KIERAN’S POV
My office had never felt so small, so suffocating, so goddamned far from where I needed to be.
The mont my phone vibrated with the encrypted alert from my field unit, my lungs cinched tight. I read the ssage once. Twice. The damning words didn’t change.
’Target lost. Trail severed after entering restricted forest periter.’
“What do you an you lost her?” I snapped into the comm.
Static cracked. “Alpha, we followed her as instructed. She crossed the main trail behind the Institute, entered the mountain forest, and then...everything cut out. The periter is shielded. We can’t get drones in. No visuals. No scent trail beyond the first ridge. We’re still scanning—”
“Not good enough!” I bit out. “Expand the radius. Sweep the valley. If you have to tear the mountain apart stone by stone—”
“Alpha—”
“FIND. HER.”
I ended the call and hurled the encrypted comm tablet against the wall.
The reinforced casing split with a sharp crack, but refused to break. Unlike my composure, which had already shattered beyond repair.
Of course, the goddamned New Moon Institute would hide behind protected zones. But shielded terrain? A place so secretive that even my best trackers lost her trail?
My jaw ached from how hard I ground my teeth.
Even when Sera crossed paths with human hunters in Seattle, I hadn’t panicked like this. Back then, I’d had eyes on her as she spectacularly handed their asses to them.
I’d known exactly where she was, exactly how many steps it would take to reach her if she needed .
But this?
This was blindness. This was silence. This was a fucking void where my mate should have been.
And it was unraveling in ways I didn’t know I could unravel.
My worst fear coiled low and cold: Sothing happened to her.
Sothing happened, and I wasn’t there and—
The soft knock on my door almost demolished .
“What?” I barked.
Daniel peeked in, and the knot of anxiety in my chest loosened a fraction. His pajama shirt was crooked, his hair rumpled, and there was a sheen of sweat on his forehead. His little fists were balled so tightly his knuckles were pale.
“Daddy?” His voice was small, and alarm bells rang in my head. He hadn’t called ‘Daddy’ since he was four years old.
“I...I had a nightmare.”
My entire chest split wide.
I pushed away from my desk and opened my arms. “Co here, bud.”
He rushed into my embrace. I gathered him onto my lap, arms circling him tight. He shivered in my hold, despite the warmth radiating from him.
It was monts like these that reminded he was just a little baby.
“I saw Mom,” he whispered into my shirt. “She was sowhere strange. Dark. And she looked...hurt. I tried calling her na, but she didn’t hear .” His voice trembled. “I-I think sothing’s wrong. We have to go save her.”
Ashar surged awake within , restless and wild, his claws scraping desperation into every inch of my being.
I wish I could reassure my son that it was just a dream, just a manifestation of his concern for his mother.
But that would be a bald-faced lie.
Daniel’s words were an ice-cold confirmation. He’d always been uncannily clairvoyant, and now he had a nightmare just hours before Sera’s trail went cold?
I didn’t believe in coincidences.
I stroked his hair and pressed my cheek to his temple, unable to tell where my trembling ended, and his began.
“Hey. Look at .” Years of Alpha training made my voice steady despite the wild rush of panic flooding my veins.
He lifted his head, eyes glossy with fear—the sa fear I fought to keep from swallowing whole.
“I will find her,” I promised.
I’d sworn to Sera I’d never leave Daniel’s side, but that promise felt hollow now, crumbling under the weight of new developnts.
Was I overreacting?
Gods, I hoped so. I would rather she were safe and was livid at for coming after her like a restless dog than...
Fuck, I didn’t want to entertain any alternative.
“We should go together,” Daniel said.
“No.” I shook my head, my firm tone leaving no room for argunt.
His lower lip quivered, and my throat tightened.
“I know you want to help your mom, bud, but the best thing you can do for her is stay here.”
“But—”
“No buts. You stay with Grandma and Grandpa. You stay safe and sound and wait for to bring your mom back.”
Daniel’s chin wobbled. His hand—so impossibly small—slipped into mine and squeezed. “You promise you’ll bring her ho?”
My chest clenched so hard I could barely breathe. “I swear to you, I swear on my life—I will bring Sera ho safe.”
He nodded, fear still flickering in his eyes, but he buried his face in my chest and his trembling eased. He trusted , and that trust was a weight I bore with every beat of my heart.
And I would keep that promise with my last breath.
Sera was sowhere I couldn’t reach. Sowhere shielded. Sowhere tied to that institute and the secrets buried for too long.
But I would bring her back.
Even if it ant tearing the mountain apart stone by stone.
LUCIAN’S POV
“The moon has lowered behind the oldest tree.”
I exhaled slowly, leaning back in my chair as pride rippled through . “She found it.”
“Yes,” my informant murmured over the line. “She reached the gatekeeper. She gained access.”
“Good,” I murmured. “Keep your distance. Report everything, but do not interfere. Elias won’t tolerate shadows near his periter.”
“I know,” the informant replied. “She was allowed to approach. Whether she enters is another matter.”
A faint smile ghosted across my lips. “She will.”
I had known from the mont Sera added the New Moon Institute to her itinerary that her search in the Hall of mories would lead her to the Origins Archives.
I knew she would pass whatever test was placed before her to gain entry.
Zara once dread of walking the sa path. She had hoped the Archives held the answers to the strange strength in her bloodline, to the whispers of power we never understood.
She had spent years preparing.
But she never made it.
That thought burned, scorching through old scars.
A breeze stirred outside my window, rattling the panes. I rested my forehead against the glass.
“Sera,” I murmured. “You stubborn, brilliant woman.”
My spy cleared his throat softly, bringing back to the conversation. “You want to go, don’t you?”
A humorless smile curved my lips. “Want has nothing to do with it.”
Sera was entering a place that changed people. A place that demanded sothing of the soul in return for its secrets.
My chest tightened—not with fear, but with the fierce certainty that had anchored itself inside the mont I first realized what she truly was.
I had no doubt that she would co out alive. I had no doubt that she would co out changed.
And when she did...
She would need soone at her side.
Soone who understood the magnitude of who she was and the power she carried.
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