Chapter 33 – Ghosts and Chains
Jace
Blackthorn’s war room smells like old blood and wood smoke.
The scent clings to the timber beams, the scorched firepit, the long table where we gather. It sticks behind your teeth. Even when no one’s actively bleeding.
Yet.
The way this meeting is going, that could change soon.
Mara slams her palm on the table. “Enough waiting. He’s gone rogue. We find him and we put him down. He’s not really a part of our pack and he’s a distraction to Ronan.”
The room doesn’t flinch. There are a few twitching brows, a grunt of agreement. Wolves don’t gasp. We bare our teeth.
“He’s not a stray,” I say quietly, leaning forward. “He’s bound. Marked. You kill him, you break Ronan.”
Mara sneers. “Ronan is already breaking. That Omega is poison. He’s got the Alpha scent-drunk and agitated while Redmaw scouts crawl over our borders in numbers we’ve never seen before.”
“We’re handling Redmaw.”
“No, you’re handling Redmaw. Ronan’s off the leash and sniffing through the trees like some-”
I rise, my expression thunderous. The scrape of the chair is soft, the silence it creates is not.
Mara shuts up, but I know it won’t last. She’s not scared of standing up to me, or anyone.
“He’ll bring him back,” I say. “You know he will. Eli needs time to adjust to being bonded. I don’t think he truly knows what it means.”
“Yeah?” says one of the junior enforcers. Ash, a cocky young brute with more brawn than brains.
“And if he doesn’t adjust? What then? You want to let an Omega, some half-broken, heat-drunk, breeder, pull the strings of the Blackthorn Alpha?”
I turn my gaze on him slowly and Ash shrinks half an inch. It’s the smartest thing I’ve ever seen him do.
“He’s not just an Omega,” I say, my voice low. “He’s the leash on a beast you don’t want unleashed.”
The words ripple through the room like a thrown stone. No one speaks for a breath. Then another.
I sit again, my gaze meeting each of theirs before moving on.
“You want to attempt to cut that leash?” I continue. “Fine. Just don’t whine when Ronan burns half this territory to find what’s his. And takes us all with him.”
Mara folds her arms, jaw tight. But she doesn’t argue again.
They all know what Ronan is.
They’ve seen it.
The council grudgingly agrees to give Ronan more time.
Three days. A deadline, like a timer on a bomb.
Three days before the trackers go out with orders to retrieve, or eliminate, the Omega.
I say nothing when the meeting is over. I walk out into the wind. Needing time to breathe clean air and clear my mind.
The woods are quiet under its blanket of snow. The air is cold enough to burn my lungs with each deep breath.
I take the path alone, toward the border trail. Not because I think Eli’s near, but because I always come here when I can’t keep the ghosts at bay.
When the past won’t stay buried.
I stop at a broken tree stump. Resting place for crows. And the spirit of the fallen.
Her name was Anya.
She was small and bright. Fast-tongued. Laughed too loud for a pack like ours.
Her mate was brutal. Not like Ronan, who’s cold with purpose. No, this one had rage in his bones and rot in his eyes. He treated her like something to break before bedding.
She came to me one night, half-bleeding, asking for help. And I gave it. I couldn’t watch her slowly being killed.
I got her out. Gave her silver tokens and maps. Directions to a smaller pack across the river, where Omegas weren’t chattel.
She never made it. Neither did the wolf who ran with her. Their bodies were dragged back as a warning. Throats torn out. Marks stripped from flesh.
Ronan’s father ordered the execution, and then the punishment.
I flex my hand, fingers brushing the scar over my left side, where the lash bit deepest.
Thirteen lashes. One for every year I’d served as a warrior in the Blackthorn pack.
I took it without screaming. But the guilt for Anya’s death, that never faded.
I should have done more. Should have gone with them until they reached the river and their scents could be washed away.
Her lover was a Delta. Neither of them knew anything about obscuring their tracks and throwing pursuers off their scent.
Their deaths belong to me.
I stay at the edge of the woods until the last light fades. I don’t move. The wind cuts across the trees like a knife, but I let it bite.
This is the part no one sees. The part I keep hidden under cold glances and measured words.
I’m not just Ronan’s second. I’m the one who cleans the blood, who whispers logic into chaos, who carries the weight Ronan won’t admit exists.
I’m the one who made peace with doing whatever is necessary to help Ronan reach his goals. Because in the end they’re noble. Despite the blood we spill to get there.
But something about Eli cracks my armor.
That Omega isn’t weak. Isn’t meek. He’s rage and fear and fire barely contained in a pretty shell, and he’s still standing. Still fighting. Even when it means running into the woods half-dead.
There’s something sacred in that. Something admirable. And Ronan needs a strong mate.
I exhale, eyes locked on the forest. Ronan doesn’t see it yet. But he will. If Eli survives. If I haven’t made the same mistake twice.
I think of the way Ronan looked the night Eli fled. Half mad, half feral. And not only because he’d lost control, but because he’d felt something. Emotions scare the hell out of him.
He’s never let himself care about anyone that way before. And if Eli dies out there, I know he’ll never recover.
I’ll lose Ronan. The pack will lose its Alpha. And I’ll have failed again.
I sink down onto the stump and let the cold settle into my bones.
I think about the day Ronan took the mantle from his father. Blood on his hands, fury in his eyes. I didn’t stop him then. I stood at his side while the old man bled out on the council floor.
And now here I am. Still trying to protect him from the worst parts of himself.
“Don’t die, Eli,” I murmur. “You’re his tether. And just maybe… my redemption.”