Chapter Text
It was eerily quite. Sure, there was the cold wind biting through his clothes, whispering in the trees and causing loose snow to swirl over the pristine forest floor. And there was the clicking of naked branches swaying and his own heartbeat too erratic for his liking. But there was a silence hanging thick and ominous around him. Like a wet blanket closing in and worrying his mind.
Ghost clenched his jaw so you could see the pop through his skin. And his huffing, frustrated breath turned to pale mist that danced for a second befoe it dissipated in the cold winds.
He wanted to go with Kate and the others, back to his village. He wanted to put everything behind and pretend it never happened. To get on with his life after suffering an amnesia he chose himself. But she had asked him to stay behind together with Otis and Roach.
He scanned the dark woods before him. Dark trunks dusted with glittering snow and branches of pine and sentinel heavy and drooping under its weight. He had always preferred the woods over the mountains, yet now he found no joy in it as he sat perched on top of a large stone, keeping watch.
Several of them were placed in a circle around the village. Making sure nothing would surprise the people living there. And if a surprise did show up; hopefully they would spot it in time for the people to get ready to defend themselves.
But the night was silent and eerily still. However his heart and mind was not.
Bitter anger. He felt so much of it yet Ghost wasn't entirely sure where to aim it. It felt focused yet pulling in all kinds of directions and the same time. It made his skin itch and his mood to sour.
It didn't help he could smell Johnny whenever he was in the village. It didn't matter the Omega's tent was almost half the village away from Ghost's. The winds and breezes seemed adamant to constantly bring him sweet and tacky whiffs of candied apples and honey. Or his mind simply tricked him. But it hardly mattered.
He was in pain, Ghost could feel it. Three days into his heat and the man was suffering where he was trapped in his guarded tent. Yet it pain was laces with fevered need and lust.
Ghost adamantly ignored the Alpha inside of him, wanting nothing else than to go in there and dote on the Omega in all ways he could.
He stirred redtlessky where he sat hunched; snow falling down the stone as it got pushed to the side. His fingers itched for his sword, yet there was no enemy here he could fight with it. Unless he fell on it himself.
Ghost honestly thought it would be easier to stay away from Johnny after he told him about his life. And although he made sure to keep a distance, he'd been more than a handful for his clansman to be around. He knew this but played ignorant. Shame following him like a depressing shadow.
He couldn't smell John's sweet and alluring heat over here. It was a relief as much as it was a torment. Not smelling him also meant he didn't know how he was feeling through his scent. But sometimes he isnticnitvely knew, like the night he felt Johnny's heartbreaking distress. He didnt understand it and Ghost hated to be left in the dark.
But he couldn't keep the man. It didn't matter his Alpha roared and ached to sink its teeth into the Omega and bind the damned sod to himself forever. The man was worth so much more.
However words spread as fast in this clan as it did within his own. John wouldn't be bonded to an Alpha from Kates clan. He wouldn't be mated to anyone because apparently he was already bonded. Which confused Ghost.
The man wasn't bonded. Johnng was as unmarked and pure as the snow beneath his leather boots. Yet he wouldn't participate in the rituals and Ghost found no answer to what actually had happened. Although there was an underlying ease at the realisation.
However the mere thought of it... That John could belonged to someone else, caused such a seering fire to ignite within him it felt hard to breathe and his vision tunnelled.
Wrong, wrong, wrong..
But he had no say in it. He signed off his right to protest when he left Johnny's tent for what he planed to be the last time. He put himself out of the equation with that heartless exit. It tore him into tiny little pieces.
Approaching steps pulled him from his bitter pondering and without letting the forest go with his weary eye, he focused on the person closing up from behind.
"Time to switch. I'll hold the guard." Ghost barely remembered the name of the woman behind him. Valerie? Valeria?
He should remember because she was the clans warcheif. But his mind had constantly been filled with other things.
"I don't mind holding it longer." He grunted. He didn't want to return to the village and be surrounded by that damned scent and need, cisntantly beckoning. It was hard enough as it was, resisting him.
