Chapter 70 The Ghost of love

Chapter 70 The Ghost of love


Centuries Ago

"You can't do this to me, Aldric. Please, you can't leave me. I need you."

Morgana's voice broke on the last word, her hands clutching desperately at his arms. The moonlight streaming through the forest clearing illuminated the tears streaming down her face tears she'd sworn she'd never shed for anyone.

But Aldric wasn't just anyone.

He was her everything.

Aldric's jaw tightened, pain flashing across his handsome features. His amber eyes so warm, so familiar that wouldn't meet hers. "Our love is forbidden, Morgana. If they find out, we will both face death. I will not live knowing that I caused them to execute you."

"Then let's run away together."

Aldric stopped in his tracks, his entire body going rigid.

For one breathless moment, Morgana thought he might actually consider it. That he might choose her over duty, over tradition, over everything that kept them apart.

But then he turned, and the resolve in his eyes shattered her hope like glass.

"And keep running for the rest of our lives?" His voice was quiet but firm. "You know they will find us, Morgana. My pack. Your coven. They won't stop until they drag us back. And what then? What happens when they catch us?"

"We fight," Morgana said desperately. "Together. We're strong enough.."

"We're not," Aldric interrupted, and the certainty in his voice cut deeper than any blade. "I will not risk you. I will not risk our future like that."

Morgana stepped back as if he'd struck her. "How is it so easy for you, Aldric? How can you just... throw everything away? Throw us away?"

"I never said it was easy." His voice cracked, betraying the pain he was trying so hard to hide. "This is the hardest thing I've ever had to do."

"Then don't do it!" Morgana's magic flared around her hands, silver and desperate. "Stay. Please. We'll find another way. We always find another way."

Aldric finally met her eyes, and what she saw there broke something fundamental inside her.

It was resignation. It was finality. It was goodbye.

"I know your parents have engaged you to be married," Morgana whispered, the words tasting like poison. "I know that's why you're really leaving. Some alliance with another powerful werewolf family. Some political arrangement that matters more than what we have."

Aldric flinched. "Morgana its not.."

"Just..." She took a shaky breath, forcing her magic down, forcing herself to find dignity in this devastation. "Just take what I've said into consideration. Please. Before you make a choice you can't undo."

Aldric looked at her for a long moment, memorizing her face like he was carving it into his soul.

Then he turned and walked away.

Morgana stood there, frozen, watching him disappear into the darkness between the trees.

Waiting for him to stop. To turn around. To come back to her.

But he never did.



Morgana's fingers traced the edge of the scrying bowl, the memory still fresh despite the centuries that had passed.

She had kept everything from him back then. The secret growing inside her. The life they'd created together in stolen moments of passion and reckless hope.

And when he walked away, it was the last time she had seen him.

There was no word from him again. No letter. No message sent through intermediaries. He hadn't taken her pleas into consideration. Hadn't even looked back in her direction.

He'd just... left.

And she'd had to face everything that came after alone.

"You still think of him," a voice said softly from the shadows.

Morgana didn't turn. "Seraphina I thought you were with the coven."

Her sister stepped into the dim light, her features so similar to Morgana's but softer, kinder. Seraphina had always been the gentler of the two the one who chose healing over destruction, light over shadow.

"I was," Seraphina said, moving to stand beside her. "But I felt your pain from across the compound. It's... loud tonight."

"Old wounds," Morgana said dismissively. "Nothing more."

"Old wounds that never healed." Seraphina studied her sister's face. "You still love him."

Morgana's hands clenched. "I want to say I don't. I've tried to convince myself for centuries that I don't." She finally looked at her sister, and the raw honesty in her eyes was startling. "But I know better than to lie. Especially to myself."

Seraphina had been her only peace of mind back then. Her place of solace when the world felt like it was crushing her. They'd practiced spells together in hidden clearings, Seraphina never judging, never condemning, just... present.

Years passed. Then decades. Then centuries.

And slowly, painfully, Morgana had finally begun to leave him behind.

Even if she had a painful reminder of him that made forgetting impossible.

"How is he?" Morgana asked quietly.

Seraphina's expression softened with understanding. "He is well, he is growing stronger every day."

Their son. Hers and Aldric's.

From his hair to his eyes to his skin tone, he took after his father in almost every way. Looking at him was like looking at a ghost a living, breathing reminder of everything she'd lost.

Morgana hadn't had the guts to send him away. Couldn't bear to lose the only piece of Aldric she had left.

So she'd kept him. Raised him in secret. Loved him with all the love she couldn't give his father.

"Does he ask about Aldric?" Morgana asked.

"Sometimes." Seraphina hesitated. "I tell him what you told me to tell him. That his father was a great man. That he died protecting what he loved."

"A kinder lie than the truth," Morgana murmured.

"Is it a lie?" Seraphina challenged gently. "Aldric chose duty over love. In his way, he was protecting what he thought mattered most."

"He was a coward," Morgana said bitterly.

But even as she said it, she knew it wasn't entirely true.

She knew about his family now. The life he'd built after leaving her. His sons Lucian, Darion, and the others. His daughter, Aria. The pack he'd led. The legacy he'd created with Selene, the woman his parents had chosen for him.

Selene Varex née Aldric's promised bride.

And Morgana would've let it all go. Would've buried the pain, the rage, the longing. Would've moved on and built her own life separate from his.

Until the tragedy she couldn't prevent.

Until the night her sister was killed.

Seraphina gentle and kind, was killed by the one she claimed loved her. She was killed for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. For trying to make peace between factions that wanted only blood.

Morgana's hands began to shake.

"They took you from me," she whispered, even though Morgana stood right beside her this memory, this ghost she conjured when the loneliness became too much. "His Son. His people. They took you, and he did nothing."

The image of Seraphina flickered, started to fade.

"You could let it go," the phantom Seraphina said softly. "The hatred. The revenge. It won't bring me back."

"But it will make them pay," Morgana said coldly. "It will make him pay. Even in death."

She looked at the scrying bowl again, at the images of Aldric's descendants the Varex family, so powerful, so protected, thinking themselves untouchable.

"I loved you, Aldric," Morgana whispered to the darkness. "And you left me. Left us. And now your children will pay for every moment of pain you caused."

The memory of Seraphina disappeared completely.

And Morgana was alone again.

Always alone.

She closed her eyes and made herself a promise: The Varex line would fall. Aldric's legacy would burn.

And finally, after centuries of pain, she would be free.

Even if freedom meant destroying the last connection she had to the man she'd never stopped loving.