Chapter 3

Lucas

I shook my head, clearing away the image of the enraged King’s face. I had turned down his offer to marry his daughter in exchange for my pack lands being brought under his rule. My pack had thrived just outside of the kingdom’s border, quickly becoming one of the strongest in existence. We didn’t need a King’s protection and I didn’t want a chosen mate; I wanted the one the moon goddess had created just for me.

            “Zane, make sure things are set for us to shift our business interests elsewhere.” I told my Beta. “I expect the King will hit us with an embargo and border closures.”

            “Sure, thing boss. We’ve got most everyone waiting for the word already.”

            I nodded, signaling his dismissal and turned my attention back to my glass of whiskey. Stupidly, I had accepted the King’s invitation to visit his court. I had hopes that my mate would be there. If she had been, things would have gone much smoother. Instead, he presented me with his daughter, a selfish, spoiled little thing. She wasn’t fit to be a Luna even if I had been willing to entertain the thought of a chosen mate. She was quite skilled at putting on a mask of sweetness, but it broke easily, devolving into petulant tantrums when things weren’t just the way she wanted.

            I had turned down the king’s offer as politely as possible, but that had barely garnered me enough good will to escape his kingdom with my head still securely in place. He didn’t understand the world outside his lands and thought that any wolf would be grateful for the offer to marry into the royal family. The lands outside his borders were less primitive. We worked as a collective, each Alpha running their pack as they saw fit, taking any issue between packs to the council. It served us well and there was less infighting than I had witnessed in the King’s lands. I knew my pack would continue to thrive without the trade agreements we held with packs inside his borders.

            I sighed and began looking through the paperwork on my desk. While the packs were more cordial, we suffered from far more rogue attacks than were reported from the King’s lands. Many wolves in his kingdom would turn rogue and cross the border, causing havoc wherever they went. There had been a sudden influx in recent days, mostly harassing the towns that sat directly on the invisible line that separated our lands.

            We had managed to capture one of them and they had finally cracked. Their Alpha had been assassinated, leaving a power vacuum in their pack. Things had culminated in the pack completely breaking up, leaving the wolves with nowhere to go, turning them rogue. I had been considering whether to offer them safe harbor in my own pack. It wasn’t their fault they had become rogue and their attacks were out of desperation to survive. The problem was getting the word out. We couldn’t cross into the King’s land uninvited to search them out and the natural instinct of the wolves they attacked was to eliminate the threat.

            My stomach growled and I pushed myself away from my desk, making my way to the dining hall. My pack was pleased that I was joining them for dinner, one of the omega’s breaking out into a wide grin when she saw me. I kept my own home outside of the packhouse, where I would eat most evenings, wallowing in my ever-growing depression about not having found my mate. The mountain of work due to the attacks had kept me in the packhouse the last few days, and I had noticed how much it improved the moral of my pack. They were all worried for me, that I would succumb to loneliness rather than select a chosen mate to lead beside me.

            I finished the meal, returning to my home in higher spirits. The company of my pack had done me as much good as it had done the pack. I smelled her before I crossed the threshold. The faint smell of apple cinnamon filled my nostrils sending my wolf into overdrive. Carefully, I followed my nose, on high alert over someone being in my home. The scent was fading, but I found it most concentrated in my bedroom.

            “Mate.” My wolf growled, forcing the word from my lips.

            I froze in shock as I realized that my mate had been in my home and that I had been able to recognize that the scent belonged to her when I knew I had never met her. My mind raced, wondering who she was, why she had been in my home, and why she had left. Surely, if I had been able to detect that we were mates off of her fading scent, she had known as well. My scent was much stronger since it was my home, where I spent my time outside of pack business. I cast my eyes around the room hoping to find some sign of her. I needed to know who she was, but she hadn’t left any trace beyond her scent.

            ‘Zane. I need you to send some trackers to my house.’ I linked my Beta. ‘You can come with’.

            I knew he would be concerned about the need for trackers in my home, but I would explain when he arrived. My main concern was finding my mystery mate. They arrived quicker than expected and I filled them in on the need to track the strange scent that was rapidly fading. I left out that the scent belonged to my mate, ordering them only to track it and capture the owner without harming her. I could tell they were curious, but none questioned me. I paced in my room, waiting for one of them to link me, to let me know they found my mate, while Zane made himself at home with my liquor cabinet.

            ‘Alpha’, came the lead trackers voice in my mind after what felt like an eternity. ‘The scent ends at the edge of pack lands. It’s like it never existed.’

            My wolf howled in pain inside my head. We had found our mate, only to lose her without ever setting eyes on her.