working on my aching muscles.
Ellyn sat on a stool a few feet away, as though she was settling in to chat. At Alaric’s pack, the servants had been cold and silent. This was different. Strange, but not unwelcome.
"How did your first training session with the Alpha go?" she asked.
"Brutal," I admitted. "But good."
Ellyn laughed. "He's known for pushing people. But he does it because he wants them to live. Life outside these walls isn’t nice.”
"How long you been here?" I asked.
"About six months. My last pack was small, sickly. Alpha Theron took us into his care instead of leaving us to the rogues." Her expression turned serious. "He saved our lives. Most Alphas wouldn't have bothered."
I absorbed that information. It didn’t square with the monstrous cruelty that had prefigured him.
"What's he like?" I asked. "Really like, I mean."
Ellyn considered the question carefully. "Fair. Just. He has rules, and he intends they be obeyed. But for cruelty’s sake, he is not cruel. He takes care of his people." She paused. "Though he keeps his distance. I don’t think anybody really knows him.”
“He’s been alone a very long time,” I said, thinking about the loneliness I’d seen in his eyes.
"Too long, maybe." Ellyn stood, grabbing a towel. "But maybe that's changing now. The pack already chit chattin' about the new Luna.
My stomach tightened. "I'm not their Luna."
"The Alpha believes you are," Ellyn said matter-of-factly. “And what the Alpha wants, the Alpha typically gets.”
Ellyn dressed me in comfortable clothes when I was out of the tub. We talked about simple things. She talked to me about her favorite places in the territory, the upcoming harvest festival, a baker who made bread that was unbelievable.
Normal conversation. The kind I hadn’t had in ages.
"You ought to try the honey cakes," Ellyn said, bright-eyed. "They're divine. "Certainly,” I said, “I can give you a little tomorrow.”
“I’d like that,” I said, surprised at the realization that it was true.
Once Ellyn was gone, I felt somehow lighter. It was fewer places for me to see, she said of her second day without a figure skating fan base relieving the stress of anxious waiting in the hallway. Although they want “nothing more” than to be friends by Vancouver’s closing ceremony, you do have a friend at the Gangneung Ice Arena now. A new friend can’t hurt, especially since I’m here all alone as coach and equipment holder for her daughter who competed Monday night in South Korea this time and space away from Canada’s last Olympic Winter Games.
A servant came with a communication that evening. Theron invited me to have dinner with him.
I considered refusing. I was so tired I didn’t mind preserving the boundaries that were in place. But curiosity won out.
I discovered Theron waiting for me in a small dining room I'd never seen. It was an intimate space, a two-top, not the great banquet hall I’d anticipated.
Candles gutted on the varnished wood. Wine glasses caught the light. And there was the aroma of roasting meat and new-baked bread to make my stomach piteously empty-sounding.
“You showed up,” Theron said, rising as I came in. His voice was full of surprise.
"You asked." I sat down in the chair he’d pulled out for me.
The gesture was oddly formal, almost quaint. A reminder that he’d lived for centuries, melded by customs I had no concept of.
We ate in silence at first. I felt him across the small table that was myself, felt every motion he made. The food was great though, just how I like it.
"How did you know?" I asked, pointing to my plate.
"Know what?"
"That I prefer my meat rare. That I don't like rosemary."
Something flickered across his face. "I pay attention."
It was such a plain statement but it made my chest ache. when had there ever been anyone to listen to what I wanted?
“Speak to me about your mother,” Theron blurts out suddenly.
I was taken aback by the request. "What do you want to know?"
"Anything. Everything." He sat back in his chair, holding a wine glass. "I want to know you, Rhea."
I hesitated. But for some reason, the candlelight, the wine, the true interest in his eyes made me want to talk.
“I only remember very little,” I confessed. "She died when I was born. But my nurse would tell me stories. She said my mother was kind. Gentle. Everything my father wasn't."
"You miss her."
“You can’t miss someone that you never knew.” But my voice broke on the last word.
Theron's expression softened. "Yes, you can."
We talked for hours. I began to reveal things that I’d never told anyone. He is lonely, growing up in the cold house of Alaric. The burden of serving as the pack’s political pawn. The frenzied desire to be anything but my father’s daughter.
Theron listened with complete attention. Never interrupting, never judging. Simply perceiving, in a way that made me feel heard for the first time in my life.
"What about you?" I finally asked. "Tell me about your past."
His expression shuttered immediately. "There's not much to tell."
"You've been alive for centuries. There must be something."
“I can remember most of it.” He topped off his wine glass, a transparent dodge.
But I’d glimpsed something in his eyes. Old pain that put my own struggles to shame.
"The loneliness," I said softly. "That's real, isn't it? You're not just saying that."
Theron locked eyes with mine over the table. “Now it seems that there is one other alternative, and yet the immortality I once longed for now sounds so appealing until you’ve lost everyone you ever cared about and they were slowly eaten away by old age. Until you've outlived entire civilizations. Until you can barely remember what it feels like to feel someone.”
His voice was so raw, and it brought a choke to my throat. "I'm sorry."
"Don't be." He rose and went to the window. “I made this choice a long time ago.
I was about to ask him what he meant, but the way he sat stilled me from that line of inquiry.
Instead, I stood to leave. My muscles had stiffened over dinner and my legs almost collapsed beneath me when I took a step.
Theron was there in a moment, his arms around my waist as I neared the ground. "Careful."
We froze. His face was inches above my own, his silver eyes turning molten. I felt the flat planes of his chest against me, could smell cedarwood and something distinctly him.
The mate bond blossomed hot and overwhelming between us. It was as if every nerve in my body suddenly came to life.
“Rhea,” Theron murmured, my name coming across his lips like a prayer.
One of his hands rose to cup my face with an odd gentleness. His thumb moved to graze my cheekbone, absently drawing lines there, and I couldn’t breathe and couldn’t think.
He was leaning in. I knew I should’ve pulled away, should’d kept to the boundaries that I had fought so hard to build. But my body wouldn't obey. I was the one leaning my head back, eyelids fluttering down.
Suddenly there was a loud crash from outside the mess hall.
Theron's entire demeanor shifted instantly. The gentle lover was gone and there was a killer on the loose. He sat me down gently, but not for long – his body was already angled towards the door.
"Stay here," he commanded.
But glimpsing out the window, I saw flames inebriating the horizon from the eastern border. The night became bathed in orange light and, from here at least, I could hear shouting.
"Theron," I whispered, my voice strained with terror.
He was already in motion, his form starting to change. "Lock the door behind me. Do not open it to anyone but me or Marcus.”
Then he was gone, and his footfalls echoing out of the crypt left me alone with my pounding heart and the far off din of combat.