CHAPTER <b>18 </b>


    <b>ALPHA </b><b>ELIAS</b><b>‘ </b><b>POV </b>


    Luke walked over, arms crossed, eyes narrowed. “Well, whoever did it had a hell of a lot of guts. This ce is crawling with warriors. Ever since Lenore was on the loose, we’ve had double the guards patrolling the grounds.”


    “They used that as a distraction,” I said bitterly, staring out into the darkness beyond the window. “We were so focused on finding Lenore, so desperate <i>to </i>stop her, we let our guard


    down when it came to Lyra. I let my guard down. You told me she didn’t even bother masking her scent when she left my house. She <i>wanted </i>us to catch her. She wanted all the attention


    on her… so someone else coulde in here and take my mate.”


    The woods loomed just beyond the edge of the hospital property, clearly visible from the window. There was nothing blocking the path. No walls, no barriers. It would have been incredibly easy for someone to slip in, grab her, and vanish into the trees–especially if they knew what they were doing.


    And Thorne? He definitely knew what he was doing. He’d had sixteen years to prepare for


    this.


    We hadn’t mated yet. We hadn’t marked each other. She wasn’t officially a member of my


    pack. She hadn’t taken the oath. Which meant I couldn’t feel anything through the bond. No


    pain. No fear. Not even a flicker of her presence. The mate bond, as it stood, was still


    one–sided. And I couldn’t use it to track her.


    It wasn’t the first time it had felt like this. After her surgery, when she was knocked out and


    pumped full of sedatives, I’d felt this emptiness too. But this was different. This was far more


    terrifying.


    It didn’t help me now. I had nothing. No direction. No scent to follow. No pain to guide me.


    Desperate, I shoved open the window and leapt outside into the night. My feet hit the ground


    and I started scanning the area immediately, sniffing the air, searching for any sign of her scent–but it was gone. Completely wiped.


    I stood there stunned. There was no scent trail. Nothing at all. That wasn’t natural. That was magic. Witchcraft. The only way topletely erase a scent like that was to use spells–and witches were ouwed. Werewolves weren’t even supposed to associate with them. The council had banned any interaction long ago because of how dangerous they were.


    < CHAPTER 18


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    But clearly, someone had broken those rules. And if witches were involved, then this had just gotten a hell of a lot moreplicated.


    I set my jaw and started walking toward the woods, relying on nothing but instinct now. If


    there was even the smallest clue–broken branches, footprints, scraps of fabric–I would find <ol><li>it. </li></ol>


    Luke followed right behind me, silent but present. Thankfully, we’d trained for this. We were


    both expert trackers, and our warriors were trained the same. If it came to it, I could call in


    the entire pack to search every inch of these woods. But right now, it was just me and Luke,


    moving steadily forward in a straight line, scanning for anything at all that might lead us to


    my missing mate.


    She had only been missing for around twenty minutes, not even half an hour, and yet it


    already felt like my entire world was caving in on itself. My chest ached like something vital


    had been torn out of me, and my heart felt like it was being shredded into pieces with every


    second that passed without her. It was unbearable, the suffocating sense of loss. I felt like I


    was already unraveling, like my sanity was slipping away one heartbeat at a time. I needed to


    know where she was–desperately. I needed to know that she was safe and unharmed. I


    needed to hold her in my arms again, to feel her warmth and know she was real. The urge


    was stronger than ever before, more intense than when she hadn’t been ready for me. Now I


    didn’t just want her–I <i>needed </i>her, in a way that was agonizing.


    Luke, walking beside me through the trees, didn’t have to say a single word to let me know he


    understood. He could read the panic on my face and the desperation in my steps. He knew


    exactly how worried I was, and though he kept silent, he was tracking just as fiercely, just as relentlessly. He understood that this wasn’t just about duty or responsibility anymore. It


    wasn’t about Lyra’s bloodline or the possibility of royal ties. This was about something much


    deeper–because she was my mate. And losing her now, right after fate finally brought her to


    me, would destroy me from the inside out.


