Page 34

Maximus

Every territory marked on the map was now marred with thick strokes of black ink, serving as a monument to every failure. Nobody knew where she was. She wasn’t anywhere within the kingdom. Despite everything, my mate had slipped through my fingers. Vanished beyond my reach. Gone.

A violent crack rang through the air like a battle cry as a chair shattered against the wall.

First the chairs, then the tables. Each piece of furniture shattered under the force of my rage, leaving ornate woodwork reduced to broken remnants littering the floor.

Despite the wanton destruction, I couldn’t sate the anger inside me.

The severed bond was a relentless fire that burned within me. It should have faded. It should have dulled with time and distance. The cruel promise of a broken connection was that the pain would shrink into something bearable. Eventually.

But it hadn’t.

Months had passed since Kylie ran, and still, memories of her haunted me. Every thought, every memory, every whisper of her scent reignited the bond anew, tearing through me with fresh waves of agony. It was never truly gone. Never truly over.

No amount of destruction could drown out the ache of losing her.

It wasn’t like the other kingdoms would care if I asked them to search for her. They’d tell me to fuck off without a second thought, and I’d return the favor without hesitation. Kings never cared about anyone beyond their own borders. That was how things had been for centuries.

And I had no reason to believe that would ever change.

Not for me. Not for anyone.

I paced the length of my office, weaving through the wreckage I had caused, my gaze fixed on the map.

If not for the king’s command to search every house, I would have ordered them to go back—to scour the kingdom again, to leave nothing unchecked.

But the search had been thorough. Everyone sworn to me had felt the command ripple through the pack bonds.

This was a force they couldn’t resist. No one could lie to me, and no one could twist the truth to hide her.

However, she remained lost to me.

The heavy and unrelenting weight of it pressed down on my chest. Kylie was gone, and I had to face the possibility that I had lost her.

Bullshit. I can’t accept that.

She had to be somewhere. There had to be some overlooked corner or forgotten path. She couldn’t have vanished without a trace.

Escaping into another kingdom was nearly impossible. My borders were patrolled relentlessly, ensuring no one entered or left without my knowledge. No lycan could slip through unnoticed. If Kylie had somehow breached those barriers, I would know.

Someone would have seen her and reported it.

They had to. Right?

Unease curled in my chest, gnawing at the certainty I had once clung to. If no one had seen her, if no trace of her had surfaced…

Had I underestimated her? Had she outmaneuvered me?

Or was she somewhere I hadn’t even considered?

Eli’s presence settled into the room before his scent reached me—a sharp note of citrus, crisp and grounding. He bore the weight of the pack now, filling the space I had abandoned, holding things together while I unraveled.

He was the only one who dared to check on me anymore. The only one who wasn’t afraid to step into my orbit.

Amara wasn’t allowed near me for her own safety. Eli had made sure of that. I became more volatile the longer I was without my mate. Burning frustration boiled beneath my skin, threatening to spill over. I was unpredictable in my grief and rage, and he feared what I could do.

I would never hurt his mate, but he didn’t know that.

Nor did he care. It was his job to protect her, and he believed the safest thing for her was to keep her away from me. I couldn’t blame him.

“I like what you’ve done with the place.” His tone was deadpan, but I could sense his concern.

I turned to face him, and whatever smirk he had been wearing vanished instantly.

Days had slipped by in a blur since I’d last stepped outside this room. Time felt irrelevant—an empty thing measured only by the aching absence of Kylie. The only thread keeping me from unraveling completely was the hope, however thin, that I might still find her.

My lycan had taken control when food was brought in, overriding my neglect.

If left to my own devices, I would have let hunger go unnoticed, drowned beneath the weight of my grief.

She refused to let that happen, forcing me to eat when I otherwise wouldn’t, keeping my body moving while my mind remained trapped in its endless spiral.

“Not a single report has come back with a lead. How the hell did she vanish like this? The territory is locked down. We have guards stationed at every border, the alphas combing the land, and even hired men searching every corner. Unfortunately, we still have no trace, sign, or path. Honestly, sir, it’s as if she slipped through a crack that shouldn’t exist.”

“It’s strange. Actually, it’s damned near impossible that she managed to pull this off,” he murmured, stepping closer to the map, his eyes scanning the marked territories.

“Are we absolutely certain she didn’t have help?

