Chapter 4 Kael's POV

The bed still smells like her.

Warm. Sweet. Forbidden.

Every time I drag in a breath, I taste her moans on the air and it makes my wolf snarl like he's losing something he never had the right to claim.

A loud knock echoes around the villa, and I open my eyes slowly. The sheet beside me is still slightly warm and crumpled with her form. I touch the indent where her body lay.

It's still soft and warm. A low growl slips out of me before I can stop it. She shouldn't be gone yet. Not without the sound of her breath still in my ear.

But Lyra is nowhere to be found. I know the villa is empty even before I take a look around.

The banging echoes again, and I grab a robe, sauntering out of the room.

Jake stiffens the moment the door opens. He smells it. Her scent on my skin, on the sheets.

His eyes widen a fraction before he forces them to the floor.

"Alpha Kael," my Beta calls, his eyes frantic. He looks like he just rolled out of bed, his hair sticking out in odd angles and his shoes mismatched.

"Are you fine?"

I angle my head, my Alpha instincts already rising to the surface. "What happened last night, Jake?"

Images of her hit me like fists-her nails in my shoulders, the way her breath caught every time I pushed deeper, the green flash of the medallion burning between us. Things I shouldn't remember this clearly.

He stops. "You felt it?"

"If I did, I wouldn't be asking you the damn question." Because I am connected to the earth as far as my pack is concerned, nothing goes on without my notice. But last night....it was different.

I felt disconnected, almost like a higher power had taken over.

It must be the reason I had no idea when Lyra took off.

Lyra.

Her name echoes like a sin I shouldn't repeat.

A girl whose face I never saw before last night yet my wolf is pacing like she's ours.

My Beta begins to say something, but he stops mid-sentence, tilting his head. His eyes scan the living room from the little crack in the door, and I pull it closer to me, stopping him from seeing any further.

One more inch and I would've ripped his throat out. No one looks into a room where I fucked a woman hard enough to shake my own control.

"Jake? You know I don't ask questions twice."

My feet move slightly, eager to get rid of my Beta. My wolf has been whining right from the moment I rolled out of bed.

Something isn't right. We need to find Lyra. I am sure it is connected to her.

"I...The...." He stammers, his fingers scratching the back of his ear.

"Jake!" I roar, my Alpha dominance pressing his gaze to the floor. "What the fuck happened?"

"The borders, Alpha Kael," he whimpers, unable to stop staring at the ground. "They have been breached and..."

My wolf lunges so fast my vision went black. It was not because of the breach.

But the exact moment he says it, something hollow opens in my chest like a bond being yanked, severed, pulled out by its roots.

"When?"

"Early this morning."

Shit. I felt nothing.

"Who?"

"We don't know at this moment, Alpha...."

"You don't know?" My tone drops into a low murmur, and I don't know who I am angry at. Myself or the incompetence of my Beta.

Leaving the door open, I walk back inside the living room and into the bedroom, ignoring the memories of last night. I throw my closet door open and pull out a casual black t-shirt and a matching slacks, before coming out.

Jake is still standing by the door, his eyes on the ground. I hate using my powers on him, but since last night, I have felt so much disgust for him that I cannot even explain.

"Have you conducted a census?" I ask as I close the door behind me, walking through the hallway outside. I hear Jake

follow closely behind, his wolf probably whining about the situation but unable to do a thing about it.

"We did one as soon as the breach was known."

"So it might have occurred last

night then." Last night, when I was in the arms of a total stranger, that made me do things I would ordinarily not do.

"The prints are fresh, Alpha Kael," he murmurs. At least, he sounds certain of his reply. "It rained last night, so it happened before dawn, the footprints would have been washed off already."

"Is there anyone missing from the pack?" I question, throwing my car door open. Jake tries to get in beside me. I stop him.

"Didn't you come with a car?"

"I thought..."

"Answer my questions and come in your car. Is there anyone missing from the pack?"

"No."

"Did we have any guests come in

from outside the borders yesterday?"

Something's wrong, certainly not with the borders but with me.

Last night, when she touched the medallion, my power cut out as if someone ripped the ground from under my feet.

"Yes, Alpha Kael," he replies, bowing so low that his head almost hits the car. "Members of Lunaris, as well as some other territories, were present for the wedding of your son and my daughter."

A wedding I let Aiden feel free to handle since he is in charge of the pack's politics. And for some reason, I fear that is the cause of the border breach. There was no way we would have been able to monitor who came in and out yesterday with the extent of the crowd that was present.

"Alpha Corvin?

My Beta nods. "He was around too, with his Luna."

I peer my gaze at Jake. "Alpha

Corvin was around, and he didn't tell me about it?"

"He didn't spend so much time here. I was..."

I zone out of the rest of his speech, trying to ascertain what exactly is going on. There are too many variables that need to be accounted for.

"Get into your car and follow me. Also, put a call to Aiden. Tell him to meet us at the border."

Jake rushes out to do my instructions while I move to the borders.

"The mind link isn't working," Aiden says as soon as he jumps out of the car. We arrive at the same time and walk side by side towards the demarcation.

"Something happened," I murmur, going low to inspect the ground. Jake was right. There are footsteps etched onto the earth, but they are uneven and irregular, almost like there were more than one person crossing through.

"An animal?"

I shake my head. They look human, one

small foot and the other, more dragged, as if someone or something intentionally pulled behind the prints to leave a distortion.

It might have been intentional.

Or not.

The scent is faint... but not gone. Not entirely.

It threads beneath the dirt and rain, a mix of sweetness and fear.

Her.

My chest pulls tight enough to bruise.

My mind goes back to Lyra, and a thought begins to form in my head.

I look up at my son.

"At the wedding yesterday, there was a girl serving drinks. Lyra. Do you know her?"

The way he says her name too casually with a current of disrespect. It irritates me.

I have no right to this feeling but I want to break his jaw for it anyway.

He takes a slow step back, his eyes

watching me warily. "She's Selene's friend," he murmurs. "But what has that got to do with this?"

"Selene's friend?" I can tell that he

is keeping something away. I have known Aiden all his life. It is easy for me to read through his walls.

But he doesn't answer me. Instead, hiseyes widen suddenly as they fall on my neck.

"Dad," he begins, panic creeping into his tone. "Where is the medallion?"

My hand flies to my neck instantly. All I could feel is a cols skin,, no chain, no medallion, nothing!

A violent chill crashes through me, not because she stole it but because the earth beneath us trembles, as if reacting to the relic's absence.

Aiden's face drains of color.

"Dad... she took it?"

A roar tears out of me, ripping through the trees because if the medallion awakened for her then Lyra isn't just a runaway Omega.

She's a threat and a prophecy.

A claim I never meant to make.

And now I cannot afford to lose her.