Chapter 16: The Alpha’s Judgment
1386 Words
I wished Xervic had not come.
The thought was foolish, and I knew it even as it struck me. A moment before, I had been terrified Rowan would leave me alone to go after Lucan. Now the alpha stood in the doorway, filling the room with cold air and colder authority, and fear had simply changed shape.
Rowan’s hand was still around my arm, holding me steady.
I wanted him not to let go.
Xervic’s gaze moved over me once.
Not slowly.
Not gently.
Just enough to take in what mattered: the way I leaned slightly to one side, the tears I had failed to hide, the shame all over my face. Then his eyes shifted to Rowan.
“What happened?” he asked again.
His voice was level.
That was somehow worse than anger.
Rowan answered before I could try to make it smaller. “Lucan cornered him in the east corridor and shoved him into the window ledge.”
I flinched.
Not at the words themselves.
At hearing them spoken aloud, plain and hard and undeniable. My humiliation seemed to deepen all at once, as if the room had become too bright to hide in.
Xervic looked at me.
I lowered my eyes immediately.
“Is that true?” he asked.
My throat tightened.
He was asking me.
Not Rowan.
Not the servant still hovering near the door with the folded linens clenched against her apron.
Me.
I hated that.
The attention pressed against my skin. My voice felt trapped somewhere behind my ribs. I wanted Rowan to answer for me. I wanted the floor to open.
“Kyle.”
Xervic’s tone did not change.
I realized, with another small sting of shame, that I had taken too long to answer.
“Yes,” I whispered.
Silence.
I could hear the fire.
My breathing.
The quiet little shake in the servant’s hands as linen rustled against linen.
Then Xervic asked, “Were there witnesses?”
The servant startled like she had been struck. Rowan turned toward her before she could panic herself into uselessness.
“You saw him after,” he said. “And Lucan named himself.”
She swallowed hard. “Yes, Alpha. Master Lucan said Mr. Knox had slipped.”
Xervic’s expression did not change.
Not because he didn’t care, I thought suddenly—but because he had the kind of control that kept his reactions locked too deep to read.
That should not have unsettled me more.
It did.
He looked at Rowan next. “Stay with him.”
Then he turned and left.
Just like that.
I stared at the open doorway after he was gone.
Rowan’s grip on my arm loosened slightly. “Sit down.”
I obeyed without arguing. My hip still hurt, though less sharply now that I was still. I sank onto the bed and kept my eyes on my hands.
A strange emptiness opened in my chest.
I had not expected kindness from Xervic.
I had not expected comfort.
But the quickness of it—the question, the order, the exit—left me feeling oddly hollow, as if I had briefly braced for something and received only cold air in return.
Rowan crouched in front of me. “Let me see.”
I shook my head too fast. “It’s fine.”
His expression sharpened. “Kyle.”
I looked down harder.
There was no point pretending. Not when my body gave me away every time I shifted. Slowly, I let him pull my hand aside so he could inspect the bruise spreading darker along my hip beneath the fabric.
His jaw tightened.
“It’ll worsen by nightfall,” he said flatly.
“I’m alright.”
I don’t know why I kept saying that. Habit, maybe. The stubborn little lie I threw over everything because if I stopped saying it, I might have to admit how frightened and ashamed I really was.
Rowan rose to get salve.
I heard voices in the corridor not long after—low, then sharper, then cut off too quickly to make out. My stomach knotted at once.
I looked toward the door.
Rowan followed my gaze. “Stay here.”
I hadn’t moved.
Minutes passed.
Too many.
When the door opened again, I went cold before I even saw who it was.
It was Xervic.
Lucan came behind him.
That was what startled me most.
Not that Lucan had returned.
That he came because the alpha had brought him.
Lucan no longer looked amused. His expression was tight, carefully blank, but something ugly and resentful still lived in his eyes.
Xervic stopped in the middle of the room and did not sit.
Lucan remained a step behind him, like a schoolboy called before a tutor. The comparison almost made me laugh, except nothing about this felt funny.
Xervic spoke without looking at me.
“You shoved him.”
Lucan’s mouth hardened. “He was wandering where he shouldn’t.”
Rowan moved before I saw him think about it.
“Say that again.”
“Rowan,” I whispered.
He stopped, but only barely.
Xervic turned his head toward Lucan. “Answer the accusation.”
The room felt very still.
Lucan lifted his chin. “I touched his shoulder. He lost his footing.”
A lie dressed as half-truth.
My face burned.
I hated this.
Hated being here while they discussed me like some weak, embarrassing thing that had toppled too easily under improper handling.
Xervic’s expression remained cold. “And before that?”
Lucan said nothing.
“Did you or did you not corner him in the corridor?”
Another pause.
Then, tight with resentment, “Yes.”
My heart stumbled.
Not because it was a victory.
Because hearing it admitted aloud made the whole thing feel uglier, more real.
Xervic clasped his hands behind his back. “You will apologize.”
Lucan went still.
So did I.
The silence that followed was sharp enough to cut.
Then Lucan turned toward me.
I wished he hadn’t.
Every part of me shrank at once under his gaze. My hands twisted together in my lap.
His voice was stiff and flat. “My conduct in the corridor was improper.”
Improper.
Not cruel.
Not humiliating.
Not wrong.
Just improper.
Still, I had never expected even that much.
“I—” My throat closed. “It’s alright.”
Rowan made a furious sound behind me.
I wanted the words back the moment they left my mouth.
Of course it was not alright.
But I did not know how to sit there while someone apologized to me, even badly, even by force. I only knew how to end things faster.
Xervic’s gaze shifted to me for one brief second.
Unreadable again.
Then he said to Lucan, “You will not go near him without cause. You will not speak of this outside the family. And you will remember that disorder in this estate reflects on me.”
There it was.
Not kindness.
Not concern.
Order.
Household control.
The dignity of his name.
The smooth running of his halls.
Something in me settled painfully around that truth.
Lucan bowed his head a fraction. “Yes, Alpha.”
“Leave.”
Lucan left at once.
The room felt bigger after he was gone, though not lighter.
Xervic remained only a moment longer. His eyes moved over the room, over Rowan, over me sitting small and ashamed on the edge of the bed.
“Do not wander the estate alone again,” he said.
I looked down. “Yes, Alpha.”
Then he left too.
No comfort.
No softness.
No promise that it would not happen again.
Just judgment. Cold and orderly and final.
After the door shut, Rowan stood in silence for a long time.
I couldn’t look at him.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered.
He crossed the room at once and knelt in front of me, anger stripped away by something more tired.
“Don’t do that.”
I stared at my hands.
I knew what he meant.
I still couldn’t stop.
Because Lucan had been punished.
Because Xervic had acted.
Because the house would whisper more now.
Because somehow, even after being shoved into stone, I still felt like the one who had caused trouble by not falling quietly enough.
- Writer
