Chapter 3: Echoes Under the Skin

Greta's body jerked against the thin sheets of the guest bed, sweat cooling on her light brown skin. The dream still gripped her: blood moon overhead, hot springs steaming, Nikolai stepping out of the mist with those piercing blue eyes fixed on her. His fingers had traced the crescent scar on her collarbone, the touch so solid she had arched into it, nails digging into the muscle of his shoulders.

Their breaths had tangled in the vapor. The mate bond had pulled at her like a chain she could not break. Then the silver dagger in her hand, the bloom of red across his chest, his eyes widening in betrayal. She woke with the scream locked behind her teeth.

She sat up, chest heaving until the cedar walls stopped spinning. Her braid had come half-undone, strands clinging to her flushed neck. The scar throbbed in time with her pulse. For a long moment she stared at the wolfsbane vial on the bedside table, fingers hovering, then drew her hand back. Not yet. Not when the pull was only this loud.

Down the hall in the east guest quarters, Nikolai stood at the narrow window, staring into the mist that wrapped the evergreens. Sleep had not come. The same images kept sliding behind his eyes: her skin under his palms, the scent of her throat, the sudden flash of the blade. He ran a hand through his sandy hair, the scar through his eyebrow pulling tight. The ancestral knife lay untouched on the desk where he had set it hours ago.

A soft knock broke the quiet. Elias, by the rhythm. Nikolai did not turn. "Come."

The beta slipped in, carrying two mugs. The smell of chamomile and sharp herbs cut through the room. Elias looked as ragged as Nikolai felt, dark curls slipping their tie, silver ring turning restlessly on his thumb.

"Council in an hour," Elias said, setting a mug down. His drawl was careful. "Shadowfang reports are worse. Scouts inside our lines now. And the younger wolves keep repeating what she said last night in the common room."

Nikolai took the mug but only stared at the surface. "She say anything else while I was still in here?"

Elias hesitated, a new tic that made Nikolai's jaw tighten. "Not yet. Old Marta wants her kept out of the strategy talk. Says a rejected wolf has no place at the war table."

The word dropped between them. Nikolai's fingers tightened on the ceramic until it creaked. He could still feel the ghost pressure of her knee under the table from the night before, the way the bond had flared at the accidental brush. The bond did not care what he had done five years ago. It only pulled.

"She sits," he said at last. "Pack law. If the Shadowfangs truly have a lunar-bitten leading them, she may know things we don't."

Elias studied him a beat too long. "You look like you fought the whole border and lost, boss."

Nikolai waved him off. He would not speak of the dreams, or the price the elders had once whispered about lunar-bitten wolves who let the bond fester. Not yet.

---

The council room smelled of damp wool and old arguments. The long oak table wore scars from decades of claws. Greta arrived last, braid severe, posture perfect. She took the chair at Nikolai's left, close enough that their legs might brush if either of them forgot themselves.

She kept her eyes on the map Elias spread across the wood. Old Marta's glare bored into her from across the table, but Greta's fingers stayed steady, tracing the faint edge of the silver dagger hidden against her ribs. The younger wolves watched her instead of the alpha.

"Eastern ridge is holding," Elias said, voice low. "But that rival alpha they're whispering about is lunar-bitten too. Claims the full moon turns any fight."

Greta spoke without raising her tone. "And the Ramirez Pack's answer? More posturing? Or something that does not rely on frightening the lower ranks into silence?"

Her knee touched his under the table. The contact jolted up his thigh like a live wire. Nikolai gripped the edge of his chair. Her breath hitched once, so quietly only he caught it. The bond answered with a rush of shared heat that tightened low in his gut. He remembered the dream arch of her back, the small sound she had made against his ear.

He shifted away. The chair leg scraped. "We double the scouts. Fortify the ridge. Harrington, you tell us what you know about this rival. Since you share the condition."

Their eyes met. Hers carried triumph edged with something raw. His pulse beat hard against his ribs. One of the youngest wolves, a girl still carrying the wide eyes of her first shift, gave a small nod at Greta's quiet words about strength earned rather than inherited.

Old Marta snorted. "We do not need counsel from the wolf who was thrown away."

Greta's smile stayed small and sharp. "And yet here I sit. With a seat at this table. Funny how the old laws bend when the pack needs them to."

Nikolai's leg pressed back against hers, deliberate this time. The warmth of her skin through fabric sent sparks along nerves that should have stayed quiet. He saw her knuckles pale where she gripped the table. The bond whispered between them, low and insistent. Touch me. Remember.

He stood so fast the chair nearly toppled. "Enough. Reconvening after the noon patrol. Elias, with me."

