Chapter 2

Jaimen POV:

Three years.

It had been three years since the hospital. Three years since the silence settled over my life like a heavy, suffocating blanket.

I stood in my office, staring out the floor-to-ceiling windows at the sprawling territory of the Blood Moon Pack. It was raining again. It always seemed to rain when my mood darkened, my Alpha pheromones affecting the very atmosphere around us.

"Alpha?"

I turned. My Gamma, Marcus, stood at the door. He looked pale, sweating.

"What is it?" I snapped. My temper had been short lately. The pack walked on eggshells around me. They whispered that I was unstable, that the lack of a mate was driving me mad.

They were wrong. I didn't need a mate. Especially not a weak, pathetic Omega like Christeen.

"It's Timothy, sir," Marcus said, his voice trembling. "He... he collapsed during training."

A growl ripped from my throat. I pushed past Marcus, striding down the hallway. The walls seemed to close in on me.

Timothy was six now. He should have been shifting. He should have been showing signs of his Alpha heritage. Instead, he was frail. The infusion of essence three years ago had bought him time, but it hadn't fixed him. *Dr. Evans had retired shortly after the procedure, bought a private island, and vanished. The new head doctor, Dr. Aris, seemed perpetually confused by the boy's physiology.*

I entered his room. Ivanna was there, weeping loudly.

"Oh, Jaimen! My poor baby!" she wailed, rushing to clutch my arm. Her scent, usually heavy with rose perfume, was sour with fear. "He needs more essence. The doctor says his levels are critically low."

I looked at the boy. He was pale, shivering. *Around his neck sat a heavy obsidian amulet Ivanna insisted he wear for 'protection against evil spirits.' It smelled faintly of sulfur, masking the boy's natural scent entirely.*

"We don't have a donor," I said, my voice grinding like stones. "The last one..."

I stopped. The memory of Lily's small, lifeless hand flashed in my mind. I pushed it away. She was a runt. It was a necessary sacrifice.

"Christeen," Ivanna whispered. "She has the same blood markers as Lily did. If we find her... she could save him."

Christeen.

The name caused a phantom pain in my chest, right where the mate bond used to be. It was a dull, aching void that never went away. I told myself it was just the annoyance of an unfinished task.

"She ran away," I growled, pacing the room. "She severed the bond out of spite and fled to the Rogue lands. She's probably whoring herself out to some Rogue King by now."

"We have to find her, Jaimen," Ivanna pleaded. "Use the Mind-Link. Force her to answer. You are her Alpha. She cannot ignore a direct command forever."

I clenched my fists. I had tried. For three years, on sleepless nights, I had reached out into the mental void.

*Christeen.*

Nothing. Just static. A cold, empty silence that felt like standing on the edge of a grave.

"Gamma!" I barked.

Marcus appeared instantly.

"Send out the trackers. Expand the search radius to the neighboring territories. Put a bounty on her head. I want Christeen Hahn found. Alive."

"Yes, Alpha."

As they left, I stayed in the room. The air felt unnaturally cold. The hairs on the back of my neck stood up.

I spun around. "Who's there?"

The room was empty. But for a second, just a split second, I smelled something.

Wildflowers and rain. Christeen's scent.

But it was wrong. It didn't smell warm and alive. It smelled like frozen earth and ozone.

"You can't hide from me, Christeen," I whispered to the empty air, my voice dripping with a mix of hatred and desperation. "When I find you, I will make you pay for abandoning your pack."

The lights flickered. A cold draft swept through the sealed room, extinguishing the candles on the mantle.

I shivered. It felt like someone had just walked through my soul with icy feet.