Chapter 3

Caelan's POV

I hadn't slept in three days.

Maybe four. Time had a way of blurring together when every waking moment was consumed by the same desperate thought: where is she?

My office reeked of whiskey and unwashed clothes. Empty bottles lined my desk like soldiers, and somewhere beneath the mess of maps and newspaper clippings and photographs of missing persons, there had to be food. Elena kept bringing me meals. I think. Hard to remember eating any of it.

The knock on my door was sharp, familiar. Elena didn't wait for permission before walking in, which meant she was pissed. Good. That made two of us.

"Jesus, Caelan." Her voice cut through the fog in my head like a blade. "When was the last time you showered?"

I looked up from the map I'd been studying... Montana, again. Always Montana, because something about those mountains called to me in ways I couldn't explain. "Did you come here to lecture me about hygiene, or do you have news?"

"Both, apparently." She moved closer, and I caught her trying not to breathe through her nose. That bad, huh? "The patrol came back empty-handed. Again. That's the fourth search party this month you've sent into territories that have nothing to do with our pack."

"They could have missed something." My voice sounded rough even to my own ears. When was the last time I'd spoken to another person? "A scent trail, a witness, anything..."

"They didn't miss anything because there's nothing to miss." Elena's tone was getting that dangerous edge that meant she was about to say things I didn't want to hear. "It's been two years, Caelan. Two years since the curse took her. She could be anywhere. She could be..."

"Don't." The word came out as a growl, and Elena actually took a step back. Good. I couldn't handle hearing her say what everyone was thinking. What Liora said every damn day in pack meetings.

She could be dead.

But she wasn't. Couldn't be. I'd know. The mate bond might be severed, silent as a grave, but I'd know if she was gone forever. Wouldn't I?

Wouldn't I?

"The pack is suffering." Elena's voice was gentler now, which somehow made it worse. "Marcus is covering for you in most of the meetings, but people are starting to ask questions. Liora's been fielding challenges to your leadership, and David... Caelan, David asked me yesterday if we needed to consider an intervention."

An intervention. Like I was some kind of addict.

Maybe I was.

I stared at the map until the lines blurred together. Somewhere out there, Aeliana was living a life without me. Maybe she was happy. Maybe she'd found someone else, some human man who could give her the simple life she'd never asked to leave behind.

The thought made me want to put my fist through the wall.

"I can't stop." The admission felt like swallowing glass. "I've tried, Elena. I've tried to focus on pack business, tried to be the Alpha they need, but every time I close my eyes, I see her face. Every time I try to sleep, I dream about that night."

Elena was quiet for a long moment. Then she walked around my desk and did something she hadn't done since we were children: she hugged me.

I didn't deserve it. Didn't deserve her patience or her worry or the way she kept cleaning up my messes. But I held onto her anyway, because she was the only thing anchoring me to reality anymore.

"We'll find her," she whispered. "But not like this. Not by destroying yourself and abandoning the pack she loved."

The pack she loved. Past tense. Elena didn't even realize she was doing it, but everyone talked about Aeliana in the past tense now. Even my own sister had given up hope.

A sharp knock interrupted us. Elena stepped back quickly, smoothing her hair, while I tried to look like less of a disaster. Fat chance.

Liora walked in without permission, which was becoming a habit. Her dark eyes took in the state of my office, the empty bottles, and the maps scattered everywhere, and her lip curled in disgust.

"Alpha," she said, and the title sounded like an insult. "The Riverside Pack is requesting a meeting about the rogue activity on the northern border. Marcus told them you'd respond within the week. That was three weeks ago."

Fuck. The Riverside Pack. Their Alpha, Thomas, was a reasonable man, but he had limits. If we'd ignored his request for three weeks...

"Handle it," I said.

"Handle it?" Liora's voice rose. "I'm your Beta, not your replacement. The pack needs their Alpha, not a ghost who drinks himself stupid every night."

"Liora." Elena's warning tone did nothing to slow her down.

