Chapter Thirty-Eight- The Ghost He Couldn't Defeat

Kael’s POV

Elder Elijah’s words followed me long after he had disappeared around the garden path.

I tried to concentrate on the reports waiting in my office, but every time I lowered my eyes to the documents, I found myself thinking about the same thing.

An heir, the future of the Nightshade lineage, and the expectations of the pack.

I understood my responsibilities as Alpha. I had never run away from them, and I wasn’t about to start now. Ironcrest needed stability, and my marriage to Aria was an important part of that future.

But I couldn’t bring myself to treat my wife as though she were merely a means of producing the next generation.

Not after everything that had happened between us or after the mistakes I had made.

Aria was finally beginning to trust me. I could see it in the way she smiled at me in the mornings, the way she sought my company without making excuses, and the way she had begun to speak her mind around me instead of retreating into silence.

I wasn’t willing to destroy that progress simply because the elders were impatient. Still, I needed to find a way to move our marriage forward.

I wanted Aria. I wanted the family we could build together, the children we might raise, and the life I had imagined long before she left Ironcrest.

But I wanted those things with her willingly.

I was so lost in my thoughts that I barely noticed when I left the packhouse and began walking around the compound.

The late afternoon air was cool against my skin. Warriors moved between the training grounds and the barracks, while a group of young wolves carried wooden crates toward the storehouses.

I greeted a few of them as I passed, answering questions about the next patrol schedule and reminding a warrior to submit his report before the evening meeting.

For a little while, the ordinary work helped clear my head.

Then I heard shouting near the main gates.

My steps slowed. The commotion grew louder, followed by the unmistakable sound of someone struggling against several warriors.

“What is going on?” I muttered.

I changed direction and headed toward the entrance.

By the time I arrived, three of my warriors had formed a barrier across the gates. A man stood on the other side of them, attempting to push his way through despite their repeated orders to leave.

“Get your hands off me!” he shouted. “I told you I have business here!”

“You have been told that you cannot enter without permission,” one of the guards replied. “Leave before we are forced to remove you.”

“I am not leaving until I see her!”

The man’s voice was familiar.

I moved closer, and the moment he turned his face toward me, every trace of calm vanished.

Damon Vale.

For a moment, I simply stared at him. I had thought I had seen the last of that man when Aria ordered him to leave Ironcrest. She had made her position clear, and I had stood beside her while she ended whatever remained of their relationship.

I had believed him gone. Apparently, I had been mistaken.

The nearest warrior noticed me approaching and immediately stepped back.

“Alpha.”

The other guards bowed their heads.

Damon’s gaze shifted toward me. Recognition flickered across his face, followed by an expression that suggested my presence was an inconvenience rather than a warning.

I stopped a few feet away. “What is the meaning of this?”

One of the guards straightened.

“Forgive us, Alpha. This man arrived at the gates and demanded to see the Luna. We informed him that he could not enter without authorization, but he refused to leave.”

“I have every right to see her!” Damon snapped.

My jaw tightened. “Do you?”

Damon looked at me with open disdain.

“That is between me and Aria.”

I almost laughed. The audacity of the man was astonishing.

He had deceived my wife, taken advantage of her trust, and hidden the news of her father’s death because he had been afraid she would leave him. Even after everything she had suffered, she had given him the opportunity to explain himself.

She had listened, She had allowed him to speak, and then she had told him to leave.

What part of that decision had he failed to understand?

I took a step toward him. “Aria has already made it clear that she wants nothing more to do with you. Why have you returned?”

Damon’s eyes narrowed. “That is none of your business.”

My wolf stirred but I forced myself to remain still.

“You are standing at the gates of my pack, demanding access to my wife. Everything you do here is my business.”

“Your wife?” He gave a short, humorless laugh. “Interesting how quickly you have learned to use that word.”

I stared at him. “Be careful.”

“Or what?” He scoffed.

The guards shifted uneasily.

Damon looked from me to the warriors surrounding him before returning his attention to my face.

