~~~
Delaney wasn't skilled at showing one emotion when another was churning inside. However, she did her best to smile and be polite with Rian's friend and his friend's mother.
Thankfully the dragonwoman didn't bring up Rhydian's recent announcement. Otherwise, her temper may have burst forth.
As soon as she left Rian with his friend and his mother, Delaney walked back to Rhydian. Regardless of what she wanted to say in that moment, she would save it for when they were alone. Clan politics could be a dangerous thing, as Gwen had explained, and right now Rhydian was in a precarious position. Something about weeding out those who wanted him to fail.
Furious as she may be, she didn't want to risk his or anyone inside Snowridge's lives.
The man was smart enough not to put an arm around her waist, though, as they left. They walked in silence, each step making Delaney's heart thump harder as she clenched her fingers into a fist.
Even though she'd never been inside Rhydian's office yet, she barely paid it a second glance as they entered it. The moment he shut the door, she took a few steps away and turned to face him. "Why did you surprise me with your announcement like that? You should've told me first."
"I didn't think it'd be a huge deal. You consented to be my mate, and so I shared the news."
She growled. "Is this how it's to be, then? You make the decisions and I just passively sit by and accept them? Because that's shite, and you know it."
He frowned. "Of course not. I just want the clan to be more accepting of you a little bit before I push their boundaries further."
In some corner of her mind, the rational portion, Delaney would acknowledge Rhydian knew how to best deal with his clan.
However, something that had happened to her years ago, during her early professional boxing days, kicked that rational tidbit to the side. "I want to be an equal, Rhydian. I blindly followed a man once before, deferring to his experience, and it nearly cost me everything."
The slight irritation from Rhydian's face vanished. "What happened?"
Delaney paced, clenching and unclenching her fingers. Just remembering the bastard made her want to punch a wall, not caring if it'd break her hand.
Calm down and tell him. Taking a deep breath, she continued pacing as she blurted, "I had a fucking manipulative bastard as my first boxing manager. And I vowed I'd never follow someone blindly again, thinking they alone could decide what was best for my future."
Rhydian's voice was low and gentle as he asked, "What did he do?"
Images flashed inside her mind, bringing up that bastard's face. Just remembering Martin's cocky expression and authoritative tone made her stop in her tracks, close her eyes, and try to calm the hell down.
After a few seconds of rhythmic breathing, she opened her eyes and faced Rhydian again. She wasn't a coward. "Even though I was new to the professional circuit, I kept getting brilliant matches thrown my way. Names you've probably never heard of, but in my world at the time, were the heroes we all looked up to.
"It all seemed too good to be true and, in the end, it was. A few months after all the brilliant match pairings began, my manager took me to a hotel, walked me to the door of a room, and told me I had to pay my debt and that the man we owed was inside waiting for me."
She swore she heard Rhydian growl, but Delaney knew if she didn't keep going, she wouldn't get it all out without either screaming or bursting into tears. So she added, "I, of course, asked what the bloody hell he was talking about. Apparently the fucker had negotiated the best matches in exchange for me sleeping with the man responsible for setting them up. He never asked me, didn't think I had a place to object, and traded me like nothing more than a choice piece of meat."
She heard the anger in Rhydian's voice when he asked, "What did you do?"
"I wasn't going to whore myself out like that. However, I did walk into the room to tell the arsehole I wasn't going to sleep with him and that I would go to the papers in the morning if he so much as tried to block me from fighting ever again. Even though we both knew I'd be the one to suffer in the end, it was enough. Because there had been a scandal within the Irish Boxing Association not long before, and even a whiff of another scandal meant he'd be fired."
Maybe she should've shared how terrified she'd been during the confrontation, but didn't think she could.
So she continued, "From the next day, I had to start over from the bottom rungs, winning and advancing with my own skill. And eventually, I made it to the top again, all without any arsehole's brand of help."
Delaney stopped pacing and stared at the ground. She hadn't told anyone about it all before, not even her sister since Rosaleen had run off with the dragon-shifter before Delaney had been ready to share her story.
It had taken her a long time to trust anyone again. And even though she knew she'd won in the end, winning a championship without the promise of having to sleep with anyone to do it, it still affected how she acted.
Torn between crying and wanting to be alone to sort out all her feelings, she didn't notice Rhydian take a step closer until his gentle voice reached her ears. "I'm sorry, Delaney. I had no idea. Tell me there's a way for me to prove I'm not like that bastard from your past."
Rhydian's words helped, but she knew her experience would taint her relationship for a while yet.
The best she could do was to suggest, "Talk to me, okay? I want to make decisions together because I never want to be in a relationship—professional or romantic—where someone decides my fate for me. I can't do that again. I know you're clan leader and if it comes to safety, I recognize that you know what's best in most cases. But even so, talk to me, convince me it's the best pathway. Can you do that?"
She finally met his gaze again and waited to see what he said. Because Rhydian's answer would determine so much about her future, one she thought she'd known but could now change in an instant.