CHAPTER 11: THE GHOST OF BEAN
Lucien's POV
The first thing I heard when Marcus and Daniel walked into my office was Marcus's pride dying a slow, agonizing death.
"—flipped me," he was saying, his voice a jagged mixture of fury and absolute disbelief. "Clean over her shoulder. Flat on my back. On stone, Lucien. Do you have any idea how that looks?"
Daniel had his fist pressed firmly against his mouth, his shoulders shaking with the effort of a man trying—and spectacularly failing—to pretend he wasn't laughing.
"She was barely conscious," Marcus continued, his jaw tight enough to crack. "She had wolfsbane in her system. She looked like a stiff breeze would finish her off, and she still—"
"Flipped you," I finished for him, my voice sounding strangled.
I was barely half-listening. My mind was anchored to a set of documents I'd discovered days ago—reports from the border that didn't sit right with me, whispers of a survivor from the old raids that I had been too afraid to hope for.
"Luc, are you even listening to me?" Marcus snapped, leaning over my desk. "I said she bloody flipped me and acted like it was nothing! Can you believe the nerve?"
"Yes. You mentioned. I'm sorry, Marcus," I said, though my mind was miles away.
"I'm going to say it again because I still can't believe it happened to me—"
"Marcus." I set my files down on the desk and dropped into my chair, rubbing the bridge of my nose. "What exactly are we talking about? Give me the facts, not the bruised ego."
They both turned. Daniel straightened immediately, composing himself with the discipline of a lead warrior. Marcus looked like he was still mentally replaying the incident and losing every time.
"The prisoner," Daniel said, his tone shifting into professional Beta-report territory. "Caleb had us move her to the high-security wing. Level one."
I reached for the stack of border reports that had been accumulating since the morning's chaos. "And she gave you trouble."
"She gave Marcus trouble," Daniel clarified.
"She assaulted the Gamma of the pack!" Marcus corrected hotly.
"If I've gathered anything from this rant," I said, eyes still on the paper, "it's that you grabbed her first."
"I was redirecting her! The bloody Thornblood—"
Thornblood. The name hit me like a physical blow. Something about the combination of the words 'she,' 'Thornblood,' and 'prisoner' lodged itself under my sternum, pressing harder with every passing second.
"What is her name?" I asked. My voice came out quieter than I intended, vibrating with a sudden, sharp tension.
Both of them paused.
"The prisoner's?" Daniel asked, brow furrowing.
"Yes." I kept my eyes on the reports, though the handwriting had blurred into illegible squiggles. "What did they call her when they brought her in? What's on the intake form?"
Marcus shrugged, his irritation temporarily displaced by confusion. "Thornblood girl. That's all anyone's been saying. Why does it matter?"
*Thornblood. Hazel?* My heart gave a violent, painful thud. *It has to be. It has to be her.*
"Does anyone know her first name?" I asked again. My voice was remarkably steady—the product of twelve years of practicing how to hide my soul.
Daniel frowned. "The bounty notices just say 'Thornblood.' Why are you so—"
"Is she young?" I interrupted, standing up so abruptly my chair skidded back across the floor. "Dark hair? About this tall?" I held my hand up to approximate her height. "Does she have a scar on her left forearm, just below the elbow? An old one, from a silver-trap?"
The silence that followed was the specific, heavy kind that happens when two people realize they've accidentally walked into a minefield. Daniel stared at me, his eyes widening like he'd made the connection.
"...Yes," he whispered. "The scar. I saw it when she lunged at Marcus."
I didn't wait for another word. I was already moving toward the door, my heartbeat doing something it hadn't done since I was ten years old. It was beating with hope—a terrifying, frantic rhythm that threatened to choke me.
I sprinted through the corridors, my mind a blur of gray smoke and fire from a decade ago. Every turn in the pack house felt like a mile; every staircase felt like a mountain. I burst into the high-security wing, my lungs burning.
The guard at the end of the corridor straightened, his hand moving to his spear. "Beta Lucien. No one's authorized to enter without—"
"By whose order?" I growled, my Beta aura flaring with enough power to make the stone walls vibrate.
"The Alpha's, sir."
"I am the Alpha's Beta," I said, stepping into his space, my voice quiet and final. "Step aside. You're dismissed. Leave. Now."
He hesitated for exactly two seconds, saw the look in my eyes, and decided that his life was worth more than a procedural argument. He bowed and practically fled the hallway.
I walked toward the cell slowly, my boots clicking softly. My breath was hitched in my throat. I stopped at the bars and looked inside.
She was there. Huddled on the bed, staring at the wall with a hollow, haunted expression. She looked older, sharper, but the line of her jaw was unmistakable. It was her. It was really her.