Someone on the inside? An ally who smuggled her past the borders without leaving a trace? ”

Eli studied the map, his eyes tracing the marked territories as I turned his question over in my mind. We had asked it before—more than once—but that didn’t stop it from gnawing at me all over again.

Her former pack had given me nothing. When I visited them, they provided empty answers. It didn’t matter because they didn’t know anything that could help me anyway. Kylie would never return there. Even with her father gone, the place held too many ghosts, too many wounds that would never heal.

That was the same conclusion I had reached last time. The same dead end.

The only friend she had was here now. Amara had told me before—Kylie had never been close to the other packs. She had never confided in them, never trusted them.

So, where the hell had she gone?

“No. We went through this before and came up with nothing to help us figure out where she is. Somehow, my mate disappeared. Without the bond, I cannot track her. Her scent cut off just outside of town,” which still perplexed me.

Scents don’t just disappear. They linger in the air and the earth. Scents are unshakable unless deliberately erased. Crossing water could potentially break the trail and wash away any trace, but there wasn’t a river or lake for miles. There was nowhere for her to slip through unseen.

She could have used a scent blocker, but that would’ve required help—someone to apply it, someone to ensure it took effect. And she had been alone when she shifted, with no one beside her to mask her presence.

Yet somehow, she had disappeared.

Eli traced a path along the map, his finger gliding over the territory with purpose. I could see his thoughts forming, following the same trail I had once considered—the one I had run after Kylie vanished.

But then he hesitated. His finger stilled at the point where her scent had disappeared.

Instead of continuing as I had, he veered off—choosing a direction I hadn’t even considered.

One I had dismissed entirely because of the treacherous terrain.

A path I never thought Kylie would take.

Yet here Eli was, entertaining the possibility.

One Kylie couldn’t have possibly survived.

No one ever traveled up there. It was the farthest edge of the territory, a place so inhospitable that even an invasion from the east would never come through it. The jagged mountains and dense trees formed treacherous, rocky paths that would make any lycan struggle—too much grief, too much risk.

There was no water until the base of the mountain, no easy way to sustain oneself. While there was plenty of wildlife to hunt, surviving the journey just to reach them was another matter entirely.

It wasn’t an easy path. And Kylie—Kylie wasn’t strong enough to make it through that terrain alone.

“I think I know where she is, Max.”

Eli’s words sent a jolt through me and through my lycan. His ears twitched, and his tail wagged. I was thrilled to see this reaction; I hadn’t seen it in months. For the first time, there was a path forward. There was a course of action we could take. We had a heading.

I still felt frustration simmering beneath the surface. I had studied this map relentlessly and poured over every inch of it. I dissected every possible path, and Eli had found something I had missed in just five minutes.

That stung more than I wanted to admit.

“Where?”

His finger remained fixed on the map, pointing to the area beyond the territory—the land claimed by the rogues.

If Kylie had made it there, it meant she had traveled the very path I had dismissed, the one I had been so certain she wouldn’t take. Yet she had defied expectations, pushing herself through terrain that had broken stronger lycans before her.

A slow surge of pride swelled in my chest. If she had survived the hazardous forest, if she had made it through, then she was far stronger than anyone had ever given her credit for.

Stronger than even I had believed.

“If she’s there, getting her back won’t be simple,” Eli said.

“If she’s integrated into their pack, they’ll see any attempt to retrieve her as an invasion—a direct threat.

Marching in with our own forces won’t just provoke them.

It’ll guarantee resistance. And if she’s claimed a place among them, she may not even want to leave. ”

“We won’t be taking the pack there.” My voice was gruff as I tried to keep my lycan down.

He was ready to bolt. He wanted nothing more than to tear through the terrain and reach his mate.

We had uncovered the one place we had overlooked, and nothing could stop him now.

The urgency in him was palpable, and he was itching for action.

Every second I spent talking with Eli felt like wasted time to him. The delay was more than he could bear.

My beta needed to hear the plan, so we couldn’t move yet. We risked losing her all over again if we charged in blindly.

“Oh yeah? What’s the plan?” Eli asked.

“Tell the hired men to look for her there and report back if they find her,” I said. “Once we know she is there, then I will go in myself.”

“What? Why? It’s rogue territory. You are the king! They would love to take you down and claim the kingdom for themselves.”

I looked at my beta and sighed. He spoke the truth, but that wasn’t how I would get my mate back. Blood and death weren’t the way to show my mate I wanted her back and regretted what I had done.

“Because I must fight for her myself.”