AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Sir,” Corbi glared at him, “is Hunter Thorn really worth all of this?”
“All of this,” he replied, “and more. Aren’t you the one who tried to tell me his feelings for me were real in the beginning?”
“Feelings don’t always overturn survival instincts,” Corbi stated. “He could love you and still turn his back on you. You’ve been different ever since he arrived, and now we’ve gone to war for him—”
“We were always going to end up here,” he corrected, not liking how she was trying to pin all of this on Hunter when they both knew the truth. “You wouldn’t stand back if Frost stole the most important person in your life. Neither will I.”
“You’re the most important person to me, sir,” she told him. “And right now, you’re putting everything at risk.”
“Are you questioning me now? Overstep. I’m in no mood for you to make another. You’ve been warned, Corbi.”
She opened her mouth to argue further, then seemed to think better of it. “Of course. I’m merely concerned. Forgive me.”
Odin took a lengthy look around at the carnage. He’d let them loose on the Brumal they’d found, ordering them to hold nothing back, but Corbi was right about one thing. These were all lower-level Frost soldiers. If Hunter had been kidnapped, there was no way Isa would trust grunts to watch over him. Still, there was no doubt the bracelet’s last location had been in this area…
“We need a way to narrow down the search,” Loni was the one to say it, stepping to the side to avoid being slammed into by a stumbling body as one of theirs tossed him over a table. “This isn’t going to work as is.”
Odin needed to set aside his fear and think.
“What if this is exactly what Isa wanted, but not in the way Corbi meant?” Loni suggested then, and both he and her sister frowned, silently urging her to continue. “What if he wanted us to question Hunter’s loyalties and argue about it amongst ourselves? What if he hoped to shake your resolve and make you abandon him?” this last part she directed to Odin.
“Isa kidnapped Meg and tried to kill her.” How she’d escaped that fate was beyond Odin, but that was a question for another day. “Why would she work with him?”
“It’s the only thing that makes sense to me. The only person on the planet Hunter would have followed other than you is her. She leads him out without a fight, ensuring he’s captured on camera going, and they disappear shortly after? It’s the perfect plan. And it’s working, because here we are wasting time trying to decide whether or not Hunter is a traitor when in the end, does that even matter?”
“How can it not?” Corbi asked.
“We have to find him first to know either way,” Loni said. “Think about it. He knows too much. Even if he did betray us, he can’t be allowed to stay with Isa. And if he didn’t and he’s been kidnapped? We have to save him.”
“Because?”
“He’s one of us.”
Odin never thought there’d come a day when he’d wish Dominus had something akin to a Royal Consort, the official title given to the lover of an Emperor. There wasn’t anything like that for them though, the only claims he could make were admitting that Hunter was a Whisper and they were mated, or calling him his boyfriend. Neither sounded right, and everyone here already knew that Hunter was his no matter what fancy title had been tacked onto his name.
But Royal Consort came with benefits, legal ones, and with them, Odin would have been able to call on the Emperor for aid.
He swore that once this was done and he got Hunter back, that was the first matter of business they were going to tackle. Even though Sanctum was ruled by the Brumal, with the Imperial family mere figureheads, as Altz had put it, that didn’t mean they could always avoid red tape entirely.
Right now if he tried to ask the Emperor for help, he’d no doubt be told this was a Brumal issue. But if Hunter had a legally recognizable title, Altz wouldn’t have any reason not to help, and while there was little chance the government had better technology than Odin and his people did, even that sliver of possibility would be worth looking into.
Odin ran a hand through his hair in frustration. A mated Whisper would be recognized to some degree at least, but he couldn’t tell—
He froze.
It’d been so long since there’d been a mated pair, he wasn’t very familiar with all the ins and outs that came with it. But there’d been something about a bond he’d once heard his father talking about, a connection that linked a Shout and their Whisper, one that could only be felt by the two of them.
He hadn’t thought of it earlier because as far as he knew, it wasn’t real. When he thought about Hunter he felt a lot of things, sure, but a phantom string tying them together wasn’t one of them.
What if their bond simply wasn’t strong enough for them to feel it? Or, what if he wasn’t strong enough?
The connection between a Shout and Whisper needed to be built upon and strengthened over time. He’d been doing that with Hunter, but there had been bumps. A part of Hunter still didn’t want to give in to him, to them. Odin had been aware but figured there was plenty of time to convince him otherwise. It’d been hard for him to come to the realization that he wanted Hunter Thorn, after all, so he couldn’t expect it to be an easy journey for Hunter either. They’d both spent too many years hating and blaming one another for all of that resentment and mistrust to be causally cast aside in favor of lust and renewed affection.
They’d agreed on a fresh start, and he refused to believe that Hunter wasn’t every bit as invested in that as he was. Which meant he was missing because he was being held somewhere, and Odin wouldn’t allow anyone to tell him otherwise.
He should have asked Hunter more questions about how mated pairs worked before. Hunter had done the research, much more than Odin had bothered doing, and would most likely be able to explain whether or not this connection was real and how Odin could access it. As a Whisper, he’d needed to learn that information for survival, for Odin, being a Shout meant he was fine without. He’d never believed he’d ever encounter a Whisper in his lifetime anyway.
Hunter had come completely out of nowhere and Odin was now wholly unprepared.
