Echoes of the Alpha

Chapter 20

Echoes of the Alpha

 POV: Adelina McKenna

I smelled him before I saw him.

It hit me just past midnight, as I sat sharpening my blade outside the Hollow Moon stronghold, firelight flickering against the stones. The scent was older than memory pine smoke and mountain wind, metal and dusk.

But it was weakened.

Thinned with blood.

Muddied with sweat, pain, and something else I couldn’t place.

Fear.

My hands stopped moving.

My wolf surged forward, spine snapping straight, ears pricking toward the north ridge.

She didn’t growl.

She waited.

Trembled.

Not from threat.

But from recognition.

He was here.

I rose, blade forgotten, and moved toward the tree line without sound.

Asha spotted me, stepped into my path. “You feel that?”

I nodded once.

She narrowed her eyes. “Alpha?”

“Not anymore.”

She didn’t argue.

Just followed.

We found him slumped against a moss-covered boulder a mile out, half-conscious, his chest heaving, his shirt torn and blood-soaked.

Daxon Reyes.

The Alpha who severed our bond.

The man who abandoned me in front of his Council.

The wolf who once looked at me like I was fire, then walked into the cold.

Now, he looked nothing like the king I’d met in the Circle.

He looked like a hunted animal.

Wounded.

Collapsing.

“Dax,” I whispered.

His eyes fluttered open.

Clouded. Wild.

But even through the pain, even through the broken pieces, they locked on mine.

And the bond whatever was left of it flickered.

I didn’t run to him.

I didn’t cry.

I didn’t fall apart.

I stood perfectly still, every muscle locked, and said the only thing that mattered.

“Why are you here?”

He coughed wet and raw. “To warn you.”

Asha stepped forward. “Warn her of what?”

He looked at me again.

And what he said next made my heart freeze.

“The Council issued a blood decree,” he rasped. “Not just against you. Against your child.”

The world tilted.

I couldn’t breathe.

“What?” I said. “They… they know?”

He nodded slowly.

“I tried to delay it. Hide it. But someone one of the enforcers you spared carried your scent. The pulse from your child’s surge lit up the northern channels. They know now, Lina.”

He winced at the name. Like it still lived inside him.

“They know she lives. And they know what she is.”

Oya appeared from the ridge, flanked by two Hollow Moon guards.

She knelt beside him, hand glowing with old magic.

“He’s poisoned,” she muttered. “Silver-infused steel. Recent.”

Asha’s jaw tensed. “He was hunted by his own.”

“They turned on me,” Dax said, voice thick. “The moment I opposed the purge order.”

His eyes burned into mine.

“I tried to buy time. Keep them looking elsewhere. But they saw it as betrayal.”

He coughed again, blood staining his teeth.

“I’ve been running for three days.”

I didn’t know what I felt.

Anger?

Yes.

Sadness?

Maybe.

But beneath it all… something deeper.

Clarity.

Dax hadn’t just lied.

He’d buried himself in the very war he helped create.

And now?

He’d come to me not as a mate.

Not as a king.

But as a man who’d finally realized what he’d destroyed.

“You chose them,” I said. “You stood there and let them rip me apart.”

“I know.”

“You rejected me.”

“I know.”

“You said you loved duty more than fate.”

He didn’t flinch.

“I did,” he whispered. “Until it nearly killed me.”

Oya moved swiftly.

Her hands hovered above his wound. Magic pulsed faintly from her palms.

“He needs the fire,” she said. “Or he won’t make it through the night.”

“No,” Asha snapped. “He’s a risk.”

“He’s the only one who knows the Council’s next move,” Oya said. “If he dies, we lose that advantage.”

I stared down at him.

The man I loved.

The Alpha I hated.

The ghost I couldn’t shake.

And then I made a choice.

“Bring him to the ember chamber,” I said.

Asha growled.

But she didn’t disobey.

We carried him into the Hollow’s sacred chamber once a healing space, now a place where fire was used to awaken memory.

He lay on the stone slab, shivering, pale, blood crusting at the edges of his lips.

Oya stood over him, her hands igniting with pale blue flame.

“I can heal him,” she said, “but it will hurt.”

“Good,” I muttered.

Oya smiled faintly.

Then she placed her palms on his chest.

The scream he let out wasn’t human.

It was wolf.

Raw, unhinged, ancient.

His body convulsed. Fire roared from the altar beneath him, flames licking his skin without burning it. Magic poured into the wound. Silver hissed out as steam.

He thrashed.

Sweat poured.

And then… he stilled.

Alive.

But barely.

I stayed outside the chamber after that.

Pacing.

Breathing.

Waiting.

Not because I was afraid he’d die.

Because I wasn’t sure I could face him if he lived.

Asha joined me after an hour.

She didn’t speak at first.

Then she said, “You know he’s still tied to you.”

I looked at her.

“The bond?” I asked. “I felt it die.”

She shook her head.

“You felt part of it break. But he never completed the ritual.”

I blinked. “What?”

She nodded. “A true severing requires a final clause. A ceremonial vow. He didn’t finish it. He left it open.”

“Why?”

“Because he couldn’t do it,” she said. “Because even then, some part of him knew you weren’t meant to be erased.”

I closed my eyes.

The bond hadn’t died.

It had fractured.

And what remained however faint still lived beneath our skin.

That wasn’t comfort.

That was a burden.

I returned to the ember chamber after midnight.

He was awake.

Barely.

He turned his head when I entered.

“You should hate me,” he said.

“I do.”

He smiled, weak. “That’s fair.”

I stood at the edge of the room, arms crossed, the scent of fire thick around us.

“You came here to warn me,” I said. “You did that. Now what?”

“I’m not going back,” he whispered. “They’ll kill me if I do.”

“And you think I’ll protect you?”

“No,” he said. “I think you’ll use me.”

I laughed, bitter.

“At least you’re honest now.”

He closed his eyes.

“I don’t want redemption, Lina,” he murmured. “I just want to stop them before they find her.”

My hand rested over my belly.

Lux stirred.

And the flame pulsed brighter.

Let him stay.

Let him bleed.

He wouldn’t lead me again.

But maybe just maybe

He could help me build the fire they wouldn’t see coming.