Chapter 62

Kingston

I hadn’t even realized how long I’d been driving. States blurred together, towns passed in a haze, the rhythm of tires against pavement the only sound that kept me grounded.

The GPS had stopped being useful hours ago. I’d turned it off, ignoring the polite voice telling me to make U-turns or reroute. None of it mattered. I wasn’t following logic anymore.

I was following instinct.

It started as a whisper in my chest. It had been faint, easily dismissed. But with every mile, it had grown louder, tugging at something deep inside me that no map or tracker could trace.

It felt like the same inner authoritative pull of my wolf, but there were no words involved. It was like a physical presence inside of me was tugging me along, telling me where to turn.

The same pull that had made my heart sink the moment I stood in front of Cora’s burned apartment. The same pull that told me, without a doubt, she was still alive.

Was this instinct? It felt like something deeper and more tangible than that…

I thought of Cora every minute of my seemingly endless drive. I couldn’t get her and what she had done out of my head.

She’d faked her death.

At first, I didn’t want to believe it. The fire, the wreckage, and the charred remains they found.

Everyone accepted the report. A few had even sent me messages of condolences. Even Rock had thought I was crazy for setting out like this.

Everyone believed she was dead, burned alive.

Everyone except me.

Because Riley hadn’t been found. And there was no universe in which Cora would have gone anywhere without her son.

She had vanished, and now I knew why. To protect him. To protect me.

And that was the part that cut deepest.

Hours after being on the road, Ethan had sent me the updated report on the body found at the scene.

It had been Zach.

Relief and fear swelled in me at once. I was grateful my assumption had been correct, of course, but I knew that Cora would be feeling sick with guilt. And I was not close enough to comfort her.

I gripped the steering wheel tighter, my knuckles white. The sun dipped low over the horizon, casting the sky in gold and crimson streaks. If I closed my eyes, I could see her smile in that same light. Feel the warmth of her curled beside me, the way she used to bury her face in my chest like I was something safe.

Now she was running from me, from the Silverfang pack, from a life we’d barely begun to build.

Rock had offered to come with me. He even tried to talk me out of this madness. But how could I explain to him what this was?

It wasn’t logical. It wasn’t a strategy. It was soul-deep certainty. It was the ache of a bond that hadn’t been severed, because there had been no true death to part us.

Ethan had spent deploying every resource we had: private investigators, favors from contacts in neighboring packs, even human networks that owed me.

Nothing. Not a single lead. No hotel check-ins under her name, no credit card activity. She’d covered her tracks well. Too well.

And then… I stopped trying to think like her.

I started trying to feel.

I drove on, ignoring the surveillance reports Ethan had sent and the cold, hard data. And I closed my eyes, steadied my breathing, and reached for that tether that had always been there, thin as a thread, strong as steel.

“Is she…” I began to ask, but my throat felt tight, like I couldn’t quite put the words to it.

Fortunately, my inner wolf understood without the need to clarify.

Yes, it responded. She is.

My blood went cold at the confirmation. But perhaps I had always known, deep down. I think a part of me always assumed, at least, that it was likely, even in the face of her dismissal and denials.

Cora.

Mate.

That’s what it was. This mating bond was an instinct driving me forward, this insatiable pull.

It came to me like a heartbeat. Like a promise.

She and I, our two wolves, were destined to be together. We were fated and undeniably tied.

I couldn’t believe I had wasted time with Daisy and that I had not realized what was right in front of me all this time,

My mate.

And suddenly, I knew. I didn’t need coordinates or names on a report. I needed this. This fire in my chest, this ache behind my ribs, this compass etched into my very being. The bond between us wasn’t broken. It was calling.

I nearly swerved off the road as the realization dawned on me. It was so potent, so clear. How had I ever not known what to name this feeling?

I took the next exit, following a winding road through pine-covered hills, not knowing where it would lead, just knowing I had to follow this tug toward her.

Toward my mate.

I passed gas stations, sleepy diners, and motels with blinking vacancy signs. I ignored them all. My instincts were sharp now. Focused. I wasn’t chasing shadows anymore.

I was answering a call.

Somewhere out there, Cora was breathing the same air, watching the same sun sink beneath the same sky. Maybe she felt it too. The bond was pulling taut. The invisible thread between us was snapping tighter with each passing hour.

She thought she could disappear. She thought it was the only way to keep Riley safe.

The bond didn’t care about politics or legacies. It didn’t care about the pack or the council or even her fear. The bond was older than all of it. It was written into our blood.

I slowed near a truck stop as the sky darkened, stars beginning to blink overhead. My phone buzzed with messages I ignored.

I had tunnel vision now. One goal. One heartbeat.

Inside, my wolf howled at the thrill of it.

I pulled into the empty lot and leaned my head back against the seat. My chest burned, not with pain, but with clarity.

This was what love looked like. Not the flowers and whispered promises, but this: the relentless, impossible drive to drop everything and find her. To cross the country without sleep, to strip away logic, to chase something that didn’t make sense to anyone else.

The bond was a compass. And now that I’d stopped fighting it, it was leading me straight to her.

I closed my eyes. I could almost hear her voice. Could almost smell her. Could almost taste the way she’d said my name the night before everything fell apart.

And I knew.

I was getting closer.

She wouldn’t be able to hide from this forever. Not from me. Not from the mate she had tried to protect.

I started the engine again and pulled back onto the road, heart pounding with a mix of adrenaline and hope.

The world had tried to bury her. To silence the truth. But I knew better now.

Cora was alive.

And I would find my mate if it was the last thing I did.