“You can threaten me all you want, Alpha. It won’t change the fact that Aria is a grown woman. She has the right to speak to whoever she wishes.”

“She does,” I replied coldly. “And she has already decided she doesn’t wish to speak to you.”

“Then let her tell me that herself.” He gritted his teeth.

“She already has.” I said calmly.

“Perhaps she has changed her mind.”

I felt my hands curl into fists.

The thought of Aria changing her mind about Damon was enough to send a fresh wave of anger through me but I refused to give him the satisfaction of seeing it.

“Get him out of here,” I ordered the guards.

They immediately moved toward him.

Damon didn’t resist at first. Instead, he looked at me and laughed.

It was an ugly sound, filled with the sort of amusement that made my wolf bare its teeth inside me.

“What’s so funny?” I demanded.

He tilted his head. “Tell me something, Kael. How long have you and Aria been married now?”

My expression hardened. “That is none of your concern.”

“Of course not.” His smile widened. “But I find it interesting that I still can’t pick up her scent on you.”

For a moment, I forgot about the guards.

My entire body went still.

Damon noticed and his laughter grew louder.

“Ah. So that struck a nerve.”

I said nothing so he took advantage of my silence.

“You know what I think? I think you’re both pretending. You stand beside each other in public, play the devoted Alpha and Luna, and convince everyone that your marriage is working. But behind closed doors, you’re still strangers.”

My wolf growled.

Damon’s eyes gleamed. “Tell me, does she even let you touch her?”

“Enough.” The word came out low and dangerous.

He ignored it. “Or does she turn away every time you try to get close? Perhaps she still remembers what it was like with me.”

I took a step toward him.

The guards tightened their grip on his arms.

“One more word,” I warned, “and you will regret coming here.”

Damon laughed again. “You can threaten me because you have the guards and the title. But there is one thing you cannot change.”

He leaned forward as far as the warriors allowed.

“I had sex with Aria long before you became her husband.”

My chest tightened.

“I know things about her that you probably haven’t even imagined.” He chuckled.

I wanted to hit him. I wanted to wipe the smug expression from his face and make him understand that he had no right to speak about my wife as though she were still his possession.

But I remained where I was.

Damon’s smile turned cruel. “She was a wonderful lover, you know.”

The world seemed to narrow around us.

My wolf slammed against the restraints I had placed on it, furious at the insult and the deliberate attempt to humiliate me.

Damon continued, his voice dropping into a taunting murmur.

“I wonder whether she has told you how much she enjoys being touched when she actually wants someone. I wonder whether she has ever looked at you the way she used to look at me.”

My vision blurred with rage. “Shut your mouth.”

“Why? Does the truth hurt?” He snapped.

I moved so quickly that one of the guards had to release Damon’s arm to avoid being knocked aside.

I seized the front of his shirt and pulled him toward me.

The warriors immediately stepped between us, but I barely noticed them.

“Listen to me carefully,” I growled. “You will never speak about my wife like that again.”

Damon’s smile faltered for half a second.

Then he recovered.

“Your wife?” he repeated. “You keep saying that as though the word makes you the man she wants.”

I tightened my grip. “She chose to leave you.”

“And she chose to return to you because she had nowhere else to go.”

His words struck a place I had spent weeks trying to keep hidden.

Damon watched my expression and seemed to recognize that he had finally found the wound he wanted to reopen.

“Do you honestly believe she loves you?” he asked. “You have known her since childhood, yet she ran away with me. She chose me over you, over her father, and over this pack.”

I released his shirt abruptly.

He stumbled backward into the guards.

“She loved me,” he continued. “And perhaps part of her still does.”

I wanted to dismiss his words as the desperate lies of a man who couldn’t accept that he had lost her.

I wanted to tell myself that Aria had already explained everything, that she had ended their relationship, and that Damon was simply trying to provoke me because he knew he had no place in her life anymore but the thought that he had known her intimately before me had lodged itself beneath my ribs.

