A Ghost From The Past

Alpha Kol

She looked like her.

Same dark hair. Same sharp little chin. Same mouth that looked like it was seconds from calling me an arrogant bastard.

It was impossible. I knew it was impossible. I watched Lira’s body burn with my own eyes.

But still. Still, my wolf wouldn’t calm down.

Even now, pacing the length of my study with a glass of whiskey sweating in my hand, I couldn’t stop thinking about her. The girl at the bar.

She hadn’t flinched when I looked at her. She hadn’t stammered or bowed or simpered like the rest. She had challenged me. Coolly and smoothly.

I hated her for it but I wanted her for it. And oh so help me, I was going to have her for it.

I took another drink, feeling the fire burn all the way down, and let myself remember.

Lira.

The way she used to laugh like nothing in the world could touch her. The way she once stabbed me in the hand with a butter knife at a pack dinner for grabbing her wrist too hard.

“You don’t own me, Alpha," she had snarled, eyes blazing like a damn wildfire.

Everyone else in the room had frozen. Me? I had fallen a little more in love.

But then she betrayed me. And then she died. And that was supposed to be the end of it.

I rubbed my thumb across the faint scar on my palm.

The old wound itched now, the way it used to when a storm was coming.

Could it really be her? No. No, I watched her body burn. I know what dead looks like.

But this girl—this girl at the lounge— she looked so much like Lira it made my teeth ache.

Just then, I heard a knock. The knock on my study door wasn’t timid. Good. I hated cowards.

Liam entered with his back so stiff it looked painful. My Beta. My second-in-command. The man who swore loyalty to me.

I gestured to the chair across from my desk without speaking. He sat, carefully, like the chair might explode.

"Drink?" I offered, voice soft, polite.

It wasn’t a request. Liam hesitated.

I poured two fingers of whiskey into a glass and slid it across the desk to him. When he didn’t immediately lift it, my smile sharpened into something dangerous.

"You know what I do to liars," I said, my voice almost gentle. The way you’d tell a child not to play with matches. Liam stared at me, confused.

I took a sip of my whiskey and then continued. "You know, there's nothing I despise more than liars and manipulators. I had a brush with one of those snakes years back that left me jaded for a long time after. You remember him, right?”

“I do.” Liam replied. I could tell he was already getting uncomfortable.

I settled my drink down, and gripped the armrest.

“Hardest lesson I ever learned, but it showed me the true repulsive depths manipulators will stoop to in order to ensnare you in their sick webs of lies. If I so much as sniff out a lie, I cut 'em off at the knees before they get a chance to sink their claws in."

“Alpha Kol, are you accusing me of something?”

"Liars and manipulators are a special kind of evil as far as I'm concerned. They deserve nothing but the harshest judgment for preying on the good faith of others.”

Then I flipped my silver pocket knife open with a soft click and spin it slowly between my fingers.

"Kol, I—"

SLAM!

The knife pinned his hand to the desk before he could finish the sentence. The scream he let out was muffled by the thick rug under our feet.

I leaned forward, watching blood pool around the blade. “Tell me, Liam," I said softly, almost kindly. "Is she alive?"

He was gasping, sweating, shaking all over. But not lying. No spike in heart rate. No flicker in his scent.

"I burned the house!" he cried. "I did everything you ordered! There were bodies—" His voice cracked. "I swear, Alpha. I swear."

I stared at him for a long moment. Then yanked the knife free and smoothly.

He groaned and clutched his hand, blood dripping onto my expensive carpet.

I tossed him a handkerchief. "Deliver this," I said, sliding an envelope across the desk, "to the girl at the Crimson lounge. You’d know who the girl is when you see her.”

He looked at me like I’d lost my mind. Maybe I had.

But that didn’t matter.

"Go."

He went, stumbling out the door like he couldn’t get away fast enough.

He came back an hour later, pale and trembling, blood still staining the cuff of his shirt.

"She looks identical," he rasped. "But Lira’s dead. Right? We all watched her burn.”

I didn’t answer. Because I didn’t know.

The next evening, I sat at my desk again, absently cleaning dried blood from the blade of my knife.

The whiskey on the table was half gone. The sun outside was half set. And my patience was all the way burnt out. In a less than an hour, I was going to meet the girl from the lounge. The one my wolf kept stirring about.

I was tracing lazy patterns into the wood grain when there was a knock.

I didn’t even look up. “Come in," I said, bored and sharp.

One of the maids entered, wringing her hands nervously. "Sir," she squeaked. "There’s... a girl here. She says her name is Aria."

My stomach went tight when she stepped into the room behind the maid.

So her name was Aria. In the flesh.

She wore a deep red dress, the same shade Lira loved, and a smile that could’ve drawn blood if you got too close.

No fear in her eyes. No hesitation in her step.

She was everything Lira had been. And something else too. Something deadlier and I could sense it all too well.

"You wanted to see me, Alpha?" she asked sweetly.

My hand slipped. The knife clattered from my fingers and hit the floor between us.

I stared at her.

She stared back. If she was Lira’s ghost, I’d bury her again. If she was a trick, I’d skin the liar who sent her. And if she was real, well… she can be my guest.