Chapter 59

Nicholas’s POV

The scent was wrong.

I realized it the instant I stepped into the healer’s wing. It was too clean, too still. For three months her presence had clung to these hallways like soft musk under antiseptic, a whisper of wild honey and old books. Now it was gone, stripped out of the air like a ransacked house.

Norman’s hackles shot up in my skull. Mate.

My gaze snapped to the open cabinet doors, the empty cot. Her chart, usually clipped neatly to the end of the bed, hung loose and fluttering in the breeze from the window.

“She’s gone,” I muttered.

Dan appeared in the doorway, chest heaving from his own patrol. “Alpha?”

“Where is she?” My voice came out a snarl.

He glanced at the orderly still lingering by the supply closet. “Tell him.”

The orderly swallowed. “She didn’t show up for morning rounds. Her belongings… some are missing. We thought she was with you.”

I shoved past them, moving room to room. Empty. The smell of her fading.

Norman roared. You let her slip through your claws.

“I didn’t,” I hissed aloud. “She wouldn’t dare.”

But she had.

I bolted out into the courtyard, scanning the patrol towers.

“Check the gates!” I bellowed at the nearest guards. “No one leaves without my say-so!”

The men scattered, radios crackling.

Norman stalked, claws scraping the inside of my ribs. She’s ours. I warned you, you caged her too tightly.

I stripped off my jacket, heart hammering, and let the shift break through. Bones cracked, fur surged, and the wolf tore free in a rush of heat and silver fur. Norman’s growl became mine, echoing off the stone.

We bounded through the compound at full speed, nose to the ground. Esther’s scent, faint but still traceable, streamed toward the northern gates. The guards at the checkpoint backed away as we skidded to a halt.

“She left at dawn,” one stammered. “With two children. Her paperwork—”

Paperwork. As if paperwork could justify this.

I lunged so close his throat pressed to the bars. “Which direction?”

“Blue Lake!” he squeaked.

Norman’s fury pulsed in my veins. Kevin.

We vaulted the barrier and sprinted out of the gate, the world narrowing to scent and claw and fury. Her trail curved along the river road, a thin thread of salt and lavender over damp earth. The children’s scents flanked hers. Carl’s was a weaker forest while Sofia was light and sweet.

With each stride the bond between us tugged like barbed wire. She was close. She was leaving me.

Faster, Norman urged. We can catch them before the border.

But after half a mile the scent blurred, mixed with the acrid exhaust of a truck. She’d accepted a ride.

I skidded to a halt, paws gouging the mud, and howled. The sound ripped through the morning like a blade. Birds exploded from the trees.

Back at the palace, I shifted back to human form in the shadow of the courtyard wall, chest heaving, skin slick with sweat. Dan waited, eyes carefully averted.

“Find the driver,” I snapped. “Any vehicle left before dawn.”

“Yes, Alpha.” He jogged off, radio already in hand.

I raked a hand through my damp hair. “She took the twins.”

Norman paced in the back of my mind. You drove her away.

“I gave her everything she asked for,” I hissed under my breath. “Money. Protection. Time.”

You gave her a cage, Norman replied. You gave her pride instead of words.

I slammed a fist against the stone wall, skin splitting across my knuckles. “Enough.”

But the wolf didn’t retreat. He prowled, relentless. You love her.

I went still. “I don’t—”

Say it.

“She’s mine.”

That’s not the same.

I pressed both hands to the wall, breathing hard. Memory after memory flickered—her hands steady over Carl’s fevered body, her eyes flashing when she argued with me, the tremor in her voice when she’d said three months.

I should have known.

By afternoon Dan returned, grim-faced. “We found the truck. Witnesses say she crossed into Blue Lake territory.”

“She went back to Kevin,” I said flatly.

He hesitated. “Alpha…”

“She went back to Kevin,” I repeated, and something inside me tore.

Norman growled low. Our mate. In another Alpha’s house.

The guards in the courtyard gave us a wide berth. I stalked past them to my private quarters, slammed the door, and locked it. Bottles lined the cabinet like a row of glass soldiers. I grabbed the nearest one, twisted off the cap, and drank until the burn hit my stomach.

Whiskey blurred the edges but didn’t mute Norman’s voice. This won’t bring her back.

“Shut up.” Another swallow. “Just shut up.”

You had three months.

“I gave her three months.”

To heal your pride or heal your wolf?

I hurled the bottle at the fireplace. It shattered, whiskey hissing into the flames.

Night fell.

I sat in the dark with a second bottle, the room stinking of alcohol and smoke. Images looped behind my eyes: Esther bent over Carl’s bed, Esther’s hair catching the light, Esther walking away.

Norman prowled. She thinks you don’t care. She thinks you’re your father.

“She chose Kevin.”

Did she?

“She left.”

Because she thought she failed. Because you never told her the truth.

I pressed the heel of my palm to my eyes. The wolf wasn’t wrong. But admitting it was like swallowing glass.

Go after her, Norman whispered. Tell her what you’ve done for the boy. Tell her you—

“I can’t.” My voice cracked. “If I go now I’ll drag her back in chains.”

Norman went silent at that, and for a moment the only sound was the fire crackling.

A soft knock came at the door.

“Alpha?” Dan’s voice.

“What.”

“Permission to speak freely?”

I grunted.

He slipped inside, eyes flicking over the shattered bottle but not commenting. “You look like hell.”

“Get out.”

Instead he came closer. “She’s been through hell too. You know that.”

I bared my teeth. “You think I don’t?”

“I think you hide it better.”

I turned away, swallowing more whiskey.

Dan’s next words were quieter. “She still doesn’t know what you did for Carl.”

I glanced over my shoulder. “That’s none of your business.”

“Maybe not. But it’s hers.”

“Dan—”

He straightened, shoulders squaring. “Alpha, you’ve carried her medical bills for months. You diverted funds from your own projects to keep that boy alive. And you’ve never told her.”

“Because she’d see it as leverage,” I snapped. “Because she’d hate me for it.”

“Or she’d see you.”

I laughed, bitter. “You’re a romantic now?”

He didn’t answer.

Norman stirred. He’s right.

Dan hesitated at the door. “I’m worried about her. About the children. If you won’t tell her, I will.”

Something cold slid down my spine. “What did you say?”

“I’m contacting her,” Dan said quietly. “Off record. She deserves to know what you’ve done. Maybe then she’ll understand.”

“You’ll do no such—”

But the words died. If he reached her, if he explained, maybe it would at least stop her from thinking I’d been nothing but a monster.

I turned back to the fire. “Do what you want.”

Dan’s brows rose. “Alpha?”

“I said do what you want. Just…don’t tell me when.”

He nodded once. “Understood.”

When the door clicked shut again, Norman huffed. You’re letting him.

“I have nothing left to lose,” I said.

Alone once more, I poured the last of the whiskey into my glass and stared at the flames. Shadows flickered across the walls like ghosts.

Somewhere out there she was reading to the twins, maybe tucking them into bed, maybe crying into her pillow. Somewhere out there she believed I hated her.

I lifted the glass in a silent toast. “To the three months we had.”

Norman curled up inside me, his tail over his nose.

Coward, he muttered.

I drank anyway.

Later, long after midnight, I stumbled to the window and shoved it open. The courtyard lay empty and silvered under moonlight. My breath fogged the glass.

A memory surfaced of her in this very room, back rigid, telling me she’d do anything for Carl. The way her eyes had looked at me then, half fury, half plea.

“Anything,” I whispered to the night.

Norman stirred one last time. Then go to her.

I closed the window instead.