42. Clara
Clara
The hairs on the back of my neck stand on end. I’ve let go of Bram’s and Dagan’s hands, but just as I’m about to touch the planchette, it slides across the board.
As it moves, I feel thick muscle closing around my arms, the weight of a broad chest pressing into my back like someone is leaning over me, reaching around my body to guide the planchette.
It stops on HELLO and then begins spelling through the letters.
D-A-R-L-I-N-G.
Heat rushes through me, my heart hammering. The scent of bread swirls in the air, thick and heady, wrapping around me until it’s all I can breathe. A shiver runs down my spine, slick pooling between my thighs.
“What do you want?” Bram’s rough voice cuts through the fog. His eyes are dark, serious, locked on mine.
The planchette moves again, slow and deliberate.
M-Y M-A-T-E.
My omega looses a soft, needy whine I can’t suppress. Every alpha stiffens at the sound. My mate , she whispers back. Bram sees the truth in my eyes and nods.
“It seems we have something in common,” he says evenly.
“Doesn’t being dead make having a mate kind of useless?” Victor’s smirk earns him my glare. Bram’s jaw works, probably ready to tell him off, but the candle s flicker violently. Thunder rattles the windows, and a flash of lightning floods the room illuminating the tall figure behind Victor.
An alpha. High cheekbones. Bright blue eyes. A newsboy cap tipped low. His smile is both a promise and a threat, the kind that freezes your pulse and floods your body in the same breath.
The grandfather clock begins striking midnight. On the last chime, Finian vanishes. Victor’s chair, with him in it, spins sharply, skidding across the floor to the corner like it’s been shoved.
“Did… did the ghost just put Victor in time out?” Jack tries and fails to hide his laugh.
Victor growls, stands, and hurls the chair into the wall. The crash makes me flinch. A small whimper escapes before I can stop it. Victor’s eyes snap to mine, regret written plain across his face. But regret isn’t control, and if he can’t control himself, he can leave.
Apparently, Finian agrees. The front and back doors slam open, a gale howling through the house, whipping around Victor. The wind touches nothing else, only Victor, driving him toward the back door.
Victor fights it, grabbing at furniture, toppling a table and smashing a vase. The other alphas rise but hesitate, unsure. So I move.
I step into the wind’s path, putting myself between Victor and its unseen force.
“Stop.” The word comes from my core, my omega.
The wind dies instantly. All the candles have been snuffed, the only light now coming from Dagan’s phone. He sets it on the table, face-up, and signs, " What was that? "
“I think Finian’s reacting to Victor’s attitude toward Clara,” Jack says.
“Let’s all just sit down and talk,” I say, voice shaking. Victor straightens, following me back to the table. Every alpha looks rattled, none more than him. “We have questions.” I begin.
The candles flare to life again, a silent invitation. I look to Bram, but he nods for me to lead. My pulse pounds. This feels monumental.
“First, please stop terrorizing Victor,” I say.The look on Victor’s face is almost comical. “I realize it’s well meaning—”
“Well meaning?!” Victor shouts, and the table shudders. He clamps his jaw shut.
“I don’t want anyone feeling unsafe where they live,” I say softly. Victor's eyes shutter, but for a brief moment, his gaze connects to mine in a way that makes my chest ache before he looks away.
I press on. “We’re obviously mates. All of us.
Including you," I say into the empty space above the table, speaking directly to Finian. "That’s a lot of coincidence for one house. I believe in fate, but I also believe in common sense. And those flyers that both me and the Ember pack got, advertising this house with our specific needs…seems a little too good to be just fate.”
The planchette moves.
M-Y P-A-C-K.
A gentler wind sweeps the table, rustling papers until the obituary sheet from the library lands on top—Finian’s pack’s names front and center. Next to Sorcha’s name, more appear.
Seamus – brother. Matilda – niece. Brad Ringer – grand nephew.
“That’s our dad’s name,” Victor says quietly. My eyes snap to him, his and Dagan’s faces mirror shock. Finian lists more names, each connecting directly from Finian's pack to Jack and Bram.
We all sit there, breathless.
“But… how did you know about me?” I ask. “Your pack hadn’t found an omega yet.”
A door creaks open upstairs. A soft breeze carries down the staircase, fluttering a sheet of paper that lands on the table, face-down.
Bra m flips it over. It’s a sketch of me, standing on the beach in front of this house. Yellow bell-sleeve dress. Light blue hair.
“I was walking, just after I moved here,” I say slowly. I look to Victor. “How could you have drawn this?”
His eyes burn into mine. “I dreamt about it.”
My heart stumbles.
I turn back to the board. “So you saw me… scented me, and tracked them down. But what about the house, the decor, the rental company? How could you pull all that off?”
The planchette drags across the board: T-O-M-O-R-R-O-W.
The clock strikes one. Outside, the storm has softened to a drizzle. The time of the dead has passed. I feel it deep in my bones.
Finian is gone except for the faintest curl of baked bread that clings to the air, and the whisper of Darlin' that brushes my mind like a promise. Tomorrow can’t come fast enough… and I’m not sure if that’s hope or warning.