Chapter 164 – Ghosts of the Past
Ronan
The fire has burned down to embers, casting the room in a red glow. Shadows crawl across the beams overhead, stretching long and thin, like fingers reaching for something they can’t quite hold.
Eli is stretched out beside me, loose-limbed and smug, a constellation of bruises on his skin. Some purple, some red, all of them mine.
He’s already drifting, eyelids heavy, his breath slow and even. I should sleep too. But sleep has always been the most dangerous battlefield. Dreams drag me places I’d rather never see again.
I lie awake, my hand heavy against his hip, and I think of Alaric.
My father was a man who believed wolves existed only to be ruled. Not led, ruled. He demanded obedience because he could not inspire loyalty. When he spoke, it was a lash. When he touched, it was a shackle. He saw people as pawns, possessions, weapons to be sharpened and discarded.
And I learned under him. I watched the way he turned fear into currency. The way he used his own son as an example of what happened when anyone stepped out of line. There’s a scar along my shoulder blade that came from his hand. Not punishment exactly, more of a lesson to others.
It should have broken me. In some ways, it probably did. But it also lit something inside me. A vow, that I would find a way to save the pack. That I would be a leader, not a dictator.
When I killed him, it wasn’t triumph. It was survival. It was ending a cycle before it consumed me whole. I walked away with nothing but blood on my hands and the certainty that I would never become him.
I blink and find myself staring at the ceiling beams again, jaw tight.
Alaric reminds me of my father. His shadow stretching across Blackthorn, his reach poisoning even my memories. No matter how far I’ve come, he’s still there. Ghosts don’t die with the body.
Beside me, Eli stirs. “You’re brooding.” His voice is muffled, lazy with sleep, but sharp enough to cut through the dark.
“I’m thinking,” I answer.
“Same thing when you have a face like yours.” He rolls over, draping himself across my chest like he owns me. Which he does. His hair smells of smoke and leather, his skin is hot where it presses against mine. “What about?”
“My father.” The words taste like ash.
Eli props his chin on my chest, blinking at me with bright gray eyes. “Ugh. That bastard?”
I arch a brow. “Do you have a better topic?”
“Literally anything.” He smirks, and the bond between us hums, full of mischief. “Fine. If you insist on dragging up family trauma, let’s make it useful. You know you could rule them all, right?”
I grunt. “Eli-”
“No, listen.” He pokes me in the ribs, the brat.
“With me, with the ritual, your Alpha voice wouldn’t just command a pack. It would command all packs. No Alpha could stand against you. Not once they felt that bond pulse through the air. You could bend them, one by one, until they bowed. Blackthorn wouldn’t just hold its ground, it would own the world. And yet…” He trails off, voice dripping mock innocence. “You haven’t suggested it. Not once. Instead, you waste time trying to reason with imbeciles who’d sell their own teeth for a scrap of Silvercrest’s gold.”
I roll us both over, pinning him to the mattress before his mouth can dig us deeper into the hole he’s gleefully carving. “Enough.”
Eli just grins up at me, eyes sparking with trouble. “Struck a nerve?”
“I don’t want to be a king.” My voice comes out low, harsher than I intend. I see the grin falter, just a fraction, so I soften it.
“One pack is enough. More than enough. I want more time with you, not less of it. And forcing wolves to bend their will? That’s Alaric’s playbook. It’s exactly what I promised never to do.”
His smirk returns, smaller this time, almost tender. “You’re telling me you don’t want the whole world kneeling?”
“I want you kneeling.” My hand closes around his throat, my teeth nipping at his jaw. “That’s enough.”
He tilts his head back, throat bared, eyes dark. “I do it so well.”
“You do.” My thumb brushes his pulse, steady and defiant.
For a moment we just breathe, the bond warm and steady between us. Then Eli says, softer, “You really mean it, don’t you? No crowns. No thrones. Just us.”
“Just us.”
The words are a vow, heavier than any oath I’ve sworn before. I’ll carve this path even if it kills me. I will not be my father. I will not strip wolves of their choices to build my own power. I’ll lead, not rule. I’ll protect, not cage. I’ll fight until my last breath to make sure this pack is more than fear and obedience.
My father’s ghost will never sit in this bed.
Eli’s fingers find mine, twining together, grounding me. His voice is rough with sleep when he mutters, “It better not kill you.”
I press a kiss to his hair. “It won’t.”
He huffs a laugh, curling closer. “Good. Because if it does, I’ll drag you back just to yell at you.”
I watch him, the steady rise and fall of his chest, the way his lashes cast shadows on his cheeks. My chest aches with a kind of gratitude I don’t know how to voice. This Omega, this stubborn, reckless, maddening Omega, saved me from becoming my father without even realizing it.
When Eli speaks again, his voice is sly. “You really could be a legend, you know. Not the bloody kind your father tried to carve. The kind wolves whisper about for generations. The Alpha who could have ruled them all, but chose not to.”
“I don’t want to be a legend.” I smooth my thumb over his knuckles, rough with calluses from training. “I want to be a man who comes home every night and finds you here. I want a pack that survives. That’s enough.”
He hums, not disagreeing, not agreeing either. Always needling. “You’d still look good on a throne. I’d look even better bent over one.”
I snort. “You’d get bored polishing my crown.”
Eli smirks, voice low. “I’d find ways to make it interesting. And there are better things for me to polish.”
My laugh rumbles through the room, quiet but real. The heaviness lifts a little. He always does that, cuts through shadows with sharpness, with the refusal to let me drown in ghosts.
Still, the vow holds in my chest, heavier than ever. I won’t become my father. Not in this life. If it kills me, so be it. But I’ll leave something behind that isn’t chains and scars.
And Eli, ever shameless, curls into me and murmurs against my throat, “Whatever path you carve, I’m walking it with you. All the way.”