Chapter 3

Kael's Pov

"What have you done, Alpha?" My beta, Darius, asked. Panic in his voice.

"We're alone, Darius. You can drop the formalities now." I replied with a heavy sigh. Right now, I don't just need my beta, I need my friend.

"You brought your human mate to the pack without her consent, you know too well it's against the law. What if the pack suffers even more for this?"

"What would you suggest I do then? Sit and do nothing even after finding her. With each passing day, the beast grows stronger, and soon it'll be impossible to keep me confined." I argued, the weight of everything weighing down on me so hard.

Darius didn't say anything, so I continued speaking. "I've been watching her for a while now, and I've always thought of just approaching her at first and taking things slow then eventually telling her the whole truth but I bet she'll just think I'm crazy. She's a human who doesn't even believe in the existence of our world or our kind. Also, she had a human boyfriend whom she loves dearly. I doubt she would have given me a chance if I had approached her."

Darius heaved a deep breath. "I understand, Kael. But there's too many things at risk here. This isn't allowed, and if our rivals find out about this, they'll try to use it against us."

"Then we better make sure this doesn't leave the pack. I don't care what anyone would do to me if they find out about this, I'm doing this for her safety. She can't be exposed yet, it's too dangerous."

Darius was about saying something when an urgent knock on the door interrupted us.

"I'll go see who it is." Darius said before leaving to answer the door.

When he opened the door and began speaking to the person, I paid close attention to hear their conversation.

"I'm sorry, Beta. We tried to stop her but we lost her."

I didn't need to hear more to know they were talking about Elena. I hurriedly stood up from my chair and went to meet them, my expression cold.

"What's going on?" I asked.

"Alpha." The guard bowed his head immediately, his body slightly trembling. "I...It's your guest, she ran away. We tried to chase after her but we lost her. It's impossible to track her by scent since we're not familiar with her scent. I'm sorry, Alpha. Please don't kill me." The guard cried out, dropping to his knees, his body still trembling with fear.

"How did she run away? I locked her in her room and specifically told the maids not to let her out." I questioned with gritted teeth.

"The maids had gone to her room to give her food, but then she suddenly requested to dine in the dining room. The maids didn't want to upset you by failing to take care of her properly, so they let her out and that's how she managed to run away."

The guards incompetence and the maids stupidity annoyed me greatly, I wanted to punish them so badly, but I knew I couldn't lose control right now. I shut my eyes tightly, balled my fists and tried to calm myself. My people are already terrified of me as it is, doing this will only worsen their fear.

"Leave now.'' I ordered.

The guard didn't waste one second, he scrambled to his feet and ran out of here.

After I had managed to calm down, I heaved a deep breath and opened my eyes.

"Are you okay?" Darius asked, concern etched in his voice.

"I'm fine, we'll leave immediately. I'll get you her coat and you can use that to track down her scent, also arrange some more guards for the search. I have no idea where she is or what's going on right now, but we have to get to her first before she runs into any kind of trouble."

"Yes, Alpha." Darius replied and I left in a hurry, heading back to her bedroom to get her coat which I had taken off her when I brought her back home.

When I went outside, I saw Darius already waiting with a few guards. I handed the coat to him and he took a sniff off it before passing it around to the other guards. When they got her scent, the coat was handed back to me. The guards immediately shifted into their wolf form while I and Darius followed, still in human form. I couldn't shift since I was afraid of losing control and I can't afford to let that happen, there's too much at stake now.

We ran into woods and began tracking Elena, my heart was pounding in my chest, and I silently prayed to the goddess to keep her safe. Although this is my territory, some rogues still manage to trespass, and if she happens to run into them or any wild animal—I didn't even want to think about it.

For a long time, we managed to track her down by her scent and foot marks that were hers, but soon we ran into a dead end. The foot marks ended and we couldn't get her scent anymore, no matter how hard we sniffed the air, we couldn't trace it—it's almost like she was masking her scent, but I was so sure Elena knew nothing about us, so she wouldn't have known how to mask her scent.

"You sense it too right?" Darius asked.

"She doesn't know about us, masking her scent all by herself isn't possible."

"What do we do?"

"We keep searching and be at alert, we can pick up a sound or something." I replied, trying to stay calm, but I guess Darius saw through my act.

He placed his hand on my shoulder in a comforting manner. "Don't worry, we'll find her."

"I hope so, Darius. I'm pretty sure I would lose my mind if anything bad happened to her. I'll never be able to forgive myself for failing to protect her."

"We'll find her. We won't stop searching." Darius reassured and I nodded in reply. He left and began directing the guards on where to search next.

I studied my surroundings, thinking hard about where Elena must have followed, a particular path called out to me the most. I decided to trust my instincts and follow that path, hoping it'll lead me to her.

"Elena, please be safe."