Chapter 88

AURORA

I couldn’t process what was happening. It was too much. The whiplash from the 24 hours I’d just had with Dane–maybe the best 24 hours of my life–and now this.

My knees gave out, and I would’ve fallen to the stone floor of the front porch if Evander wasn’t already holding on to me.

Then Evander was gone, snatched away by Dane, who threw him against the wall with a roar. “What happened? Where were you? You are supposed to protect them!”

Trajan was there in an instant. He didn’t get between Dane and Evander–he was smart enough to know that would be a death sentence. Instead, he put a hand on Dane’s shoulder and said, “Alpha, the children were with their nanny. Evander was sleeping, which, unfortunately, everyone has to do sometimes.”

Dane glared at Evander, but I could tell from the tilt of his head that he was listening to Trajan. Finally, he released Evander and stepped away.

He turned to Trajan. “When did it happen?”

Trajan’s report was efficient and detailed. “Evander discovered them missing when he went to see why things were so quiet in their room. Usually, Mrs. Jamison goes down to the kitchen to bring the children breakfast. Then they get Evander, and the four of them go outside and let the kids run out their energy until lunch.”

Evander, who was rubbing his shoulders where Dane had pinned him to the wall, said, “It was ten minutes past the time Mrs. Jamison usually comes to get me when I went looking for them. I thought she was having a late morning. Instead, they were all just gone. I tracked them outside, but their scent is everywhere here. I couldn’t follow it farther.”

“And your pack bond?” Dane asked.

“We don’t have one with Mrs. Jamison,” Trajan answered. “The children…they seem to be shielded, somehow.”

“Shielded?” Panic threaded through my veins. “Who would be able to do that? It would take a spell from a witch.”

“Or a wolf with strange powers,” Dane said. “There are a few, especially in the Appalachians. Magic can behave oddly in the mountains, sometimes.”

I was inches away from dissolving into a sobbing mess, but I had to hold on. A cool head got me through my marriage to Dane. It got me through the political machinations of my first few years in High Alpine. It could get me through this, if I could just stay calm.

I gripped my shaking hands together. To my shock, Dane noticed. He took them in both of his, then pulled me close.

“Dane, our children,” I whispered. “They’re barely more than babies…if anything happens to them…”

He held me as my walls cracked and tears streamed down my checks.

DANE

I held onto Aurora. Though we weren’t bonded, it was like I could feel her distress.

To have her in so much pain and to be able to do nothing about it made me feel like I was going insane.

But I could feel the dark undercurrent of the fear, as well.

My children were missing. My daughter. My son.

Their faces flashed through my mind, bright and smiling. The thought of what might be happening to them–of them experiencing fear or pain for only a moment–it made me feel like I was being slowly crushed.

I held her, but she was as much an anchor for me as I was for her. I whispered into her hair, “Don’t worry. I’ll find them. I swear it.”

EVELYN

I woke to chaos. When I called for my breakfast, no one brought it to me. Annoyed, I got out of bed and got dressed to go see what was happening. The pack bond was too full of chatter for me to understand any of it except that someone was missing.

I didn’t worry much about it. I wasn’t going to be put in charge of any search efforts.

I got dressed. I hadn’t seen Dane all day yesterday, but with his grandfather dying, I figured he just wanted his space. So I decided to leave him alone before I showed him my evidence.

I pulled out my phone to look at the picture again. Aurora fleeing Holden’s room, neither of them completely dressed.

Goddess, it was so perfect, I wanted to laugh.

I walked out into the hall and snagged the first wolf that ran by. She was a teen girl–the granddaughter of one of the pack elders. I knew her from some of the acting classes I taught some of the younger wolves from time to time when Dane was busy, and I was bored.

Sometimes, I thought I knew the members of his pack better than he did.

“Daisy,” I said, “What’s going on?”

“Oh, Ms. Barclay!” she said, “It’s terrible! Those little twins from the other pack are missing!”

Twins? Aurora’s twins?

Without meaning to, my grip on her arm tightened. “Were they alone?”

“No. Their nanny went missing with them.”

I swallowed and let her go. “Thank you, Daisy.”

She ran off, but I stayed where I was, rooted to the spot.

The twins were missing.

And they’d gone missing with my mother.

“I asked her to do something about Aurora,” I whispered to the empty hallway. “I didn’t mean this!”