Chapter 3 Echoes In The Blood

• The fire crackled in the hearth, a steady rhythm that should have comforted Jenna—but didn’t. She sat curled in a heavy chair, a wool blanket draped over her shoulders, yet the cold clung to her bones. Not from the air, but from the ache inside her—emotional, raw, unraveling.
• She stared into the flames as Alexander’s voice echoed again and again in her head. Some survive, but most don’t. The wolf usually dies first.
• Her fingers clenched tighter around the blanket. She should be dead—or worse, hollow. A shell without her wolf.
• But she wasn’t.
• Remi stirred gently in her chest, a soft pulse like the distant beat of war drums. Softly caressing her heart with the sides of her face, "I'm still here. Hurt, but alive."
• The weight of that reality settled heavily in Jenna’s chest. She could feel her wolf, she was weakened by the pain but still somehow strong and steady. A presence she wasn’t supposed to have anymore.
• She thought to herself that she should tell him. But she couldn’t. Not yet.
• Across from her, Alexander moved with quiet certainty. He poured tea into a black mug, the rich aroma of herbs and something wild wafting through the room. His scent overpowered it, earth and pine, dark and magnetic. Her senses focused on him, drawn to the way his muscles shifted with even the smallest movement. Power flowed off him in waves.
• “You’re still cold?” he said softly, his voice a low murmur that vibrated through her. “It’s the aftermath. Your body’s still recovering.”
• Jenna nodded slowly. She didn’t trust herself to speak. Her gaze clung to him, traced the damp line of his collarbone, the ripple of muscle along his abdomen, the faint trail of a scar disappearing beneath his waistband. He didn’t need a title to command the room.
• She pulled the blanket tighter around her, trying to still the tremor in her hands.
• “I thought I was dying,” she whispered at last.
• “You nearly did.”
• He didn’t say it with pity. It was simply truth. Cold and unvarnished.
• “Then why didn’t I?”
• Alexander turned from the fire and walked slowly toward the window. He didn’t answer immediately. The muscles in his back flexed beneath his skin, each step a study in restraint.
• He wanted to tell her the truth.
• Because I scented you. Because the bond claimed me. Because you're mine.
• But instead, he stared out into the night.
• Jax howled in his head. Tell her. She belongs to us.
• “I heard Sean’s voice,” she said, her voice thinner now, breath trembling. “He said I was nothing. That my wolf was weak. That I wasn’t worth the breath it took to reject me.”
• Alexander turned. Slowly. The flickering firelight danced across his features, sharpening the angles of his jaw, casting his eyes in shadows. But they burned, hot, focused.
• Not with sorrow. Not with rage.
• With possession.
• “He’s a fool,” Alexander said. The words weren’t loud, but they landed like stone.
• “Why?”
• He crossed the space between them, the air shifting with his approach. She felt his heat before his body reached her. Every breath she took was suddenly filled with him.
• “Because he mistook quiet for weak,” he murmured. He leaned in, voice brushing against her temple. “Because only an arrogant bastard would throw away the moon before learning how bright she can burn.”
• Jenna’s breath hitched. Her chest rose sharply.
• And the broken bond, whatever frayed, broken piece had once lingered inside her was gone. In its place, something deeper stirred. Something ancient. It pulsed not like pain, but like a second heartbeat growing louder with every breath. This wasn’t an echo of what she had lost.
• It was the emergence of something new.
• A bond not forged by arrangement but awakened by fate. Not rooted in tradition but ignited in fire.
• Remi stirred again, stronger now. He feels it. He feels us. But he’s waiting.
• Should she tell him?
• Should she admit she never lost her wolf, that Remi had never left? That somehow, despite everything, her wolf had survived? But how? It didn’t make sense. No one had ever said it was possible. It felt like a miracle—a defiance of every law about the mate bond.
• She didn’t know what it meant.
• Did Alexander already know? Could he sense Remi’s presence? She thought so, felt it in the way his eyes lingered on her with more than sympathy. But voicing it aloud made it real, and real meant dangerous.
• So she held it in her chest like a secret prayer, not yet ready to share the impossible truth that lived inside her.
• But fear clung to her like ash. The truth was too heavy. Too soon.
• “I shouldn’t feel this way,” she whispered.
• “Why not?”
• “Because I just lost my mate. Because I don’t know what’s real anymore.”
• Alexander knelt beside her. His presence engulfed her. Steady. Centered. Relentless.
• “What you had with him wasn’t a bond,” he said. “It was a leash. This?”
• He reached out and tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear. His fingers skimmed her cheek, featherlight but electric. “What’s humming in your blood right now, that’s real.”
• Jenna’s heart pounded. Her throat tightened.
• Jenna's eyes drifted down to his lips, the firelight casting a golden glow over the sharp planes of his face. Heat surged through her body, curling low in her abdomen. Her breath came faster, heart pounding like a war drum.
• Remi stirred, her voice rich with hunger. Touch him. Want him. He’s ours.
• The scent of her arousal drifted between them, impossible to hide.
• Alexander caught it instantly. His nostrils flared slightly, his expression shifting into something darker—something knowing. His lips curved into a slow, seductive smirk.
• “If I kissed you right now,” he said, voice like velvet and thunder, “you wouldn’t be thinking about Sean.”
• Jenna’s lips parted, but no words came. Her pulse was a live wire. Her skin burned.
• Alexander’s hand moved to her face, fingers brushing her cheek. His thumb traced her jaw, slow and reverent, igniting every nerve in its wake. The silence between them thickened, charged and trembling.
• But then, he pulled away. Fast. As though touching her had branded him.
• “Sleep,” he said, voice raw and ragged.
• “For what?” she whispered, barely audible.
• Alexander didn’t look at her right away. His gaze stayed fixed on the fire, the shadows dancing along his tense shoulders. The flames flickered in his eyes like a reflection of the battle in his soul.
• He took a slow breath, jaw tight. “For the truth,” he said finally, his voice low. “And everything that comes with it.”