Kieran:
Sothing was wrong.
I had known it for the past two hours.
Had felt it crawling under my skin, tightening around my chest, making it harder to breathe with every passing minute.
But now, now it wasn’t just a feeling anymore.
It was real.
And it was driving insane.
I stood in the middle of the living room, my phone still clenched tightly in my hand and my gaze locked on the screen even though I knew exactly what it would show.
Nothing.
There were no new ssages, no missed calls, no sign of her.
"She said she would be back by afternoon," I muttered, more to myself than anyone else.
Oscar didn’t respond imdiately.
He was standing near the window, his posture rigid and his eyes fixed outside like he could sohow will her to appear on the driveway.
"She ssaged at two," he said finally, his voice controlled... but only barely. "Said she would stay for dinner."
I clenched my jaw.
"Yeah. And then she disappeared."
Silence fell again, heavy and suffocating.
It had seed fine at first. Normal, even. It was just a change in plan, nothing unusual.
But things didn’t stop there.
Oscar tried to call her around 3 to ask if he could co to pick her up instead of Mr. Wood as she would be returning ho pretty late. However, she didn’t pick up the call.
Still, neither of us thought much of it as there was the possibility she was busy with sothing. So Oscar left her a ssage.
But as ti and we still didn’t hear from her, sothing finally shifted. It no longer felt normal.
We both felt it, but didn’t say it out loud. Still it was there... that unease.
"She could just be busy," I had said back then. Had tried to reason it out, tried to stay calm.
But Oscar hadn’t looked convinced. And neither had I.
We tried to call her again, only for it to go straight to her voicemail. And that’s when the unease started to spiral.
We tried calling her again and again... until it switched off.
That was the mont everything went to hell.
Because Eva didn’t just switch off her phone, not without telling us, not without a reason.
And she always responded.
Always.
Oscar had been the first to try the bond.
I watched him closely when he did. And the way his expression changed - from focused to confused, to sothing darker.
"Nothing," he had said.
I felt it too when I tried. That familiar thread that always connected us - warm, alive, constant - it was still there. But now... it was silent, actually blocked. Like sothing was standing between us and her.
Panic imdiately hit us both.
"She’s not responding," I said again, more sharply this ti.
Oscar turned from the window, his eyes eting mine. And I saw it... the sa thing I felt.
Fear.
Raw and unfiltered.
We didn’t waste another second.
I called River imdiately and he picked up on the second ring.
"Kieran?" His voice was calm, but there was an edge to it already. "What’s wrong?"
"It’s Evaline."
That was all I needed to say.
There was a pause - short and tense - before he asked im a sharp tone. "What happened?"
I explained quickly. Everything - the ssage, the unanswered calls, the phone being switched off, and the silent bonds.
By the ti I finished, the line had gone completely still. Then-
"I’m leaving now," he said, and the call ended.
Oscar was already grabbing his keys. "Let’s go."
The drive felt endless. It was too long, too slow. Every second stretched unbearably as the tension built higher and higher.
Neither of us spoke much.
We didn’t need to.
The air between us was thick with everything we weren’t saying - every possibility, every worst-case scenario, every fear.
By the ti we reached the address, I was already on edge.
The place looked exactly like I expected it to be - a small, isolated house. But it was too quite and completely surrounded by darkness.
My instincts scread imdiately.
Sothing wasn’t right.
Oscar parked the car abruptly and both of us stepped out at the sa ti.
I scanned the area and found nothing. There were no movents, no sound, no scent strong enough to give anything away.
It was almost as if soone had gone to great lengths to remove the scents, but I still slled it... slled her familiar scent. Only it was too faint.
"She was here." Oscar said as he too had clearly picked up her scent.
My jaw tightened.
We moved toward the house quickly and found the front door unlocked. I exchanged a look with Oscar, and hen pushed it open.
The inside was... empty. There were no voices, no movent, no sign of life.
"Evaline?" I called out.
But there was no response.
We moved through the house thodically - room by room - checking everything. But there’s nothing. No one. Nothing that explained anything.
And that... that was worse.
Because it ant whatever happened, it had been controlled, planned, clean.
I stopped in the middle of the living room, my chest rising and falling harder now.
"This doesn’t make any sense," I muttered.
Oscar didn’t answer. He was crouched near the table, his hand hovering just above the surface.
"There’s a scent," he said slowly.
I moved closer as I asked, "What kind?"
He frowned slightly before replying, "It’s... faint. Covered."
My stomach dropped. So soone had indeed try to cover everything here, to mask and deliberately hide things.
I straightened, my fists clenching at my sides. "Sothing has happened to her." The words felt like acid in my mouth.
Oscar stood up slowly. His expression had gone completely still. Too still. It was the kind of stillness that ca right before sothing snapped.
"Soone planned this," he said. It wasn’t a question, but a statent.
I stayed silent. There’s nothing I could say. The words refused to form. It was just my heart beating wildly as panic rose, and my wolf pacing around as it begged to be let out and find our mate.
I pulled out my phone and imdiately called River again.
He picked up instantly.
"We are at the house," I said.
"And?" he demanded.
"It’s empty."
"What do you an empty?" He demanded, the worry loud and clear in his voice.
"No one’s here," I said, my voice tightening. "Not our mate. Not the kid. Not his grandmother. But her scent is here... though too faint as if soone deliberately tried to mask it."
The silence on the other end stretched for a mont as I felt my brother taking in everything.
"Stay there. I’ll be there in fifteen." River finally said, and though his tone was dead calm, I knew just what was brewing inside him.
The call ended.
I lowered the phone slowly as Oscar exhaled sharply beside . "What now?" he asked.
I looked around the empty house again, at the stillness, at the quiet at the complete absence of her.
My chest tightened painfully. "We find her," I said.
My voice ca out low and steady. But beneath it, there was sothing else, sothing dark and dangerous.
Because whoever had taken her... whoever thought they could just disappear her like this... they had no idea what they had just done.
And when we found them... they were going to regret it.
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