**CHAPTER 4: SCENT OF MY MATE

 Kael Draven🖤

I sat on the throne of black stone and listened to my generals argue about border patrols for the third time that morning. The same reports. The same concerns. The same careful voices that never dared tell me anything I did not already know. My fingers tapped once against the armrest. The sound alone was enough to quiet the nearest official.

I was not interested.

Then the scent reached me.

It slid into the throne room like smoke, soft and impossible to ignore. Sweet in a way that had nothing to do with flowers. Sharp in a way that had nothing to do with blood. It wrapped around my senses and pulled every thought I owned into a single, violent focus.

My wolf surged forward so hard I nearly stood.

*She’s here.*

I froze.

*Our mate is here.*

The words slammed through my skull with the force of a claim I had waited years to hear and had long stopped expecting. I kept my face expressionless through sheer will. Around me the court continued speaking, unaware that the air itself had just changed.

I rose from the throne.

Conversations died mid-sentence. Every eye turned toward me. I ignored them and drew a slow breath, chasing the scent again. It was already thinning, already slipping through my grasp like water.

*Find her,* my wolf snarled. *Now.*

I clenched my jaw. “Continue,” I told the room, voice flat.

No one continued. They watched me instead.

I looked to my Beta, Kael, who stood at the foot of the dais with the calm of a man who had learned long ago never to show surprise. “Has anyone unfamiliar entered the kingdom in the last day?”

Kael’s brow furrowed. “No reports of unusual travellers, my king. The borders have been quiet.”

The scent was fading faster now. My wolf paced inside my mind, restless and furious.

*She’s close. I can still feel her. Move.*

I exhaled through my nose and addressed the court. “My mate has entered our territory.”

Silence fell so completely I could hear the distant crackle of the hearth fires. Kael’s carefully schooled expression cracked for the first time in years. Several generals exchanged glances. One of the older advisors actually took a step backward.

I did not give them time to recover. “I want every patrol doubled. Question every traveller at the borders. Search the villages, the outer forests, the roads leading to neighbouring lands. If she passed through any part of this kingdom, I will know of it before nightfall.”

Orders moved outward like a tide. Guards left the hall at a run. Scouts were summoned. Messengers scattered toward the outer posts. I remained standing because sitting felt impossible while the bond still hummed under my skin, faint and already retreating.

By the time the sun began to lower, the first reports returned empty. No unfamiliar women matching any description. No strange scents recorded by the border wolves. No travellers who could not account for themselves. The trail, if it had ever been a trail, had vanished as though it never existed.

My wolf refused to accept it.

*She was here. I tasted her on the air. You let her slip away.*

I dismissed the court earlier than usual and retreated to my private study, where the walls were thick enough to keep the rest of the palace from hearing me argue with the creature sharing my skull.

“Be silent,” I told him under my breath.

*Find her.*

“I am trying.”

*Not hard enough. She is ours. She is alone. Something is wrong.*

I pinched the bridge of my nose. “If you do not lower your voice I will lock you in the furthest corner of my mind and leave you there until the next full moon.”

A pause. Then, almost sulky: *You cannot lock me away.*

“Watch me.”

Kael entered without knocking, as he always did when the matter was urgent. He took one look at my face and carefully wiped the amusement from his own before speaking.

“The scouts have covered the northern and eastern borders. Nothing. The western villages report no strangers in the last three days. Southern roads are the same.” He hesitated. “Your wolf is… loud today.”

I shot him a look that had ended careers. Kael only cleared his throat and studied the map on my desk with sudden fascination.

Days blurred. Meetings continued. Reports arrived and left empty-handed. I sat through councils with perfect posture while my wolf paced and growled and occasionally howled inside my head loud enough to fracture concentration. More than once I ended discussions early simply to stop myself from snarling at men who had done nothing wrong except fail to produce a woman none of us could find.

On the fourth night I stood at the tall window of my chambers and stared into the dark forest beyond the capital walls. The bond was quiet now, reduced to a faint, maddening echo. My wolf had gone from frantic to grimly determined.

*She is still out there,* he said. *Somewhere. We will find her.*

I rested one hand against the cold glass. “Yes,” I answered quietly. “We will.”

Somewhere beyond my borders, beyond the reach of my scouts and the limits of the scent that had already abandoned me, a woman walked through her own life completely unaware that the King of the Werewolves had already claimed her as his.

And I had no intention of remaining unaware for long.

:)