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My mind races with possibilities, each worse than the last.
“Nico! Lucy!” I call out, and they rush to my side, detecting the urgency in my voice.
“What is it, boss?”
“Where is she?”
I don’t have to say who. The two of them exchange a startled look.
“We thought she was still sleeping in your room,” Nico says with a confused frown.
“Well, she’s not,” I growl. “Find her.”
My order lingers in the air as I push past them, and I reach out telepathically to Mark and Amara.
‘Come back. Now. My mate is missing.’
I can feel their concern echoing back to me as they sense my own distress, but I push past it. I need to focus. I need to find her.
From then on, everything happens quickly, almost on autopilot, as a pure and protective instinct takes over.
Lucy reaches out to other members of the pack, organizing a search party with a sort of speed and efficiency that shouldn’t be humanly possible. Nico is searching the woods fast as an arrow flying through the air.
My Beta and his mate are running back to the villa at this very moment, searching the surrounding territories as they circle in around the border.
I catch her scent on the ground floor and follow it to the cobbled path out back.
Shit.
I follow it down to the lake, where her trail vanishes as if she disappeared into thin air. I wade out into the bank, eyes scanning the dark surface, but there’s no sight of her. I trudge in deeper until the water is up to my waist, calling out into the blackness.
No answer.
I don’t know how much time passes, with my pack scattered in the wind in search of my mate while I look for her in the lake. Eventually, Nico skids to a halt by the edge of the water, his reddish fur rising and falling steadily as he pants.
“Where is she?” I ask, walking back to meet him on the shore.
‘We’ve searched everywhere,’ he answers through the mind link. ‘Mark and Amara are patrolling the borders, but there’s no trace of her scent. Lucy is in the village with other pack members, and even Sophie is out looking in the woods. No visions yet, but we’re hoping she’ll be able to sense the girl.’
“I don’t understand. She wasn’t feeling well. This morning she could barely stand, and I left her sleeping in my own bed. Where could she have gone?”
‘That’s just it; she couldn’t have made it far on her own, especially not without leaving a trail. We’re searching across the territory, but there’s no trace of her. If she were still in the kingdom, I’d be able to track her.’
I clench my fists in frustration. Did she leave of her own accord? Did someone help her? Or was she taken by someone? Or something?
‘It doesn’t make sense,’ Nico thinks to me, his ears twitching anxiously. ‘How could she have gotten out of the kingdom without someone noticing?’
“She didn’t go anywhere,” I growl at him, harsher than I intended. “She had no reason to escape. She wasn’t a prisoner here.”
You’re not my enemy, Tristan Lyall. I will never run away from you, my king.
Her voice echoes in the back of my head, solidifying something inside my chest.
“She promised,” I whisper, and my voice cracks under my breath.
‘Okay. So what happened? Do you think someone kidnapped her?’ Nico asks, and my blood boils and the thought.
Any feeling of betrayal or hurt is quickly overridden by a wave of fury.
