The Veylard bastard’s head

Kael

Day or night. I didn’t care. I had lost the understanding of the concept of time since she left. The ever quiet, ever happy lady Elora.

“We couldn’t find her, your majesty.” The guards chorused as they bowed their heads to the ground.

I sucked in a deep breath and scratched my chin in thought.

It had been five days since the meeting with our parents. She was never to be seen again after that.

It was a very silly thing, if I dare say, how I had gone from never really knowing her to unable to barely able to function since she went missing.

I had searched the entire pack, and even neighboring packs to the East and West. Everytime the guards came back without her, one thing became clearer.

Elora was gone.

On the first day, I had searched the entire pack house, checked the gardens, the training grounds, and even the little cabin she liked to sit in when she wanted to be alone. I had often found her there during my visits to Selene.

Nothing. She wasn’t anywhere.

At first, I told myself she was probably just taking a walk. Maybe she needed time to think. This marriage was a lot anyways, and both our lives had drastically changed after the night we spent together. My wolf yearned for her, and memories of her scent left me tossing and turning in bed over and over.

As the minutes stretched into hours, and hours turned into days, it ceased to make sense.

Something was wrong.

Her best friend, Camilla, hadn’t seen her since the eve of my coronation and mating ceremony. She didn’t know what had transpired between Elora and I either. It was clear Elora hadn’t been in contact with her.

Almost six days had passed. Still, nothing.

I closed my eyes and focused on our bond, the mate bond that connected us.

Before, I had felt her emotions like they were my own. We had even spoken through the mind-link after the night we spent together.

Now, when I reached for it, there was nothing. Just silence. A cold, empty void where her voice and gentle warmth should have been.

I clenched my fists. This couldn’t be happening.

Selene found me pacing in the throne room.

She had helped search for Elora as well. Though she was unhappy about everything that had happened, and my carelessness, she cared about Stormrider more and was determined to make sure we found Elora for the good of the pack.

“Kael, she’ll turn up. She’s never been far from home. She doesn’t know anything or anywhere,” she said softly as she walked in.

“Maybe she just needed space.”

I shook my head. “No. Something happened to her. I can feel it.”

Athlea and my father entered the throne room behind her. Athlea dismissed the guards while father stood tall, arms crossed.

“Thank the goddess! She must have single-handedly ran away!”

Athlea’s voice echoed in the hall with the kind of mock concern that had me fighting the urge to frown.

“Poor girl. She must have realized she wasn’t the one you really wanted to marry. Shame makes people do crazy things.”

I shot her a glare, my anger bubbling inside me.

“Elora wouldn’t run away.”

Athlea raised a brow. “Are you sure about that?”

No. I wasn’t sure. I didn’t know Elora well enough to say for certain. But something inside me screamed that Athlea was wrong.

Elora wasn’t a coward. She wouldn’t just leave without a word, without trying to fight for what she wanted.

And she wanted me. A part of me had always known. But that night…the way she gave herself to me proved it to me.

I turned to my father. “We need to search for her. We’ve gone to the east and west. We have to go South.”

My father let out a sigh. “Kael, we have more important things to focus on. I would not let you take our troops into a place where our enemies could easily have our heads on a platter!”

“I’m not standing around while she’s missing.” I clenched my fists as I spoke. My voice was sharp, cutting through the room.

“She could be in trouble. And I would be damned if I sit here and do nothing when my mate is out there! Possibly…” the thought that something could have happened to her…

No.

I sucked in a deep breath, reducing my voice. No matter what, it was rude to snap at my father.

“My apologies, father. I’m just…”

I ran my right hand down the length of my hair.

“I need to find her.”

He studied me for a moment, then gave a slow nod. “Fine. Take some of the warriors and search the surrounding areas. But don’t waste too much time, and don’t go too far. The elders are asking questions. We have a wedding to plan.”

“And my bride is missing,” I shot back.

Selene looked away from me.

“What’s a wedding without a bride, father?”

When he said nothing, I rushed outside. Within minutes, I had a group of men ready. We split into teams and spread out across the forest towards the south, where our enemies were situated, calling her name, searching for any sign of her.

For hours, we found nothing. No footprints, no scent, no trail to follow. It was like she had vanished into thin air.

Until…

“Alpha!” someone shouted from ahead.

I ran toward the voice with my heart pounding against the walls of my chest.

When I reached the clearing, I froze.

A piece of fabric lay on the ground, stained dark red. I recognized it immediately. It was Elora’s dress, the one she had worn the morning of the meeting!

I moved closer, my breath catching in my throat. Around the dress, the ground was covered in something worse. Blood. So much blood.

No wolf, especially one as weak and untrained as Elora’s could survive such a blood loss.

My stomach twisted. My knees gave out, and I sank to the ground, staring at the bloody mess before me.

“No…” The word barely escaped my lips.

Elora was gone.

“Bastards!” I screamed aloud, reaching for the scraps of her clothes.

“They hadn’t even had the decency to treat her like a person. Who disrespects a body like this?” I turned to my men.

“Who?!” I screamed, but none of them would answer me.

“And right by the boundary of the bastards of the south. Did they do this?” I was full of questions, but left with no one to reply.

They wouldn’t even look at me.

I felt numb. Everything around me blurred. The voices of the search party faded into the background. My fingers curled into the dirt, gripping it like it could somehow hold me together.

I wasn’t sure how long I sat there. Time didn’t seem real anymore. But eventually, someone touched my shoulder, and I forced myself to stand.

“We have to head back, my lord. We’re close to enemy territory, and it isn’t safe. They could be anywhere.”

The walk back to the pack house felt slow. I couldn’t tell how many hours I had been outside, but the moment I stepped inside, my father was waiting for me.

“The show must go on,” his voice was calm.

He wore a blank expression on his face even as I held Elora’s bloodied dress in my hands.

Didn’t he care that she had died? That she was torn apart by our enemies?

The Veylards were the only ones who could have done such a thing. They were scavengers without regard for human life. They waged wars and invaded territories, taking and leaving behind dead bodies, widows, orphans.

My father and Elora’s had waged war against them years ago. Lessons had not been learned, and it was clear from what they had done.

They must have heard of the prophecy and killed Elora to stop me from succeeding. I was growing furious just thinking about it, but my father didn’t care.

“You must make Selene your bride as soon as possible. The prophecy is waiting. There’s a war to be won.”

Selene and her mother, lady Athlea, appeared beside him. Her eyes widened at the sight of Elora’s dress in my hands, but she looked away immediately.

Did she not care as well? No matter what had happened, Elora was her sister.

Rage flickered inside me. I didn’t respond. I just turned and walked away, her bloody dress in my hands.

The war was going to end one way and one way only. With the Veylard bastard’s head dangling in my hand.