"Don't need tired eyes missing something." There was a clear authority in the female Alpha's voice. But she wasn't from his clan and she yet had to earn his respect.
"I'm not tired. My focus is fine. I can stay." He insisted in a mumble; eyes still scanning the forest before him.
"Ghost! Go back, rest and switch me off at dawn." She commanded and his instincts took over. He was stressed and triggered already.
Turning his head, he snarled and bared his teeth. His muscles tensed and adrenaline formed within and spread through his blood. She answered similarly and the deep brown eyes pinned him down.
"Don't start something you will regret." She warned in an almost purring snarl; resonating from deep within her chest.
"Regret is nothing new for me." He hissed and she took a couple of steps towards him. She was dressed similarly to him, minus the chain mail. After all, his people were one of the few who could handle the metal.
"Step down. I don't care about your pride, but more the safety of all the innocent people now sleeping." She bit, and he could see her fingers flex, ready to grab the daggers strapped to her thighs or the axe hanging from her belt.
He thought about Johnny. In the midst of his heat he would be useless for anything but mating. He wouldn't be able to fight or defend himself, should something happen. Most likely, he wouldn't even be able to run should he need to.
Guilt and insecurity rippled through him. A combination so sour and acid and he didn't like it.
"Two hours." He bargained, and the woman's eyes narrowed.
"Three."
"Fine. I'll switch again after three." He rolled his shoulders to relax his muscles when he saw the woman doing the same. And they relqxed their stance to show they weren't interested in a fight. She was impressive and bold, he gave her that.
Jumping down firm the stone, he stood much taller than the warcheif, but her eyes and her soft movements, told him it wasn't necessarily a good thing. She would be quick and agile like a weasel.
Ghost toss her a glare where he stops beside her. Her gaze as defiant as his and he could feel it; how both of them tried to be civil yet fought with the instincts coming with their secondary gender.
Then he hears a whooshing sound. Like a bird of prey diving in high speed to catch its prey. Or like the arrow burrowing in the sleeping maple tree inches from the woman's head. The fathers grey and green and so familiar a shiver along Ghost's spine caused him to bristle.
Then everything happened so fast. Muscle memory and instincts and years of training taking over their minds and bodies.
"Warn the others!" Ghost barks, drawing his sword from its rest over his back and turns. She runs; sprinting so fast snow swirls in her wake.
He scans the darkness. His night vision only took him so far. An arrow could be released from a long distance.
Then another one strikes into the snow before his feet and he bolts. Everything is a mess of snow and cold and darkness.
Movement comes towards him. A line of moving ghouls with drawn weapons and screams in their longues.
Ghost spreads his legs for balance and parries the sword cutting down towards him. He stares into a face he recognizes. A face that had caused him so much pain it changed him forever. One of the men visiting him in his isolation to break him.
"There you are, little pup." The man grins, white teeth showing and with a growl Ghost force the man's sword to the side. Iron against iron ringing in his ears.
As the man's sword points down, he quickly turns and blocks the blow coming from behind. He's aware people are running past him and he can only hope Valeria, Valerie, whatever; had time to warn the villagers.
The ringing from swords clashing cut through his mind where he parris and blocks and cut. These are men that trained the same as him and he knew they were worthy opponents.
Then his sword comes in from the side as the man before him opted to cut from below. Ghost could feel leather, furs skin and muscle and fat slice open even before the man gave out a sudden, short scream before he fell to his knees. Blood spreading in the snow below even as he tried to press his hand against the wound.
His mind drifted to Johnny who was helpless in his tent. And he wasn't there to protect him. The absolute rage breaking out within him makes him scream, a ragged sound echoing from his chest as he turns and strikes down at the man behind him. There's shock in the man's eyes. As the great two-handed iron sword splits his head open.
Blood runs down his face and it feels like forever before he falls. Ghost had to put his foot on his neck to wring the sword away where it had lodged itself in the skull.
He could hear distant screams and yelling. He ran as fast as he could, constantly scanning his surroundings.