"No, Elena. Someone needs to say it." Liora stepped closer to my desk, and I could smell her anger, sharp and clean. "Look at him. Look at what he's become. This isn't grief anymore, it's an obsession. And it's going to get pack members killed."

"She's right."

The voice from the doorway made all of us turn. Marcus stood there, looking older than I'd ever seen him. My Gamma, my best friend since childhood, was looking at me like I was a stranger.

"Marcus," I started, but he held up a hand.

"Yesterday, you sent Jake and Ben into Colorado Territory without permission from their Alpha. They almost started a war, Caelan. A war. Over a scent trail that was two days old and probably belonged to a lost hiker."

The words hit like physical blows. I'd sent Jake and Ben...? I tried to remember giving that order, but the last few days were a blur of whiskey and desperation.

"You're not fit to lead," Liora said bluntly. "And if you don't step down voluntarily, I'm calling for a formal challenge."

The silence that followed was deafening. Elena's sharp intake of breath. Marcus's heavy sigh. And underneath it all, the sound of my world cracking apart.

A formal challenge. Beta is challenging Alpha for leadership of the pack. It hadn't happened in Moonveil territory in over fifty years, but it was within her rights. Especially if she could prove I was unfit.

Which, looking around this disaster of an office, wouldn't be hard.

"You think you can do better?" I asked. My voice sounded steadier than I felt.

"I know I can." Liora's chin lifted. "I won't abandon pack duties to chase ghosts."

Ghosts. That's what Aeliana was to them now. A ghost. A memory. Something to be mourned and moved past.

But she wasn't dead. I'd stake my life on it.

Maybe I already had.

"One more month," I heard myself saying. "Give me one more month. If I haven't found her by then..."

"Caelan, no." Elena's protest was immediate. "You can't keep doing this to yourself."

But Marcus was nodding slowly. "One month. But with conditions." His gamma voice, the one that brooked no argument. "You attend every pack meeting. You handle the Riverside situation personally. And you stop sending unauthorized search parties into other territories."

"And you shower," Elena added grimly. "Regularly. I'm not enabling this anymore."

Liora looked between the three of us, her expression unreadable. Finally, she nodded. "One month. But if you're not back to being our Alpha by then, I'm calling the challenge. The pack deserves better than this."

She left without another word, her disgust hanging in the air like smoke.

Marcus lingered. "You know she's not wrong."

"I know."

"Do you?" He studied my face with those sharp brown eyes that had seen me through every crisis of my adult life. "Because from where I'm standing, it looks like you're choosing a woman who doesn't remember you over a pack that depends on you."

The accusation stung because there was truth in it. How many pack meetings had I missed? How many responsibilities had I shoved onto Marcus and Elena while I chased leads that went nowhere?

"She's my mate."

"She was your mate." Marcus's voice was gentle but firm. "The curse took her, Caelan. Took her memories, her wolf, everything that connected her to us. The woman you're looking for might not exist anymore."

Doesn't exist anymore.

The words echoed in my head long after Marcus left, long after Elena forced me into a shower and made me eat something that might have been soup.

One month. Thirty days to find her, or lose everything else I had left.

I was staring at the map of Montana when my phone rang. An unknown number, which wasn't unusual. I'd put out feelers with private investigators across the country, most of whom communicated through burner phones.

"Yeah?"

"Is this Caelan Draven?"

"Depends who's asking."

"Name's Mitchell. Private investigator out of Billings. You put out a request about a missing person? Blonde, green eyes, goes by Aeliana?"

My heart stopped. Actually stopped beating for a full second before slamming back to life with enough force to make me dizzy.

"You found her?"

"Maybe. Got a woman fitting that description working at a bookstore in a little town called Cedar Falls. The owner says she's been there about two years and showed up with no memory and no ID. Calls herself Aeliana, though."

Cedar Falls, Montana. I was already reaching for my keys before the man finished talking.

"Send me the address."

She was mine. Curse or no curse, memory or no memory, she belonged with me. With her pack. With her real family.

"Mr. Draven? You still there?"

I hung up and grabbed my jacket.

Time to bring my mate home.