Chapter 195: A Mother for a Wife
Two Days Later...
Derek had turned the whole world upside down looking for her.
He had organised a thorough, relentless search across every territory, over every border, calling in favours and threats in equal measure.
And still, after two days, Kira was nowhere to be found. She had simply vanished off the face of the earth, as though the night had swallowed her whole.
The survivors of the siege had mostly healed within forty-eight hours, their Lycan blood knitting them back together, and the pack had begun to find its feet again.
The gammas trained harder and fiercer than ever now, drilling from dawn, sharpened by humiliation and grief into something hungry.
Tan had returned to his own pack to take up his duties as Alpha, leaving Kai and their mother Angelica behind at Dravengard.
Kai, for his part, had given everything he had into the hunt for Kira, throwing every single one of his personal resources, contacts, and tech skills into the grid, hacking into databases and tracking signals to help find any breadcrumbs Kira might have left behind.
But Derek’s patience had worn so thin it had all but snapped, and a man with no patience left does not think straight.
Which was how he came to be standing in Chloe’s cell, watching his gammas work on her.
The cell was cold and bare, lit by a single harsh light. Chloe hung from silver chains, her wrists raw where the metal had burned them, her face streaked with tears and worse.
A female gamma drove a fist into her ribs, and she folded with a broken cry, the chains snapping taut to catch her before she could fall.
"I will ask you one last time," Derek’s voice rang out, dropping into a terrifyingly low, demonic baritone. "Where is your pathetic father hiding?"
Chloe was completely broken. Her face was swollen, blood trickling from her split lip, and her breath was coming in ragged hitches. But she genuinely didn’t know.
"I don’t... I don’t know!" she sobbed, her voice cracking in pure terror. "He never... he never tells me where he goes! Please!"
The gamma struck her again. She screamed.
"Where is Rolf?" Derek repeated.
"I don’t know!" Her voice tore on the words. "Please. Please, I would tell you if I knew. He left me. He left me there and ran. I don’t know where he went, I don’t, I don’t—"
What Rolf had never realised, on the night of the attack, was that Bruce had already located Chloe, tucked away and hidden in one of the lesser werewolf packs.
Rolf and Lydia had thought their daughter’s location was their best-kept secret. It had been compromised before the first explosion ever went off.
Derek had divided his forces into three that night. The first, his own, to ambush Rolf’s camp.
The second, a backup unit, held in reserve nearby, ready to move the instant anything went wrong, the very unit that had reached him in the burning woods.
And the third, sent quietly to the pack where Chloe had been hidden, to take her.
Chloe’s repetitive sobbing and frantic shaking only irritated the King further. As she continued to weep and refuse to say anything substantial, Derek completely lost his mind.
He stepped fully into the cell, and the gammas drew back at once, lowering their heads, making way for their king.
"Leave us," he said quietly.
They went.
Derek walked toward the hanging girl, and as he came, something dark and immense uncoiled in the air around him.
His aura, Leo’s fury given weight, pressing outward, filling the cell like rising water. Chloe’s head snapped up, her eyes going wide, and then she could not breathe.
The pressure of it bore down on her chest, her throat, crushing the air from her lungs without a single hand laid on her. She gasped, choking on nothing, her whole body straining against the silver.
"Where," Derek said, low and terrible, "is my wife?"
"I— I can’t—" Chloe wheezed, her face draining of colour, her lips beginning to tinge blue. "Please—"
The aura pressed harder. Her eyes rolled. Her struggles weakened.
"Derek."
A hand closed on his shoulder.
"Derek, stop." Declan’s voice was calm and steady at his side. "You’ll kill her. Look at her. She’s no use to us dead, and she’s better off alive. Let her go."
For a long, dangerous moment, Derek did not move.
Then, slowly, the crushing weight in the cell lifted. Chloe sucked in a desperate breath and sagged in her chains, weeping and gulping for air.
"My parents will destroy you for this," she cried.
Derek turned, drew back his arm, and slammed his fist into the stone wall. Then, without a word, he strode out of the cell.
Declan let out a heavy breath and turned to the gammas, who were hovering at the entrance.
"Bind her properly," he said. "Secure the cell. No one touches her again until tomorrow."
He caught up with Derek just as the king was walking across the courtyard towards the main mansion.
"Derek. Wait." Declan fell into step beside him. "You need to calm yourself. We’ll find her. Everything is going to be alright, but not if you tear yourself apart first."
"How," Derek ground out, not slowing, "am I supposed to be calm, when my wife is out there somewhere, suffering? When I don’t even know if she’s—" He cut himself off, jaw clenched.
Declan was quiet for a moment, then spoke carefully.
"Connor is the only one who can tell us what truly happened in that hotel," he said.
"And he’s still not woken. But think it through with me. If Rolf’s Umbras took her, the way we’ve been assuming, then why? What do they want with her? If he were the one truly holding her captive right now, and he knows full well that we’re holding his daughter, then he should have reached out by now to trade, wouldn’t he?"
Derek slowed at last. He let out a long breath.
"That," he said, "is exactly why I’m no longer thinking only about Rolf."
Declan glanced at him.
"There’s Brian," Derek said grimly. "The bastard’s been circling my wife for months. Touching her when no one was looking. And then after the coronation, he pulls his little stunt and vanishes into thin air. Fakes his own death. A drowned car and no body."
His eyes hardened. "That is not the behaviour of a man with nothing to hide."
"You’re right," Declan said slowly. "If it is Brian, we need a way to draw him out."
"I know exactly how."
Derek pushed through into the mansion and made straight for the study, where Kai was still bent over his laptop.
"What have you got?" Derek asked.
Kai looked up. "I’m still unable to trace both Rolf and Brian’s locations. Wherever they are, they are not using any devices with GPS."
"But I found Brian’s mother." He turned the screen.
"She’s married. Lives quietly, two daughters and a human husband, a whole little human-style life. But here’s the thing." He scrolled.
"According to the bank trails and his purchases, Brian has been secretly paying her visits ever since he turned twenty. And looking at the expensive gifts and properties he has quietly bought for her, the bastard seems to adore her pretty much. She’s his soft spot."
Derek stared at the screen for a moment.
"Splendid. She’s the only thing in this world he truly cares about," he said. "Her life, in exchange for my wife’s."
He straightened and turned to Declan.
"Summon every gamma, from every unit, at dawn tomorrow," he said. "All of them. We’re having a meeting."
His voice dropped, low and lethal. "Because somebody opened those gates from the inside. And I am going to find out exactly who the mole in this palace is."
