Fated to the Wrong Alpha

Chapter 16 – The Third Thread

Sleep is a suggestion my body politely declines.

Back at the house, the forest still clings to my skin—damp earth, cold air, the faint, sour tang of old magic. I scrub my hands under hot water until the smell fades, but the pull along the bond doesn’t.

North. Out. Away.

Riya finally forces tea into me and threatens sedation if I don’t at least try to lie down. I promise I will. Eventually.

Instead, I end up on the small balcony off my room, wrapped in a blanket, the city a blur of lights below. The night is too quiet. My wolf is too loud.

The bond hums under my skin, restless. Not the sharp, tearing ache from the elevator, not the slow throb of my mark. Something else. A steady, insistent tug, like a river current testing its banks.

A soft knock sounds at the door.

“Come in,” I call, not moving.

The door opens, closes. A familiar scent cuts through the cool air—pine and smoke and something uniquely, infuriatingly Corren.

He steps out onto the balcony, hands in the pockets of his hoodie. No suit, no alpha armor. Just a man, exhausted and trying not to show it.

“Riya said you were up here,” he says. “She also said if I let you obsess alone, she’ll revoke my medical clearance.”

“She doesn’t have the authority to do that,” I say.

“She thinks she does,” he replies. “That’s enough.”

He leans on the railing beside me, not quite touching. The silence between us is less awkward than it would have been a week ago. Shared attempted murder will do that.

“You feel it too,” I say finally.

“Yes,” he answers, no hesitation. “North. Like someone hooked a wire through the bond and is reeling it in slowly.”

I swallow. “Not just someone.”

He exhales. “Elira.”

The name sits between us, heavy but not as sharp as it used to be.

“And…someone else,” I say quietly. “There’s another weight there. Older. I can’t tell if it’s a person or just…residue.”

“Vaelis?” he suggests.

“Maybe. Maybe another anchor. Someone they used to stabilize the mess they made of us.”

He’s quiet for a moment. The city hums far below. Somewhere in the house, someone laughs, the sound faint and human and achingly normal.

“When the ritual hit in the elevator,” he says slowly, “I saw…flashes. Not just your face.” His hand tightens on the railing. “Elira. That much I expected. But there was another woman. Older. Different pack markings. She looked at me like she knew me and didn’t. Like she was standing on the wrong side of a mirror.”

A chill runs down my spine. “I felt her,” I say. “In the circle. Not just Elira’s panic. Something heavier. Like…grief turned into bone.”

“Whoever she is,” he says, “she’s tangled up in this with us. Whether she wants to be or not.”

We stand there, breathing in sync, three heartbeats thrumming along the same damaged line: his, mine, and that third, distant pulse.

“I hate this,” I admit. “That our bond isn’t just ours. That when I reach for you, I brush against…other people’s ghosts.”

He turns his head, studying my profile in the dim light. “Do you?”

“Yes.”

My voice comes out too quickly. I grimace. “I hate that they’re suffering. I hate that we’re all stuck in this knot. I hate that every time I think about choosing you, I have to ask myself who gets cut loose if we succeed.”

His jaw flexes. “You’re allowed to want something for yourself without apologizing to every other broken wolf in the system.”

“So are you,” I say. “How’s that working out?”

He huffs a laugh. It’s not a happy sound, but it’s real.

“We’re very bad at this,” he says. “At selfishness.”

“Occupational hazard,” I reply. Then, softer: “Maybe that’s why they picked us.”

His shoulders tense. “You think Vaelis chose us?”

“I think the Council brought him targets with a certain profile,” I say. “Wolves who would accept pain if told it was for the greater good. Alphas who’d sacrifice themselves for their packs. Potential lunas who’d swallow their own wants in exchange for a stable alliance.”

“Martyrs,” he says.

“Tools,” I correct. “We were easier to write over because they knew we’d try to make their script work.”

He’s silent, then: “Not anymore.”

“Not anymore,” I agree.

The bond between us tightens, not from outside pressure this time, but from inside—two wolves leaning in, not out. The wrongness is still there, but less jagged. The path between us feels…clearer. Like the failed attempt to cut it burned away some of the dead scar tissue.

“What do we do about the third thread?” I ask.

He’s quiet for a long moment. When he answers, his voice is low, careful.

“We don’t make the same mistake they did.”

“Meaning?”

“We don’t decide for her,” he says. “For Elira. For whoever else is tied up in this. We find them. We give them the truth. And then—if we can—we give them a choice. Even if it costs us.”

My throat tightens. “That might mean…”

“I know.” His hand shifts, brushing the back of mine on the railing. A small touch. It still sends a shiver through the bond. “I’m not saying I like it. I’m saying I’m done living in a world where people wake up one day to find someone else rewrote their fate.”

I stare at our almost-touching hands. At the faint white lines on his knuckles. At the city lights reflecting in the window glass.

“What if,” I say quietly, “their freedom means losing you?”

He doesn’t look away. “Then we lose each other honestly, not because someone carved us out of their equation.”

It hurts. Of course it hurts. My wolf snarls at the idea, teeth bared, hackles up.

But under the hurt, something else unfurls. Respect. Trust. The terrifying, exhilarating knowledge that if we choose each other after all of this, it’ll be with full sight, not blind instinct.

“I hate that answer,” I whisper.

“Me too,” he says.

His fingers turn, sliding between mine. The bond flares—warm, sharp, alive. For a moment, it feels almost right. Almost whole. There, beneath the tangle of stolen threads, is something that belongs only to us.

“But I also,” I admit, “kind of love it.”

He exhales, a shaky half-laugh. “Careful, Voss. Talk like that, and we might accidentally build something real out of this wreckage.”

Above us, somewhere in the tangled web of bonds stretching through forest and stone and steel, a faint, distant presence tugs once in answer.

Not a command.

A plea.