Chapter 3 Echoes Under Skin

The rain hit Aurora’s face like a warning as she stepped out of the Elyndra tower, the Lunasanguine’s pulse still thrumming in her veins, a relentless echo of Jasper’s parting words: “I’m counting on it.” Her boots struck the wet pavement, each step a defiance against the relic’s whisper her name, spoken in a voice older than the city itself. The air carried his scent, copper and moonlight, lingering like a challenge she couldn’t shake.

She didn’t look back at the tower’s red glow, but she felt it felt him across the city, the relic binding their pulses like a chain she hadn’t agreed to wear. The Varex war-room waited, a sanctuary of strategy and steel, but it wouldn’t quiet the heat coiling low in her belly, the memory of Jasper’s yielding gaze sparking something dangerous, something she’d dominate before it consumed her.

Rain still burned on Aurora’s jacket when she stalked into the Varex war-room. The space hummed with generator light and the faint metallic scent of wolf pheromones. Maps sprawled across the table red lines marking enemy corridors, blue pins marking debts. The place always smelled like strategy and regret.

Kai Draven, her second, leaned against the edge of the table polishing a dagger with a grin that belonged to a younger, dumber century.

“Back from playing diplomat?” he asked.

“Barely,” she said, peeling off her gloves. “The relic’s real.”

That wiped the grin off his face. He straightened. “You touched it?”

She nodded once. “It touched back.”

“Hell,” Kai muttered, slipping the dagger into its sheath. “You planning to tell the elders or hide it like you hide everything else?”

“I’m still deciding which keeps us breathing.”

He studied her, scenting the faint static that now clung to her aura. “You smell like lightning.”

“Do I?” she asked, half-smile sharp. “Maybe the storm liked me.”

Kai dropped the subject he’d learned long ago when to stop poking the alpha.

Across the city, in Noctra’s mirrored sanctum, Jasper Azelle stood inside a circle of reflections that multiplied him into infinity. Celine Noir glided through the mirrored corridor with a grace that reminded him of knives.

“You walked into a room full of wolves and lived,” she said. “Impressive. Did you bring me a souvenir?”

“Only a story,” Jasper answered. “And a complication.”

“Female complication?”

He hesitated, which was enough.

Celine’s laughter was quiet and dangerous. “You let her touch it.”

“It called her name.”

“And you listened?”

“I always listen.”

She drew closer until her breath misted against his neck. “You were supposed to disarm the Varex alpha, not bond yourself to her.”

“I didn’t bond. The Lunasanguine did.”

Celine circled him once, the way a sculptor circles clay. “Do you even know what that relic wants?”

“Equilibrium.”

“Equilibrium kills faster than war.” She tapped the side of his face. “Be careful, Jasper. Listening is how humans fell in love with monsters.”

He met her gaze in the mirror. “Maybe the monsters were worth hearing.”

At the Varex compound, Aurora stood before the window of her quarters. The storm had broken, but rain still streaked the glass in thin silver veins. She tugged back her sleeve. A faint crimson sigil curved along her wrist delicate, pulsing with a rhythm not entirely her own.

She pressed a thumb against it. The pulse answered, slow and deliberate, like another heartbeat syncing with hers.

A knock. Lira Vex slipped in, half-fae, half-trouble, draped in shimmering grey.

“Your aura’s screaming,” Lira said. “The walls can feel it.”

“Then tell them to mind their business.”

“I would, but they gossip.” Lira’s smile softened. “What happened in that tower, Aurora?”

“Nothing I can explain.”

“Try anyway.”

Aurora turned, the moonlight catching the steel in her eyes. “A vampire brought the Lunasanguine. It woke up. It said my name.”

Lira’s wings quivered once. “Relics don’t say names unless they intend to keep them.”

“I don’t belong to anything,” she hissed.

“Maybe not anymore.” Lira’s tone was quiet now, almost kind. “But that mark says otherwise.”

Aurora tugged her sleeve down, hiding the glow. “Get out before I start biting friends.”

Lira obeyed, though her reflection lingered in the glass long after she was gone.

Jasper found himself wandering Noctra’s lower archive dust, parchment, and the faint hiss of forgotten spells. He followed the pull that thrummed behind his ribs until his hand landed on a locked chest. Inside lay a single etching: a disc divided between moonlight and blood. The script beneath had decayed, but two names remained carved in ghostly ink one smudged beyond reading, the other a single word: Moon.

He traced it with a gloved finger. A jolt ran up his arm. For an instant, he smelled rain and iron and wolf musk.

Somewhere across the city, Aurora flinched, feeling a whisper like fingers brushing her spine. She turned sharply, heart racing, but the balcony was empty. Only thunder answering thunder.

Later, in the Varex training yard, Kai sparred with her until sweat blurred vision and reason alike. When she pinned him, he grunted, “You’re fighting like someone’s in your head.”

“Maybe there is,” she said.

He wiped blood from his lip. “You sure you’re still yours?”

“Always,” she lied.

At dawn, Jasper stood on his balcony as the first sunlight dared the horizon. He held a goblet of thickened blood-wine but hadn’t tasted it. The Lunasanguine’s mark beneath his wrist glowed faintly alive, aware.

Marek Korrin leaned against the doorframe, horns glinting under the fading night. “You look haunted. Or lovesick. Same disease.”

“Neither,” Jasper said.

Marek smirked. “Then why’s your pulse singing like a wolf’s lullaby?”

Jasper didn’t answer.

Marek shrugged. “Suit yourself. Just remember: every relic has a hunger. If you don’t feed it what it wants, it eats what you love.”

When the demon left, Jasper finally tasted the wine. It was cold and coppery, nothing like the storm he still felt in his veins.

Back in her chamber, Aurora couldn’t sleep. The city was too quiet; the world too loud. She stepped onto her balcony, letting the wind whip through her dark hair. The moon hung low, a slice of red against the clouds.

Lira’s voice drifted from the doorway again, soft and teasing. “He’s thinking of you.”

Aurora didn’t turn. “Who?”

“The vampire. Connections like that cut both ways.”

Aurora’s jaw tightened. “Then tell him to stop before I track him down and remind him what wolves do to leeches.”

Lira chuckled. “Maybe he’d enjoy that.”

Aurora shot her a look sharp enough to end most conversations. Lira raised her hands in mock surrender and disappeared into the hall, laughter trailing behind her like perfume.

Left alone, Aurora exhaled and let her claws pierce the railing just enough to feel metal yield. The mark beneath her skin pulsed once, answering a heartbeat far away.

She whispered to the night, “Stay out of my head, Noctra.”

The wind replied with a whisper that sounded a lot like her name.