From tree to tree, quickly on light feet yet the ringing in his ears was so loud he could hear nothing else.
He only had one goal, one need; to find Johhny and bring him to safety.
In the village chaos roamed. Some of the fires in the grates where tipped over to die whilst others still burned bright. Ghost could hardly tell how many men of Robas clan where here, but it felt like millions.
He ran and cut his way forward; sometimes stopping to defend himself from a more stubborn opponent. But his mind held its focus with a iron fist.
Around him people fought, fled, cried and screamed. Bodies littering the white ground.
A woman fell face forward, crawling best she could through the snow, yet the man pounced upon her easily. He grabbed her hair and yanked her head back before leaning down and slicing her throat. The attack was far from clean, honrouble or fair. It was simply quick slaughter and Ghost let it happen as he continued forward. He didn't gave time to help anyone else now.
Tunnel vision. A roaring pulse as his heart hammered like a war-drum.
His sword was covered in blood but naked parts glimmered in the dim firelight.
The green tent covered in snow was before him, but ice cold terror and firey rage swept through him like a wave as he could hear the yelps and distressed screams from the tent.
Johnny.
Ghost's sword fell to the ground and merged with the snow beneath as he quickly undid two of the daggers hidden on his person.
The scent of Johnny's terror was like burnt sugar and the pungent one from his attacker alarmed him of the arousal and anger.
He threw himself into the tent with a heart threatening to give up as it hammered inside.
"Mine!" Ghost snarled and it hurt, passing his vocal chords. The sound loud and clear and demanding.
The man who stood over Johnnys's helpless form, trampling down his nest and smearing his clothes with bloodied hands, was already dead in Ghosts mind. A corpse molesting what belonged to him.
The man stared at the intruder and growled but it did nothing for him.
He let go of John's whimpering form and he curled into the destroyed nest as his attacker lunged towards Ghost. The man so drowned in the Omega he didn't even think to arm himself before attacking
Ghost met him halfway and grabbed the collar of his shirt sticking out from under leather and steele. The man clawed at him, a hand taking a hold of the skull covering his face and tore so hard the leather straps whined and broke under the force. Cold air met Ghost's naked face as he shoved the dagger into the the mans soft jugular. Steel piercing through it so easily and smooth and lodging itself in the soft pallet of his mouth. The man turned into a gurgling mess, drooling warm, thick blood onto Ghost's hand holding his shirt and shocked, dying eyes stared into Ghost's cold, brown ones.
"Mine." He wheezed before throwing the man to the side; not even bothering pulling out his dagger out.
Johnny had curled in on himself, his hands gripping the messy fabrics of his ruined nest and his muscles trembled from fear and adrenaline and his distressed heat. Ghost's cold heart fell through his stomach at the sight.
"You're alright, love." He kneeled beside the Omega and shushed him where he yelped at the hands now on his body. He only wore the sweaty, long tunic and Ghost could only hope it was because he tried to ease the fevered heat inside. The thought of thag man tearing his clothes off so vile and thorny he didn't want it inside his mind.
"I'm here." He was. His mind screaming at him to protect the man before him and nothing else mattered.
"Ghost.." John choked on the name, barely a ragged whisper. Ghost's heart stuttering at the sound.
"I'm here."
He barely thought, simply taking John in his arms and moving him to hang over his shoulder. He could feel him press his face into his back. It wasn't a preferred way to carry him but he knew he needed to have at least one arm free to defend them.
And so he ran. Out from the tent and through the village. He never stop to help anyone else. Didn't think anything that didn't revolved around the man draped over his shoulder.
A couple of times he had to stop and fight off someone who yet had to find a victim. But he made it out of the village as John grew suspiciously heavy and qiote against his body. No more whimpers or yelps. It alarmed Ghost but he couldn't stop to have a look at him yet. They needed to be as far away as possible. He needed to protect Johnny at all cost; to hell with honour and loyalty.
To hell with everything. He could wallow in his regrets when Johnny was safe.