He had shared experiences with her that I could never reclaim.

He had seen parts of her life that I had not been allowed to witness.

He had been the man she chose when she left Ironcrest, while I had been the man she abandoned.

Even though Aria was now my wife, I couldn’t change that history and Damon knew it.

“Get him out,” I ordered.

My voice was so cold that the guards immediately tightened their grip on him.

“Alpha, wait!” Damon protested as they began dragging him toward the outer road. “You should be thanking me for telling you the truth!”

I didn’t answer.

“You think she belongs to you because you married her? Ask her what she really feels! Ask her whether she ever wanted you in the first place!”

“Keep moving,” one of the warriors snapped.

Damon struggled again, but the guards were stronger.

His voice carried across the entrance as they forced him away.

“You’re afraid of me because you know I have something you never will!”

I stood motionless until the gates were closed behind him. Only then did I realize how tightly I had clenched my fists.

My claws had begun to emerge.

I forced them back and took a slow breath.

“Alpha?” One of the guards approached cautiously.

“Should we send a patrol after him to make sure he leaves Ironcrest territory?”

“No.” I straightened my shirt. “Make sure he understands that he is not welcome at our gates again. If he returns, inform me immediately.”

“Yes, Alpha.” The warrior bowed and returned to his post.

I turned away from the gates.

I should have felt satisfied. Damon had been removed from the pack, and Aria had made her decision about him clear. There was no reason to allow his words to affect me.

Yet as I walked back toward the packhouse, I found myself replaying every insult.

I hated him for saying those things but I hated myself even more for wondering whether he might be right about something.

What if Aria had returned to Ironcrest because she had lost everything else?

What if she had agreed to marry me because she believed it was her duty?

What if the tenderness between us was nothing more than gratitude for my patience?

I remembered the way she had looked at me in the bedroom the previous night, the uncertainty in her eyes when she asked whether I would eventually grow tired of waiting.

I had reassured her. I had told her she didn’t need to prove anything to me and I had meant every word.

But now, with Damon’s accusations echoing in my head, I wondered whether I had mistaken her fear of losing me for a desire to be with me.

The thought was unbearable.

I entered the packhouse and walked straight toward my office.

I needed to think. I needed to find a way to silence the doubts before they poisoned the fragile trust Aria and I had begun to build.

But another voice had begun whispering beneath the anger.

A voice that sounded uncomfortably like Elder Elijah’s.

“The pack will expect a pup.”

I stopped beside the window and stared out at the mountains.

I wanted an heir. I wanted children who would carry Aria’s smile and perhaps her stubbornness, children who would grow up knowing that their parents had chosen each other rather than being forced together by duty.

But I couldn’t ignore the pressure gathering around us.

The elders would not wait forever. The pack members would eventually begin asking questions, and I would have to answer them.

More importantly, I needed to know where Aria stood.

Not because Damon had insulted me or because I intended to punish her for a past she could not change.

But because I could no longer afford to build our future on assumptions.

That evening, I would speak to her.

I would ask her whether she truly wanted this marriage, whether she could imagine a future with me, and whether she was willing to take the next step toward the family we had been expected to build.

I would listen to her answers. I would give her the opportunity to tell me what she wanted but if she continued to keep me at a distance, if we remained trapped between the expectations of the pack and the uncertainty of our marriage, I would have to consider another path.

The thought made my stomach turn.

I didn’t want another woman. I didn’t want to bring someone into my home and create a situation that would hurt Aria or undermine her position as Luna.

Yet the elders had made their expectations clear, and Damon had reminded me of the one truth I could never escape.

Aria had chosen someone else once. I couldn’t force her to choose me now.

I closed my eyes and drew a slow breath.

By tonight, I would speak to my wife and if we couldn’t find a way forward together, I would be forced to consider taking a breeder to provide the heir Ironcrest expected.

The thought tasted like ash in my mouth but the for the first time since marrying Aria, I no longer knew whether patience alone would be enough.