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Adrien hadn’t a clue what to say. “That’s…”
“Goddess-damn mad, I know.” Sebastian let out a hard breath, that cocky, aloof persona vanishing entirely and now replaced by something rawer, more broken. “I’ve…been down this path before, years ago, and I eventually agreed with everyone that I was probably in some heavy denial that my mom was just fuckinggone.” A crack slipped into his voice. “And I know it's been a near-decade since, which is why I haven’t mentioned it to Isla or my father. But.” He paused and met Adrien’s eyes. “Do you remember when we were at the docks in Abalys that night we were at that tavern? When we found Daisy passed out in the alley.”
How could he forget? A homicidal witch had enchanted the woman who’d spent the night flirting and dancing with him.
At Adrien’s nod, Sebastian continued, “I scented something near us. Somethingfamiliarto me. I couldn’t figure out why or where I remembered it from, I just followed it, but then it clicked that night while I was lying in bed. It was the same scent that lingered in my room after she tucked me into bed as a kid, read me all those stories, and swore she’d protect me from monsters.” His lip curled, and Adrien swore he could hear his friend’s heart fissuring. “It was my mother, Adrien. Goddess, Fate, Eternity, the whole divine unit as my witness. It was her.” He shook his head, his jaw tensing. “They never found her body.”
A glimmer of hope in the macabre fact.
Adrien blinked, letting his friend’s words wheel around in his head, tossing them until they made sense.
Apolla being alive would be a miracle. It was…impossible. He remembered well Sebastian’s spiral when they’d been fourteen, wanting to voyage the southern territories where she’d last been seen. They’d almost done it, too; almost escaped…as they tended to now.
“But your parents’ bond—”
“Even fated bonds can fracture; we know that now,” he said. “My parents chose each other. If she ended up hurt enough to the point where she can’t get to her wolf anymore, then my father could’ve felt it like a broken bond.”
His tone was a cacophony of despair and hope.
Adrien answered tightly, carefully. Slowly. “That would mean she’s been in the southern territories all this time. You think she would abandon your father? Abandon you and Isla?”
“No.”
The ferocity behind the answer nearly stuttered Adrien’s steps. He shouldn’t have even suggested it. Apolla loved her family, loved her children more than anything, it seemed. She hadn’t even wanted to go on that mission his father had sent her on.
And there Cassius wasagain.
Guilt gnawed at Adrien’s gut.
“I just…” Sebastian clenched and unclenched his fists. “I don’t know what to do, but I can’t ignore this. I need to be sure, so I’m going to find her.”
“How?” It was a genuine, earnest question.
Adrien would try to help in any way he could, and Sebastian seemed to sense that with the slightest lift of the corner of his lips. “To start, I’ve been in Abalys nearly every night for the past couple of weeks. Which is where I crossed paths with a certain warrior general, turned spymaster, turned potential beta.”
Adrien’s brows lifted.Ameeraas Kai’s new beta? Interesting, considering what he’d heard about where her father was.
“What do you get when two people trying to escape their baggage run into each other at a bar?” Sebastian mused vaguely.
Adrien breathed a laugh. “An attempt at distraction.”
He knew the punchline all too well. Only for he and Raana, it hadn’t been a bar but an inn with only one bed to spare. Then, a Pack Hall…
His stomach pitted, and he couldn’t pinpoint a single one of his emotions. It was just too much. Too much pain, betrayal, then a small relief she’d escaped his father, but worst of all…longing.
Adrien cleared his throat, wanting to change the subject. “You’re sure you don’t want to tell Isla what you’re thinking?”
“She’ll think I’m nuts,” Sebastian said. “And it took her so long to adjust to Mom not being there. No point in reopening a wound until I’m certain of it.”
Ta-dum ta-dum ta-dum.
Like an echo in his ears, Adrien picked up a heartbeat that drummed over his, felt it in the shadow pulsing against his neck. It writhed against him. Tried to…push him. Turn him.
Ta-dum-ta-dum-ta-dum
Adrien stopped short, whirling around, his instinct rising to the surface as he felt a pull at something inside him. His eyes furiously scanned the crowd, sorting through the ocean of pack members. Searching,searching…
Ta-dum-ta-dum—