As the room emptied, Lila slid into the chair beside Greta. The cousin's mischievous smile hid nothing. She leaned in, voice dropping to that quick, sarcastic cadence.

"Girl, the air between you two crackled so hard I thought the map would catch fire. You holding up?"

Greta stayed seated, counting her breaths the way she did when the moon pulled too hard. Her skin felt too tight, the dream still stuck to her like damp cloth. "It's getting louder," she said quietly. "Last night it felt like he was really there. Fingers on the scar. Then the knife."

Lila's dark eyes softened. She twisted the silver streak in her short hair, mismatched socks peeking above her boots. "I get it. More than you think. There's this warrior, Marcus, one of Nikolai's. Every patrol he looks at me and I start thinking stupid things. Like maybe the pack does not have to be built on fear and old grudges."

Greta studied her. Lila had always been the one mocking romance in the human podcasts she smuggled past the border. Seeing the crack in that armor made Greta's own chest ache in a way she had not planned for.

"You never mentioned him."

"Because it's dumb," Lila said, hands gesturing fast now. "I'm supposed to be your eyes and ears, not catching feelings for some meathead who still follows the alpha like a shadow. But the bond does not ask permission, does it? So what are you going to do when it finally wins?"

Greta did not answer. She traced the scar through her shirt, feeling the echo of Nikolai's dream-touch. The thought of destroying him sat heavy in her stomach, like stones that might drag her under.

---

Later, the mist hung thicker along the hot springs trail. Nikolai had not meant to walk this far, but the brush of her leg and the dream fragments had left him restless, shoulders knotted. Steam rose between the ancient cedars like an open invitation.

He stripped quickly, left his clothes on a flat rock, and waded in. The mineral heat closed around his waist, loosening nothing. He had barely settled when footsteps sounded on the path.

Greta stepped through the mist, towel wrapped around her athletic frame, braid already loosening. She froze. High cheekbones flushed dark against her warm skin. Her full lips parted, then pressed tight. The scar stood out at her collarbone like a brand.

"I can go," she said, voice low and precise.

She did not move. The bond hummed louder here, threads of heat pulling between them. Nikolai stayed submerged to his chest, water lapping at the muscle of his shoulders. Her scent cut through the sulfur anyway.

"The springs belong to the pack," he answered, gravel in his throat. "Not me."

She turned her back, dropped the towel, and slipped in a careful distance away. He caught the elegant line of her spine before the water hid it. The nearness raised every hair on his arms with phantom touches.

They sat in silence while steam curled and parted. Nikolai's mind kept supplying details from the dream: the taste of her mouth, the way her breath had caught. He cleared his throat, reaching for something ordinary.

"Lower quarters are short on dried meat with the doubled patrols. You seem full of ideas about change. Any for that?"

Greta turned to face him. Water beaded on her shoulders. Her dark eyes held wariness and the quiet authority exile had given her. "Ration smarter. Let the lower ranks hunt their own caches instead of waiting on your nod. Fear is not the only way to hold a pack together, Nikolai."

His name in her mouth sent a fresh jolt through him. He moved closer without deciding to, water rippling between them. The bond surged again, heat pooling low. Her cheeks flushed deeper. He wondered if she felt the echo of his want as plainly as he felt hers.

"You think you can rewrite everything," he muttered. There was no bite left in it. His hand lifted from the water, hovering near her bare shoulder. A drop fell onto her skin; she shivered. The look in her eyes pried at the cracks in him wider than any challenge fight ever had.

She did not pull away. "The pack is already rewriting itself. Question is whether you fight it or lead it."

His fingers settled on her shoulder, callused palm against warm, wet skin. The bond flared. A memory slammed into both of them at once, sharp as broken glass.

Five years ago in the rejection circle. The letter that had swayed his father, the one that painted Greta as poison to the pack's future. The handwriting had not been his father's after all. It had belonged to Elias's sister, long dead now from a border skirmish, her face twisted with jealousy in the vision. The pressure she had applied, the fear she had fed the old alpha. All of it laid bare in the steam.

Greta gasped and jerked back. Water splashed. Nikolai's hand dropped, but the truth lingered between them, ugly and half-buried.

"What the hell was that?" she whispered. Her voice cracked on the last word, the first time in years.

Nikolai's heart hammered against his ribs. The springs suddenly felt too small, the mist too thick to breathe. Everything he had built on that old letter now looked like someone else's convenient lie. And the woman he had cast out stood there radiating lunar power, waiting for answers he did not have.

The near-full moon kept rising above the trees. Nothing between them would stay hidden much longer.