Chapter 3: Lost and Found

Colt

One Week Later

I couldn’t get the vision of a brunette girl with hypnotizing red eyes out of my head all week. I saw her sitting in the underbrush of the tree-line to the Forest of the Okapi watching my field training with my Deltas. 

My first thought was - that can’t be right…a female with red eyes. Only mated Alpha wolves had red eyes. How could this female have red eyes? Was she mated too? I’d have to go to the library and do some research on this later.

What was she doing there? Why was she watching us? Something about her seemed to draw me to her, but by the time I got to the tree-line where she had been, any piece of evidence my wolf, Renlee, should have been able to pick up on - her scent, her tracks, broken branches, ANYTHING she touched to show the area had been disturbed - was gone. 

I searched all around the area where I thought I saw her but the entire area looked as if no one had ever been there and certainly not just perched against a tree, basking in the sun like a beautiful goddess sent from the heavens! It bothered me and I couldn’t get her out of my mind. 

Who was she? How did she not have ANY scent at all? To my knowledge, there isn’t anyone powerful enough to hide scent, not even the leader of the Witches Coven is capable of this level of magic! Or was I just hallucinating? Daydreaming? I questioned myself every day and continue to agree that I KNOW I saw a girl in the woods that evening and I needed to find her. I caught myself wondering if she was already mated. No! I knew all the mated she-wolves and I’d never seen her before!

Renlee wasn’t going to let this slide. We needed to know everyone in our territory and we didn’t know her and it bothered us.

My thoughts were quickly interrupted by a mind-link that was meant for my father that I happened to overhear. The older I grew, the easier it was to hear all the mind-linked messages from pack members to my father, the Alpha King. It was yet another clear indication that my father’s reign as Alpha King was coming to an end and my time to reign was growing even closer. 

‘Alpha King! We have secured…Future Alpha King’s Ma…she will not tell us…’

That was all I needed to hear. My heart burst with excitement and I sprinted toward my father’s office immediately. I didn’t NEED to overhear the entire mind-link to know the search party had resulted in the successful retrieval of my elusive mate!

We ordered the search party a week ago after a massive power force was released throughout the kingdom. It shook the ground and everyone in the Kingdom of Tyr felt it. I knew the search party would eventually get a location on my mate and her family. It was only a matter of time.

Father had declared her my mate when I learned of her birth and met her when she was only a day old. I begged him to give her to me. Renlee, my wolf, was adamant that she was our mate even though we had only met once and we were both too young to know if we were true fated mates or not. Besides, there hadn’t been a case of fated mates in over three centuries, according to my father.

Then something happened and she was taken away from us. We’ve been searching for her ever since. I was heartbroken when one day when she had to have been about a year old, maybe two, we felt a shockwave much like this recent power force that was released. After we recovered from the shockwave, it felt as if she was just…gone. 

Renlee couldn’t sense her wolf either. She was neither dead, nor alive. It was the strangest feeling. Renlee and I grew depressed for such a long time. We went through a few phases over the years. Father kept assuring me that he had squads out searching for her still. 

The trail grew cold until the release of the power force a week ago; then all of a sudden, I could sense her! She was close!

Father ordered mass search parties to go out and scour the city and countryside until she was found. I kept trying to join the searches with my beta, Cohen, but Father refused to allow me outside the palace pack house walls. 

I wanted to be pissed off at him for not allowing me to go search for her, but Renlee’s excitement overtook me with such a force that I burst through the doors of my father’s office giddy as a school girl with excitement, “Is it true, father? Tell me it’s true and you’ve finally found my mate!”

I flung myself onto Father’s couch off to the side of his desk. Damn Renlee, Chill the fuck out!

“Ah, Colt! So I see you’ve heard,” my father, Alpha King Vale, glanced up from his newspaper briefly to notice me sprawled out on his new leather couch. I knew it would irritate him that I was using his new sofa to stretch out on. I wanted to see if I would get a reaction from him.

“Well? Am I going to have to pry it out of you father?!” I grew impatient in my excitement as I beamed at him like a five year old in front of the Christmas tree on Christmas morning. Sure, I was being a bit childish in my antics, but I was too excited to care and I knew this would especially annoy my father enough to answer me sooner rather than later.

My father took a deep breath and exhaled slowly with an air of annoyance as he began to explain, “If you want to know if the rumors are true and I have found your mate, the answer is no. However, I did find her mother.” He peered out from the newspaper once again to study my reaction to this news.

I wasn’t going to hide my clear disappointment, “Her mother?! Well…wouldn’t that mean she’s nearby then?!”

I could tell he liked the direction my curiosity was taking my questions because he actually decided to put his newspaper down and further explain what he knew with me, “Precisely. They were hiding right under our noses this whole time.”

I looked at him utterly confused.

Picking up on my confusion, Father quickly added, “She admitted as much. But she still refuses to tell us where her daughter is hiding.”

