She Is Mine!

Sigewuf's POV

It was already a week since Camille escaped from the pack. None of the pack soldiers had been able to find her.

I had all the guards within the mansion on duty fed wolfsbane and then placed in the dark cell. Useless lot of them. How could they have allowed her to escape?

If they survived, it would be their miracle.

Peering from the window of the room Coryn had kept Camille in that night, I knew she could jump from this height, but I couldn't understand why there was no scent of her anywhere.

I had ordered everyone to stay away from the room just in case their scent could mix with any trace of hers.

Every wolf had a scent. In fact, once a wolf changed into their form, it was easier to pick up their scent.

I sat on the bed, moving my claws over the spot where she had fallen that night. There was nothing—no scent, no sign she had lain there except for the rumpled areas.

Alpha Loeka had come all the way from the south to help search for her. He couldn't be stupid enough to hide her and then come all the way to the North to look for her.

But his eyes held something-a secret. A fear I knew only guilt could foster. I had asked Demuel to search Loeka’s palace, but there had been nothing. She was already a disgrace; they didn't want her back in their pack as proof of their punishment.

But right now, she was my disgrace. A disgrace to everyone? Yes. But firstly, my disgrace. And if she deserved to be punished, it was my place to decide what that punishment should be.

“We're on our way back,” Beta Roxan linked me via the mind link, breaking my train of thoughts.

I had asked them to visit each pack in the North until they were sure she wasn't hiding somewhere.

Camille couldn't be killed easily. She was different: a pureblood. It would take a pureblood of her kind to kill her. Even a fool like Alpha Loeka knew that; hence, he didn't want her around him. He feared her.

I knew she was alive and hiding, but where?

“Anything new?” I asked, feeling the desperation in my own voice.

There was a delay in his response. I knew what it meant. I didn't want to wait for him, I broke the mind link.

Getting up from the bed, I needed a smoke to clear my mind.

“You're pushing for more than we can handle. She doesn't belong here. Leave the girl alone,” Khona, my wolf, was howling, like the rest. His fear had been from the very beginning.

“I can't do that,” I shot back, holding the lighter close to the cigar as I wrapped my lips around it.

Stupid b**ch! Sending unnecessary waves of fear everywhere.

“You couldn't pick her scent even that night, remember?” Khona snarled.

I puffed out smoke from my mouth, trying to recall the incident from that night in the room with Camille. I think I had picked up a scent. I ran a hand over the beard above my lips. Had I really picked up her scent?

I couldn't remember.

“You didn't.”

I shrugged. “I had picked up her scent. She probably did something to make it unnoticeable.”

Khona was replying to my thought. “You can't pick up her scent either because she hasn't shifted yet, or because she has—and clearly, as you strongly believe, her breed's cover their smell.”

I knew my stance was weak, and my reply was stupid, but I didn't want Khona getting into my head, especially since it was about Camille.

“She's 19. She probably already shifted. And about the scent part—I had picked it up.”

“You know better than you're willing to admit. What scent did you pick then?”

I said nothing. A heavy silence invaded my thoughts. Khona broke it: “Camille didn't have to hide it.”

“It's a gift from the goddess to help keep her safe. Whatever you picked, it would have probably been the scent of another wolf. No one can pick up her scent.”

“Nonsense!” I scoffed.

“There's an exception. " a short silence followed

"There's someone who can pick her scent.”

I was getting antsy. “Who is it?”

Khona hesitated. He wanted to get back at me for shutting him out of my mind the day we visited Aston-Lakenheath. He knew I needed answers desperately. My wolf was damn petty! Different strokes for different blokes.

“Her mate.”

I wanted to give him a look, like “be serious”, but it would be a waste. It would be like spitting in my own face.

“I'm her mate,” I said, blowing smoke from my lips. Willing myself to believe those words even as I said it.

“Only by a contract marriage that didn't see the light of day to even share a mate bond. You didn't even mark her,” Khona replied, tutting.

My expression was grave. “Your point exactly?”

“Her scent can only be picked by her mate. Her fated mate, just to be specific.” He had a

I winced as if I had been struck. “A fated mate, hmm.”

“Do you know who this fated mate is?” My voice sounded caustic.

“No.”

Khona said nothing else. He was giving me time to process everything he had said.

Camille’s scent could not be picked. It was fascinating to hear.

If there was a fated mate, did Camille already know that? If she knew, had she gone to him? Or had he traced her down here?

I brushed off the latter thought, preferring to think that the former was easier.

Alpha Loeka had sworn Camille had never left Aston-Lakenheath since she was a child. That meant two things—her fated mate was at Aston-Lakenheath, or somewhere nearby.

I mind-linked Beta Roxan immediately. “Fetch the witch, now. we're goinĝ to Vernice. ”

His reply came almost instantly: “On it.”

I stood in front of the window, the smell of tobacco filling my nose. “If I couldn't have Camille, then no one would. Fated or not, she was mine.”