I breathed in deeply, the scent of the pack house fading as I picked up the faint, lingering scent of the girl I thought I'd lost to the flames. I decided to test her, adjusting my voice to something colder, something that would spark the fire I knew lived inside her.
"Hey, princess."
I knew how much she hated that title. When we were children, she'd punch my arm every time I said it.
She turned around slowly. I felt like I was holding my breath, watching the sequence of emotions play out across her face. First came the irritation at being interrupted and annoyed at whoever it was that called her princess, then the automatic threat assessment of a survivor, and finally, recognition. It hit her like a physical impact. Her eyes went wide. Her lips parted. The color drained from her face, leaving her ghostly, before a flush of heat flooded back all at once.
"Lucien?!!" she yelled, her voice a broken rasp. She blinked rapidly, as if expecting me to dissolve into a hallucination.
When I gave a small, shaky nod, she didn't hesitate. She scrambled off the bed and ran, throwing herself against the bars before I could even get the key in. I fumbled with the lock, my hands shaking, and the moment the gate swung open, she jumped into my arms.
I caught her, spinning her around as she buried her face in my neck. I could feel her heart hammering against mine—a frantic, living thing. I dropped her back to her feet, but she didn't let go. She clung to my shirt, her fingers digging into the fabric as if she feared I would vanish if she loosened her grip.
"But... but how?" she sniffled, her voice muffled against my chest. "I thought you were dead. I saw the fire, Lucien. I cried so much. I thought I was the only one left."
I chuckled, a wet, emotional sound, and rubbed her back in a soothing manner. "I missed you too, Hazel. I've spent every waking moment looking for you, but I had to do it in secret. I didn't have the power to find you... not until last year, when I finally clawed my way into the Beta position of this pack."
Hazel's body went rigid. She disconnected the hug, stepping back to look at me, her eyes flashing with a sudden, sharp anger.
"You're *this* pack's Beta?!" she yelled. "The Blackmoor bloody pack? The people who—"
"I'll explain everything now," I said, exhaling a long, weary breath. "I promise you, I haven't forgotten who we are. I'm not betraying our people. Just trust me, please... Bean."
The name made her stop. A small, wobbly smile broke through her tears at the old nickname. "Bean," she whispered.
The brief moment of joy faded as the weight of the past settled back between us.
"Mom would've known what to do," Hazel murmured suddenly, her voice turning soft and frayed at the edges. She slumped back onto the cot, her strength deserting her. "I should've just stayed and died with everyone else. It would have been easier than this."
My jaw tightened. My hands curled slowly at my sides as the memory of that night clawed at my throat. "Maybe," I said, perhaps too quickly, before correcting myself. "But maybe not. I believe in you, Hazel. I believe you were meant to survive. If you had stayed... your parents would be heartbroken. I would be heartbroken."
Her breath hitched. The air in the cell felt thick, charged with the history of two children who had lost everything.
"So…" she swallowed hard, lifting her gaze to mine. "Do you want to explain how you survived? How you ended up here?"
I exhaled slowly, the past crashing back into me like a blade between the ribs. I sat on the edge of the cot, leaning my elbows on my knees.
"That evening," I began, my eyes unfocused as I slipped back twelve years. "After the alarm went off... the kids and women were supposed to run to the bunker. I was looking for you. My mom had already run ahead, and my dad stayed back to fight. I searched everywhere. I saw the Alpha fighting near the eastern gate. Then I finally saw you… and your mom."
Hazel's fingers tightened in the blanket, her knuckles white.
"She was telling you to run," I continued quietly. "She pushed you toward the bunker, but you didn't want to go. As usual, you wanted to help. You were always too brave for your own good. She was about to grab you, to force you to safety, when—" My voice faltered.
"When her heart was ripped out of her chest," Hazel finished for me, her voice a hollow whisper.
"She screamed," I said, trapped in the memory of the blood on the snow. "She fell looking at you and managed to yell 'run' one last time. You took off into the forest like a ghost. I tried to go after you, but my mom appeared out of the smoke and dragged me back."
My hands were trembling now. I didn't bother to hide it.
"I kept crying, fighting her, when I saw my dad running toward us. A wolf jumped him. Then two more. Three. They tore him apart right in front of us." My throat tightened. "I wanted to run to him, but my mom dragged me the other way. I was numb. I watched the Luna die. I watched my dad die. And at ten years old... I truly believed you couldn't have survived that forest alone."
Hazel was crying silently now, the tears tracking through the dirt on her cheeks.
