Chapter 162 ARE YOU ALPHA ALEX?

Chapter 162 ARE YOU ALPHA ALEX?
Mia had handed Sara to Alex, he wanted to see the face of his sweetheart, the face that the river almost took from him, thanks to the moon goddess.

He was still dripping. River water ran off his jacket and onto the white tile. He didn’t care. In his arms was a bundle of pink blankets and fury, the nurses had given replaced the wet blankets with dry ones, and in those blankets was Sara. Breathing and alive. What Alex would give up everything for. 

Mia was next to him. She wouldn’t let go of his sleeve. Her knuckles were white. Every few seconds her eyes flicked down to the baby, checking that she was still breathing, still warm, still real. 

The ER was loud. Nurses calling names. A baby crying somewhere down the hall. The smell of antiseptic and coffee. But to Alex it was all muffled, like he was underwater. 

“Alpha,” one of the nurses said, and stopped when she saw him. Saw the blood on his hands that wasn’t his. Saw the way he was holding Sara like the world would end if he did. 

“Room,” Alex said. It came out rough. “Now.”

They were moved fast. A private room, a pediatric team, machines that beeped. Sara was checked from head to toe yet again. Oxygen to help her lungs. Warm fluids to bring her temperature up. The doctor listened to her chest three times before he looked up. 

“She’s okay,” he said. “Hypothermic. Some water in the lungs. But she’s breathing on her own now. She’s a fighter.”

Mia made a sound. It was half sob, half laugh. She took Sara from Alex and held her to her chest. Her tiny fist opened and closed against Mia’s shirt. 

Alex watched them. His mate and his daughter. Safe. 

The guilt hit him anyway. 

He should have been faster. He should have seen the box. He should have been the one in the water. 

Mia must have felt it through the bond because she looked up at him. “Hey,” she said softly. “You got her out. You breathed for her.”

Alex nodded. But it wasn’t enough. 

“Who was it?” Mia asked the nurse. “The woman who pulled her out.”

“Jenna Hart,” the nurse said, checking a chart. “She’s in 3B. Hypothermia, but stable. They’re warming her up.”

Jenna. 

Alex rolled the name in his mouth. He didn’t know it. 

“We need to see her,” Mia said. She was already standing, Sara cradled against her. 

Alex followed. 

The hall to 3B was quiet. The chaos of the ER fell away and it was just the sound of their shoes and the monitors. Alex’s heart was beating too fast. Not from the fight. From this. From saying thank you to a stranger who’d risked herself for his blood. 

The human world was different from the wolves’. In the human world you did a good thing and went home to an empty apartment. In the wolf world you did a good thing and the pack came. And found you. And claimed you. 

He didn’t know what they’d find in 3B. 

The door was half open. 

Inside, a young woman was sitting up in bed. She had three blankets piled on her and an IV taped to the back of her hand. Her hair was dark and cut short, still damp at the ends. She was looking out the window at the dark sky, and when she heard the door she turned her head. 

Just as the door to Jenna’s ward opened and the young woman raised her head to look at her visitors, Mia’s eyes got so stuck on her that Alex had to say, “Mia. You’re scaring the young lady with your stare.”

Because Mia had stopped walking. 

She was frozen in the doorway, Sara in her arms, and she was staring at Jenna like she’d seen a ghost. 

Alex frowned. “Mia?”

Mia didn’t answer. She turned her head slowly, like she was moving through water, and looked straight at Alex. Her eyes were wide. Glassy. Her mouth opened but nothing came out. 

There was something wrong in her face. Something recognition, and shock, and fear all at once. 

“Mia,” Alex said again, quieter. “What is it?”

And then Mia asked it. 

The question that had been clawing at her the second she saw Jenna’s face. The question that didn’t make sense and did at the same time. 

“Why do you two look so much alike?”

The words dropped into the room and stayed there. 

Alex blinked. He looked at Jenna. Then back at Mia. Then at Jenna again. 

He hadn’t really looked at her before. He’d been too busy with Sara, with the thank you, with the guilt. 

Now he looked. 

The same sharp line of the jaw. 
The same grey eyes. Not brown, not blue. Grey, like storm clouds. 
The same shape to the mouth. 
The same dark hair, though hers was shorter, messy around her ears like she’d cut it herself. 

It wasn’t “you have the same nose” alike. 
It was blood alike. 
It was family alike. 

Alex felt cold. 

Jenna had gone very still in the bed. Her eyes were darting between Alex and Mia, and her hand had tightened on the blanket. 

“I’m sorry,” Jenna said quickly. “I didn’t mean to— did I do something wrong?”

“No,” Mia said. Her voice was barely a whisper. “No, you didn’t.”

Alex stepped into the room. His boots were still wet and they squeaked on the floor. He came to stand at the foot of the bed, and now that he was closer the resemblance was worse. It was like looking at a photo of himself at twenty-four, if he’d had a different life. 

The room was silent except for the beep of the monitor and Sara’s soft breathing. 

Jenna swallowed. She looked at Alex’s face. At his shoulders. At the way he stood. 

And then, with her voice quiet and shaking, she asked the question that would change everything.

"Are you Alpha Alex?"