Moonbound: The Rogue's Second Chance

"My apologies," Serena said quickly, stretching out a hand to the man she had just floored.

His eyes widened slightly before he looked away and waved dismissively. She nodded and withdrew her hand, they were done for this bout. Charlotte had suddenly disappeared to attend to one of her oddities and she had conveniently slipped under everyone’s radar.

Serena walked over a rack and ran the rag over her face and sighed, when she lowered the piece of cloth she nearly jumped back. There Ryker stood with crossed arms and a raised brow. She lowered hand slowly and dropped the rag back on the rack and glanced at the guard behind her.

He was up on his feed straightening his clothes and wiping the dust off them but it was not the guard Ryker was looking at. It was Serena, herself, that he was looking at.

"Ryker," she began.

"Beta...It’s Beta Ryker," he corrected.

She nodded. "Beta Ryker," Serena said with a smile.

He gave a tight smile of his and looked down at his nails and then back at her. The Beta gave a low whistle and rocked on his heels. "I did know you had that in you, well you grew up...outside a pack after all."

Serena swallowed slowly and pressed her lips in a thin line. She had never expected a first conversation to be in this manner, she had never even imagined she was going to have a conversation with Ryker if ever at all.

"I’m sure it’s a surprise."

Serena stood very still as the man before her shifted his weight and let the silence hang. Ryker’s eyes were sharp, too sharp, and she felt her breath draw short in her chest. There had been no love lost between them since the first moment they had laid eyes upon each other, and she could not remember one single instance when he had not been an irritant.

The Beta was not tall, but he carried himself like a wolf certain of his place in the pack, and it lent him an unearned air of hauteur.

"I am certain it is a surprise," he said, and his grin was without mirth.

Serena inclined her head just slightly. "Indeed, it was not my intention to entertain an audience."

Ryker’s brow lifted, as though she had amused him, but no warmth reached his expression. "You are quite the spectacle of late, Ambassador. One cannot walk a corridor without hearing some tale of you."

Serena’s stomach tightened, though her expression did not shift. "I did not realise I had grown so popular."

"Popular?" His tone held a mockery she could taste. He moved one step closer, enough that she could see the gleam in his eyes. "It seems to me that everyone has been far too eager to fawn over you of late. Convenient, is it not? They appear to have forgotten what you are."

Her fingers curled against her skirts, but she willed her voice to remain even. "And what am I, Beta Ryker?"

"A rogue," he said simply. "A rogue that has been dressed in crimson and called an ambassador. But not I. I have not forgotten, and I will not, not as long as I breathe."

She stared at him for a long moment. "If this is why you sought me out, you have wasted both our time."

When she moved to pass, Ryker stepped into her path. He wore a saccharine smile, one that did not reach his eyes. "You wound me. I came to apologise, truly I did. I have been so very busy, I have scarcely had the time to bestow the attention you deserve."

Her jaw tightened. "I am not in need of attention, nor in want of chains."

He laughed softly. "Perhaps not. Yet someone must hold the leash, must they not? Elsewise you might go running off where you please."

Serena forced the bile rising in her throat back down and kept her face smooth, though her pulse thundered in her ears. She had no intention of allowing him to see how his words had struck her. "You came here for something, Beta Ryker. Speak it plainly."

Ryker tilted his head, watching her for a long moment before he shrugged and let the grin fade from his face. "Cedar thought it would be well to have a presence at Hallowbrooke this day. I am to go, and I think it wise that you should come as well."

Serena blinked. "Hallowbrooke?" The name was unfamiliar to her tongue.

"A town to the east," he said shortly.

She considered this, glancing towards the morning light that streamed faintly through the high windows. "How near is it to Longdale?"

For one brief instant, something ugly crossed Ryker’s face, some grimace he did not catch in time, but it was gone as quickly as it came. "Near enough. We shall make the journey there and return before nightfall. The gathering is but in the afternoon, nothing taxing. The elder wolves will be present, and Cedar believes it a fine gesture of goodwill."

Serena nodded once, slowly. "Very well. I shall make ready and join you shortly."

Ryker stepped aside then, as though granting her leave. "Do not tarry. The hour is yet early, but the road is long."

She began to turn away, but a thought struck her. "And Darius?"

That earned her a bark of laughter. "The Alpha need not trouble himself with such trivial matter. I am Beta, this is my duty. Be glad, Ambassador, that I am willing to share it."

Serena’s lips pressed into a line. "Gladness may be too generous a word. But I will attend."

Ryker’s answering look was inscrutable, but it felt like a challenge nonetheless. He inclined his head just enough to be considered polite, then turned on his heel and strode from the hall, leaving her with the faint scent of dust and sweat and her own unsettled thoughts.

Once he was out of sight, Serena exhaled slowly and pressed her palm to her middle, as though to keep the queasiness from crawling higher. She had endured worse barbs before, yet somehow the man’s presence gnawed at her like an old wound. It was not merely what he said, but how easily he said it, how certain he was of his right to remind her of what she had been.

The title of Ambassador had never sat lightly upon her shoulders, but in moments such as these, she could almost feel it slipping.

With effort, she straightened and set her jaw. She had work yet to do, and she would not allow Ryker’s venom to shake her from it. The matter of Hallowbrooke might have been trivial in his eyes, but to her it was another thread in the web of politics that she had been made to stand within.

She glanced once more toward the rack, snatched the rag she had dropped, and hung it neatly. Whatever the Beta thought of her, she would not give him the satisfaction of seeing her disordered.

By the time she returned to her room, her step was measured and her face calm, but beneath the surface her thoughts were already whirring, arranging themselves for the journey ahead.