"My mother dragged me here to the Silver Jade borders after two days of hiding in caves. We heard the news—everyone was dead. Our pack was gone. Then I found out the truth. The man I thought was my father back home? He wasn't. The real Beta of this pack... he had a secret history with my mother. He ordered her to leave me here to be raised as a soldier of this pack and told her to go. He didn't want the scandal of a bastard son." I let out a bitter laugh. "She did it. She left me. I haven't found her since. I don't even know if she's alive."
I finally looked up, meeting her eyes. Hazel was crying openly now, the raw grief of our shared past laid bare. Without thinking, I stepped forward and pulled her gently into my chest again. This time, she didn't resist. She collapsed against me, her forehead pressed into my shoulder, her fingers clutching my shirt as if it were the only solid thing left in the world.
We stayed like that for a long time. The clock down the hall ticked softly, filling the space our words had left behind. Outside, the forest breathed—the same forest that had taken everything from us. For a moment, I could almost forget I was a Beta, forget Caleb's orders, and forget the bloodlines that made us enemies.
I stayed until the exhaustion and the wolfsbane finally took their toll, and she fell into a fitful sleep. I tucked the blanket around her, watching the way her damp lashes brushed against her cheeks.
"Still watching me like I'll collapse any second?"
Her voice was light, teasing, as she blinked her eyes open a few minutes later, but her gaze—those ember-brown eyes—flicked toward me with a sharp awareness.
I smiled faintly, leaning against the doorframe of the cell, arms folding loosely across my chest. "Only because you do collapse every second, troublemaker."
She rolled her eyes, a shadow of the girl I used to know ghosting across her lips. "Once. I collapse once, and suddenly I'm fragile. That hasn't happened since I was eight, Lucien."
"Once too many," I whispered. "I'm not losing you again, Bean. Not to this pack. Not to anyone."
I forced myself to turn away, to lock the iron gate, and to walk away from the only piece of home I had left. The walk back to the administrative wing felt like moving through deep water. Every step was a lie I was preparing to tell.
The moment I walked back into the Beta office, Daniel looked at my face and said absolutely nothing. He stood by the window, his arms crossed, his gaze sharp and expectant. He knew me too well; he saw the ghost of the boy I used to be written all over my features.
Marcus was less perceptive. He was still nursing his bruised shoulder and his even more bruised ego.
"Well?" he demanded the second the door clicked shut. "Did you know her or not?"
I didn't answer immediately. I walked to my desk, sat down, and pulled the pile of border reports back toward me. I picked up my pen, my fingers finally steadying.
"Yes," I said.
"From where?" Marcus pushed, stepping closer to the desk. "How does a Thornblood know our Beta?"
"We grew up in the same pack." I kept my voice neutral. Matter-of-fact. It was the tone that ended conversations, the one I used when I was delivering news of a border skirmish or a death. "Before the massacre."
The silence that followed was the kind where two people are doing rapid, frantic recalculations. I could almost hear the gears turning in Marcus's head as he tried to reconcile the "enemy" with the boy he'd trained alongside for a decade.
"She's from your original pack," Daniel said carefully. It wasn't a question; it was an acknowledgment of the weight I was now carrying.
"Yes."
"So she's—"
"A person I grew up with, yes." I looked up, locking eyes with both of them, letting my Beta authority bleed into the room. "She is also the Alpha's fated mate, which means she is, functionally, our future Luna. I would suggest both of you recalibrate how you're speaking about her and treating her accordingly." I paused, my gaze narrowing on the Gamma. "That includes you, Marcus."
Marcus's jaw worked, his teeth audibly grinding. Several things moved across his face in rapid succession, fury, resistance, and the ghost of something far more complicated underneath both. He looked like he wanted to scream, but the logic of the bond was the one thing he couldn't argue against.
"She's Thornblood," he said finally. The word was quieter this time. Less like a weapon, more like a shield he was trying to hide behind.
"She's twenty-two years old," I said, my voice hardening. "She was ten when the massacre happened. She has been running alone for twelve years, Marcus. While we were here, safe within these walls, she was a child surviving in the dirt."
I held his gaze until he looked away. "I know what you lost, Marcus. I know better than most people in this building. I was there for the fire, too. And I am asking you to consider the possibility that we have all been angry at the wrong person."
The office went very quiet. The only sound was the low hum of the ventilation and the distant howl of a patrol wolf.
Marcus said nothing. He didn't apologize, and he didn't agree. But he didn't argue, either. And for Marcus, that was as close to consideration as you were going to get on day one. He turned on his heel and walked out, the door slamming behind him.
Daniel stayed for a moment, giving me a long, knowing look before nodding and following Marcus out.
I went back to the reports.
But the whole time my pen moved across the page, I could still feel it—the specific frequency of her, the way the air had changed when she grabbed the bars, and the way she'd said my name like she was making sure I was real.
The Alpha's mate. My childhood friend. The pack's enemy.