I was furious, “WHY?”

At that, my father visibly dropped his ‘Alpha King’ stature and sank to a relaxed resting position, wiping his hands over his face, clearly upset with himself. It seemed like he had been avoiding telling me something. 

“Son…the events of all those years ago still haunt me to this day. There are some things I did in my youth that I wish I could take back every day,” he began.

“Father, what are you talking about? What did you do?”

“It was eighteen years ago. You were I don’t know…five or six. More and more she-wolves were being killed in blood pack wars. Alpha’s were determined to have an heir to their pack, much like they still are. They’ve only grown more desperate in recent years, so you can imagine my surprise when one of my most loyal Alpha’s, Alpha Gunnar of the Crescent Diamond pack, came to my party with his NEW FATED MATE. She was beautiful…good GODDESS, she was GORGEOUS…And he hid her from me! I was PISSED. Any new female’s that were discovered in our realm were to report to me directly before being assigned a pod and he completely disregarded that all because he CLAIMED they were FATED!”

Father stood up and ripped up the newspaper he had been reading, angrily.

It was at this moment that I chose to speak up with the realization, “But we haven’t heard of a fated pairing in over 300 years!” I laughed at the realization of how stupid Alpha Gunnar’s supposed defense was for the crime of marking and mating one of the LAST she-wolves known to exist before presenting her to the Alpha King for pod assignment.

“Precisely Son. So,” he deep sighed before continuing, looking down in what looked to me like remorse, “when they had a beautiful, healthy, strong SHE-WOLF PUP, I lost it!”

“What did you do father?”

My father grew visibly nervous like he was guilty of something. I encouraged him to continue and when he did he spoke as if justifying his actions before telling me what he actually did, “A she-wolf pup hadn’t been born to ANYONE in over fifteen YEARS and here Gunnar and his Luna were living like a happy little family telling everyone that would listen that the Goddess gave THEM a she-wolf pup because they were FATED MATES! Gunnar just couldn’t let go of that bullshit lie! His pack kept going on and on telling everyone far and wide. I knew it was only a matter of time before…” He paused his ramblings and looked up at me. I knew what he meant.  

What every Alpha King fears during their reign.

“SO…” Father huffed, “I did the only thing I could do at that point. I declared her YOUR future mate and ordered the deltas to go gather the pup from the Alpha and Luna so she could be raised alongside you under the best protection in the world.”

I felt saddened and looked at him confused, “But…I thought…I.” I started before Father interrupted me mid-sentence, “You thought you begged me to declare her as your mate when you first laid eyes on her and that is when I had?” 

I stared at him stunned. I was holding that in, “Yeah.”

Father chuckled loudly, “I declared her yours from the moment she took her first breath. SON.” He stated pointedly.

I was shocked and didn’t know what to say at that point, so I just asked him to explain further, “So what happened?”

Father deep sighed, throwing himself back in his leather office chair while throwing his hands up with a growl, “Every fucking thing that could possibly go wrong!”

I sat, waiting for him to explain.

“The delta’s left for the Crescent Diamond pack. When they got there, they discovered the Alpha and Luna were in hiding. They knew we would come for their pup. Their pack did nothing wrong. They were defending their alpha and luna and future alpha female pup. The delta’s were following orders…” he trailed off, as if continuing would cause more physical pain to him.

“What happened father?” My concern growing for my mate. Did he do something to hurt her?

“They killed them all.”

“Father, you’re not making any sense now. Who killed who? What do you mean? I thought you said the Crescent Diamond pack merged with another pack when the heir’s of the two packs chose to mate?” I was just trying to make sense of what my father was explaining.

“A lie. It was all a lie to hide the true horror or what happened that day,” Father looked like he was staring off into some unknown distance, a place I would never be able to see, looking like a ghost trapped in the shell of the person he used to be; haunted by the tainted and cruel truths of his past.

A knock came at the door. 

“FATHER,” I firmly pressed him for answers, clutching my hands into fists to alleviate some of the growing frustration before my best friend and beta, Cohen, entered the room. I knew Cohen couldn’t stay away too long. Especially after finding my mate’s mother.

Unfortunately, my father was quick to recover from his sudden sullen stupor and appeared happily smiling as a father to his son should appear upon seeing his son’s best friend walk into his office. He was always good at being fake. 

“Ahhh…Cohen, so good of you to join us! How’s the hunting going?” Father gave Cohen his immediate and undivided attention, ignoring my pleading eyes boring into him begging for more answers. 

All my father had done was create more questions than answers to an already unclear, frustrating and confusing reason as to why my mate and her family have been avoiding us their entire lives!

Cohen came in unceremoniously and gave a quick bow to me before leaning and showing his complete neck to my father, his precious Alpha King Vale, as a show of true submission, a requirement of every wolf in the realm under my father’s rule, which was soon to be MINE. Anyone who wouldn’t, weren’t alive. 