    And I swear to the Moon Goddess herself, I was going to kill the bastard who took her from me. That much was absolute. No mercy. No hesitation. My fury was simmering just beneath the surface, ready to explode. I don’t think Luke had ever seen me this on edge before. Not even close. And considering we’d known each other since we were five years old, that said a lot. We had literally grown up together. We’d survived being beaten and broken by our fathers together. But even those memories–those painful, scarring moments–couldn’tpare to the sheer devastation I was feeling right now. This was different. This was personal.


    < CHAPTER 18


    More Rewards


    After a while, Luke widened the space between us just a little, spreading out to my left. I


    could still see him clearly through the trees, but now we were covering more ground between


    the two of us. The search was methodical, focused, but the anxiety eating away at me made


    it feel painfully slow.


    A bitter part of me started to question if I had acted too rashly by killing Lenore so quickly.


    Maybe she had known something more–some tiny detail that could have helped me. But


    then I reminded myself that Thorne never would’ve trusted her with critical information. She


    had been more than happy just to do his bidding and help him get Lyra out of the picture. She


    wouldn’t have asked any questions. Not after he told her to eliminate Lyra. She wouldn’t have


    needed to know the n–just the kill order.


    The longer we keptbing through the woods, the more help we started to receive.


    Warriors arrived in waves, forming a long, staggered line along the edge of the forest so that


    we could scan a muchrger area more efficiently. No one knew which direction they’d gone.


    Once they’d reached the woods, they could’ve veered off anywhere–north, east, deep into the


    heart of the territory. It was pitch ck, and the darkness certainly wasn’t making things


    easier for us. If it wasn’t for werewolf night vision, we’d be blind out here. That was the only


    advantage we had right now–our enhanced senses.


    Two hours passed. Two full hours of nonstop searching. And still, not a single clue. Not even


    a broken twig or a dropped item. I could tell that the longer this went on, the more doubt began to creep into the minds of the warriors around me. Some were beginning to believe that we wouldn’t find anything–that we’d hit a dead end. But I refused to ept that. I turned


    to them, voice like steel, and told them straight: they could leave if they wanted. No hard feelings. But I wasn’t going anywhere. I would search these woods until my legs gave out,


    until I had no voice left to call her name. I wasn’t stopping. I wasn’t returning home without


    Lyra.


    At one point, I finally stopped and pressed my palm against a tree, taking in the scene around me. Ahead of me, behind me, and all around was dense forest. Endless trees, thick underbrush, and silence. This entire region was vast and wild, riddled with caves and hidden ces to conceal someone. I had everyone searching every possible location–nothing was too small or insignificant to be checked. I wasn’t taking chances. No crevice would be left


    unexplored. Not on my watch.


    I could see the exhaustion in the movements of my warriors and in those from Alpha ric’s pack who had joined us. They were getting tired–some dragging their feet slightly, their breathingbored–but not one of themined. No one said a word about stopping. No


    < CHAPTER 18


    More Rewards <b>> </b>


    one asked to leave or return to their duties. They all kept moving, silently determined to stay


    out here with me, sharing my mission, my desperation.


    Then, as a faint golden glow began to spread through the canopy above us, I realized the sun was rising. Hours had passed. I had lost track of timepletely. I hadn’t slept, hadn’t eaten, hadn’t thought of anything except Lyra. I turned to the others and told them again: they could go if they wanted. They’d given me their all. But when they saw that I wasn’t budging, that I had no intention of retreating, none of them moved either. They stayed.


    “Alpha.” A voice suddenly reached into my mind through the pack link.


    “Yeah,” I responded immediately, halting mid–step, eyes scanning the area, trying to pinpoint who had reached out. But they were too far for me to see them through the trees.


    “North side of the territory,” the warrior said, his voice focused.


    My heart jumped. “What did you find?” I asked sharply, adrenaline spiking again.


    “Luna Lyra,” he replied.


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    < CHAPTER 19