Elijah POV
The pack dinner starts the way it’s supposed to, light spilling across the courtyard, tables heavy with food, voices overlapping in a way that feels easy instead of strained, and I move through it with a practiced smile, greeting wolves by na, clasping forearms, listening more than I speak.
People are relaxed. That’s the strange part.
Not careless, not foolish, but open, shoulders down, laughter coming quicker, the air lighter than it’s been in years, and as I scan the crowd I catch sight of my mother near the far table, laughing softly at sothing Fallon says, her posture loose, her eyes bright.
Free. The word lands hard and unexpected.
I don’t think I’ve ever seen her like this, not really, not without the constant tension riding her spine, and the sight of it settles sothing deep in even as another part of my mind keeps reaching, checking, counting.
I should be able to feel her. My mate.
Not as a constant pressure or a pull, not sothing invasive, just the quiet awareness that she’s nearby, steady, present, and instead there’s noise, too much of it, the pack’s hum loud and overlapping, making it harder to pick out individual threads.
Unease creeps in anyway.
Subtle at first, a misalignnt I can’t na, and I tell myself it’s nothing, that tonight is big and my instincts are overshooting, but my feet keep adjusting their path without deciding to, angling through the crowd as my gaze searches for caral coloured hair and warm brown eyes.
I don’t see her.
I loop the periter once, greeting people automatically, listening with half my attention as soone thanks for speaking up at the council, as another jokes about the food, and with every step the wrongness sharpens.
I find Ethan near the head table, deep in conversation with a group of warriors, his smile easy, but the mont our eyes et, sothing flickers there, the sa tight focus I feel settling behind my ribs.
"You feel it too," I say quietly, falling into step beside him.
He nods once.
"I was just about to co find you." Ezra joins us a heartbeat later, his expression already stripped of humor, Damon restless under his skin in a way that mirrors Loki’s unease inside .
"She’s not here," Ezra says flatly. "Is she?"
"No," Ethan answers, jaw tightening. "And she should be."
We don’t say panic out loud. We don’t need to.
We move with purpose instead, threading back through the crowd, widening our search, checking the obvious places first, then the less obvious, the edges where Allison tends to drift when she wants air or quiet, all of us careful to keep our expressions neutral, because the pack is watching and the last thing we need is to set off alarm without cause.
When that turns up nothing, we pivot together and find Abigail.
She’s near the drinks table, mid-conversation, posture relaxed but alert as ever, and when she sees our faces, her smile fades imdiately.
"Have you seen Allison," I ask, keeping my voice level.
Abigail blinks, thinking.
"Yeah. A while ago. She said she was heading toward the treeline with a pack mber. Said you were eting her there." The words hit like a dropped floor.
My chest goes cold and Ethan’s hand curls into a fist. Ezra swears under his breath.
"What pack mber," Ethan asks sharply.
Abigail’s expression hardens.
"I didn’t catch a na." That’s all it takes.
We’re moving before she finishes the sentence, slipping away from the lights and warmth of the dinner, into the darker edge of the grounds, following the thread of Allison’s scent as it pulls us toward the trees.
The night closes in fast, the pack noise fades, the forest opens and then we see him.
The body lies just inside the treeline, half-turned, eyes open and empty, blood dark against the ground, still warm enough that steam curls faintly in the cool air, and the scent hits hard enough to make my vision narrow.
Drugs. Sharp and chemical, woven with magic ant to suppress, not kill. Allison’s scent is there too, broken, scattered, ending abruptly in a way that makes my chest seize.
Gone.
Loki surges up inside , a snarl tearing through my thoughts, and for a heartbeat all I want is to tear the earth apart with my hands, to follow every broken trace until I find her or burn everything down in the process.
Ezra is already crouched, Damon snarling, fingers digging into the dirt. Ethan’s breathing goes tight and controlled, the only thing holding his fury in check.
"She’s been taken," Ezra says, voice shaking with barely contained control.
"I know," I answer, and my voice doesn’t sound like mine. We all take a step forward at once but Abigail steps in front of us.
"Stop," she snaps but none of us slow.
She plants herself there anyway, eyes sharp, voice cutting clean through the haze.
"Stop. Right now." Ethan snarls.
"Get out of the way."
"Absolutely not," Abigail fires back. "You start tearing through the forest like rabid idiots and you’ll get her killed."
That lands. Not softly, not gently, but it lands.
She doesn’t lower her voice.
"You want her back alive. You want to win. Then stop being caven and start being Alphas with brains." My hands are shaking as Loki is a storm under my skin.
"She’s capable," Abigail continues, and this ti her tone shifts, firm but certain. "More than capable. She bought you ti the second she realized what was happening. Don’t waste it." Ezra exhales hard, forcing himself upright. Ethan closes his eyes for a second, jaw clenched, then nods once.
I swallow, grounding myself in the feel of the earth, the weight of my body and the fact that panic won’t get to her faster.
"What do we do," I ask.
"We go to ops," Abigail answers imdiately. "And we get help."
We move fast but controlled, back through the grounds, slipping into the packhouse without explanation, the shift in our posture enough that people instinctively clear space without asking questions.
Ops hums to life around us, screens lighting up, feeds pulling in, Daniel already moving before anyone finishes briefing him, Mateo at his side, magic coiling ready beneath his skin, Fallon ghosting in and out of the room as he reroutes resources.
Abigail doesn’t waste ti.
She opens a secure channel and brings Queen Kiara and King Maze up on the main screen, her voice clipped and precise as she explains exactly what happened, no embellishnt, no hedging.
By the ti she finishes, Kiara’s expression has gone lethal.
"Those fuckers," Kiara snaps, the word sharp and unfiltered. "I swear by every god still listening, when I get my hands on them.." Maze raises a hand, calm but iron-hard.
"We’re coming."
"We need speed," Abigail says. Mateo steps forward.
"I can port," he offers without hesitation. "Direct, clean. One jump."
"Do it," Kiara says imdiately.
Mateo nods, already weaving the spell, space folding in on itself with a low, resonant hum, and a heartbeat later he’s gone.
When he returns, Kiara is with him, fury contained but blazing, armor already in place, eyes sweeping the room.
"Maze is mobilizing the warriors," Mateo says. "He’ll follow with force. He doesn’t like what this slls like." Neither do I, because this isn’t just kidnapping, it’s a statent.
A challenge.
And as I stand there, surrounded by allies, plans forming fast and sharp, Loki finally settling into a cold, focused readiness instead of a blind snarl, I make myself one promise and an it with everything I am.
They took our Luna.
They will not keep her.
And when we find her, the people responsible will learn exactly how badly they misjudged what it ans to provoke a pack that finally knows who it stands behind.
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