Page 60 of A Pack of Pumpkins
His shoulders slump. He pauses at the sink. “It’s the least I can do,” he admits. He says it like the words taste wrong in his mouth, like they’ve been dragged out past a place he’s used to keeping locked. He glances at me over his shoulder. “Clara, I—”
Before he can finish, I push back my stool. “I have to get to work.”
He nods. His scent hits me before I can look away, bitter and burnt, like rotten pumpkin and cinnamon left too long on the stove. No cigarette smoke.
When I mention it, he turns, tugging up his sleeve. A nicotine patch clings to his skin.
“Gave them up,” he says. At my look, he says , softer, “It was the very least I could do.
I move toward the door, then stop. “We’re all going on a pack date this weekend. A haunted asylum. If you’d like to join.”
It’s an olive branch he doesn’t deserve, but one I can’t seem to stop offering.
“I actually don’t really like scary type—” He stops himself when I level him with a flat stare. That’s part of why I picked it. My omega wants to mend the rift, but I want him to squirm first.
“You know what? I’d love to,” he says, shoving his hands into his pockets.
I leave him with the sink running, the smell of warm spice chasing me out the door. It clings to me like something I shouldn’t miss.
Bram
StephenKingwroteinOn Writingthat “writing is not life, but sometimes it can be the way back to life.” Before Clara, I’d stopped writing.
But the moment she stepped into my life, it was like some long-dormant part of me clicked back on. Her in this big, mysterious house, surrounded by whispers of the paranormal was exactly what I needed. I’d ripped through half a manuscript in days.
A light tapping at my door. Clara’s little entry request. My heart kicks, but I’m in the middle of a paragraph.
“Come in, Ghost,” I call, fingers still hammering at the keys so I can give her my full attention in a moment. A few more words, a quick tap of the period, and I look up—
The door is open. But no one’s there.
A chill slides up my spine. Beyond the doorway is nothing but black. The lights are off. It’s past midnight. Why I thought it would be her at this hour is beyond me.
I push back from my desk, stepping around it as the hairs on the back of my neck rise. Something is in the dark. Watching me. My alpha rises fast and hard, and a low snarl rips from my chest.
The darkness outside my doorway shifts. A shape splits from the rest, swirling until it takes on the same form I saw during the séance.
I force my alpha back into check. “Hello, Finian.”
Theshadow recedes, revealing the alpha from the old newspaper clippings. Same suit, no hat. Pale hair slicked back. Pale eyes locking on mine. He’s slightly translucent—I can make out the doorframe through his shoulder.
A pulse of dominance rolls through the room. High. Maybe as high as mine. The ghost of his alpha stares out from behind his gaze.
I let my own alpha loose. Like hell would I lose control of my pack to a ghost. I’m sorry he lost his, but that doesn’t change a thing.
My growl deepens, and I push my dominance toward him, filling every corner of the room with it. The only thing holding me back from full aggression is knowing what Clara said. That her omega recognizes him as one of hers.
That seems to be Finian’s goal, because his dominance folds back in on itself before dissipating.
Dominant alphas tend to grow stronger with age. In terms of years lived, Finian wins. But do years after death count? He hasn’t aged. And when he died, he was a few years younger than me.
It doesn’t matter. My dominance finishes its sweep of the room. Finian tips his head back, to the side, throat exposed. The gesture knocks the wind from me. From that first wave, I was sure he’d challenge to the end. But instead, he offers his neck. His outline flickers like a candle in a draft and then vanishes.
He’s yielded. Offered himself as pack. That was his goal tonight.
I leave my office immediately, climbing two flights to the omega suite. I knock, soft, but insistent. I’m not going to bed without seeing her.
Light shuffling, and then sleepy eyes peek around the cracked door. When she sees me, her eyes widen, and she swings it open.