“Alpha King Vale, Future Alpha King Colt, it’s good to see you both,” Cohen formally greeted us using my latest title change. 

I was to be addressed as Prince Colt until recently when my father finally conceded to allowing me to begin taking over parts of his duties as Alpha King. Instead of being the Alpha King in training, my father cleverly agreed, stating that I could take on the title of FUTURE Alpha King until he fully stepped down. 

It was a load of horse shit if you asked me how I really felt about it. 

‘Consider it a provisional title,’ I clearly recalled him stating in an attempt to compromise a few months back. 

“At ease. How did the hunt go? What news do you have to bring us?” Father’s repeated eager questioning snapped me out of my wandering thoughts.

Cohen looked at me before answering, “We haven’t been able to pick up her scent, or pin point her location for longer than about thirty minutes to an hour every other day. It’s like she’s so close, yet so far away. Border hopping or something. I don’t know how to explain it.”

Cohen was one of the best trackers in the entire royal pack, let alone all packs and the entire damn kingdom! For him to be confused with the scent trail and tracking of my mate meant this mate of mine was definitely not your ordinary she-wolf. That had Renlee excited.

“Are you thinking witches?” Father scratched the scruff of his well groomed graying beard as he studied Cohen’s thoughtful expressions.

“How is an eighteen year old she-wolf so hard to track Cohen?! Her scent can’t be THAT hard to pick up!” I remarked, jealous and frustrated at my father’s complete lack of interest and attention in me at the current moment. I needed him to give me some damn answers and I was growing extremely irritated with him.

“OH, BECAUSE YOU CAN DO BETTER?” Cohen snapped at me quickly like a frustrated little brother. I could tell from the dark circles around his eyes and his haggard and worn appearance that my father had him running search parties all hours of the day and night searching for our mate, until she was found. It wasn’t fair of me to be so critical of him, but I was beyond frustrated with my current predicament.

“ENOUGH,” Father interrupted our tiff to redirect our attention and the conversation, “Witches. Yes? Or No?”

He glared at Cohen, staring him down for an answer.

“No. You always smell sulfur with the witches. I smelled it the night her scent and her mother’s scent became known. Goddess, everyone smelled the sulfur and then an underlying fragrance…” he trailed off before refocusing, “but now…no, just suddenly you can smell a VERY subtle perfuming of this scent, and just when you think you are getting close to her…nothing. The scent is gone, as if it never was there. I can’t explain it.” 

Father sat looking perplexed. 

It had been more than a week and Cohen’s search parties were dwindling down to the point that he was having to pull omega’s off the training lines to help scour the country for her. He has exhausted all our kingdom’s resources and our troops over the last week in a desperate attempt to finally find her since her scent was now able to be picked up from time to time.

I knew if I was allowed out to go hunting for her, I would be able to find her! Wolves, especially high ranking wolves, were expert trackers and hunters. The higher the rank of wolf, the easier and better it was for us to feel other wolves' aura's thus, making it faster and easier for me to find my mate than anyone else. I was convinced my father was keeping me from the searches on purpose, but what I couldn’t figure out was why he was keeping me from the hunt.

I crossed my arms, “Just keep looking. She’s bound to turn up eventually. She can’t live alone forever!”

“Yes, Future Alpha King Colt.” Cohen showed his neck in a bow as he left my soon-to-be office.

I was still frustrated with my father and now upset about my mate. 

“What information can you get from her mother?” I tried changing the direction of the conversation, refocusing it back on my mate.

“She refuses to be paired with a pod and she refuses to tell us where her daughter is hiding. To me, it’s starting to look like she doesn’t know where her daughter is hiding.”

I remained just as frustrated as before. Clearly my father wasn’t going to give me any helpful information. 

Just as I began to leave my father’s office, I received a mind-link from my top Delta, Onyx.

‘Future Alpha King Colt, sir, we have located her scent again! Cohen has suggested that you join the hunt. If we can all circle or corner her, we may be able to narrow down her hiding spot to trap her.’

Just what I needed! A run to release some of the tension and anger Renlee and I had been feeling was exactly what we needed. Fuck Father and his orders to stay inside the palace pack house walls! 

‘I’m on my way!’ I linked Onyx back as I began to shed my clothes in a trail heading to a door that led outside of the palace of a pack house. 

I let Renlee out to stretch and immediately I began to feel the tension in my muscles release and relax. Renlee ran after our pod mates and we all worked as a unit to encircle our prey - our mate!

As we grew closer and closer together in our circular formation, closing in on the scent, I saw something, or someone, dart away from me as fast as they could. The aura was that of a frightened bunny but I knew better. If that was a bunny, that was one hell of a BIG ASS bunny! 

I paused, waiting for the movement to settle before narrowing my eyes and landing on the most beautiful supple rounded ass in blue jean shorts that I had ever seen and smirked, There you are my little mate.