Chapter 4

Lazarus’s POV

It had been five months since she disappeared, and everyday her absence spread inside me like a growing emptiness.

Normally, it should not have gotten in the way of my duties as Alpha of the Blackwater Pack.

I was used to being alone, respected but feared to the point that sometimes it felt like I was being shunned.

Loneliness had never been an issue for me before, but that had all changed since she came into my life, turned it upside down, and then disappeared completely from it.

I had tried ignoring the urge to go looking for her. But my wolf Alec continued to nag at me, and several times he had tried to force a shift so that he could go looking for her himself, which was something he hadn’t done since we were cubs.

Then there was the fact that every time I stepped into my apartment, a part of my brain expected to find her waiting. Maybe it was the fact that we were fated, but I had never sensed a lick of fear towards me from her.

If anything, my mate acted completely oblivious of my reputation, though we both knew it wasn’t true. She was always trying to draw me in: calling me by different variations of my name (Laz, Lazar, then my least favorite: Lazlo), teasing and pulling little pranks despite my warnings.

She was cheeky to the point of rudeness, but by the goddess, I was obsessed with her even though I tried not to be… then she disappeared five months ago, and everything went to shit.

For the last five months I had lived with the emptiness, but in the two weeks or so when I found out that she wasn’t back at her home Pack with Dean (according to him, at least), and realized that nobody had seen or heard from her in all the time since she left, it felt like a part of me had gone crazy.

I was always angry, and even now my temper flared as we bumped over a pothole on the ride into the no-mans-land that was Rogueland.

It was a piece of unclaimed territory that rogues from all over the world had been migrating into for the last fifty years, and while it could technically pass as a city, the dinginess of the place, its old buildings and bad roads, betrayed the fact that it was barely getting by.

The thought of my mate willingly coming to a place like this just to escape me left a funny feeling in my chest, but I shoved that away too again.

It didn’t matter.

Rogueland was one of the only places I hadn’t already searched, and with the two other Alphas hot on my heels, I knew I only had a few hours to clear out this place and look for my mate.

Of course, I thought darkly, if anyone else found her first, there would be hell to pay.

Inside me, Alec let out a low growl of approval, and as the truck had barely come to a stop before I got out of it to scan my surroundings.

It was still early in the morning, but the quiet was disturbed by the hum of engines as other trucks filed into the square and men stepped out of them.

Their faces were hard as they all silently approached for instructions, and some of them held onto leashes attached to the collars of various trained dogs.

When they had all gathered, I looked into each and every one of their faces and as I expected, not one of them maintained eye contact for more than a few seconds.

Only a few of them were my men. The others were mercenaries I had hired, and for a moment I wondered if doing that had been the right call. But I dismissed the thought before it could settle.

“You’re here for one thing and one thing only,” I began. “To look for a woman.”

I paused to let the words sink in, and more than one of the mercenaries started to grin until they’d meet my eyes and instantly think better of it.

“Early twenties,” I began, before continuing to rattle off her descriptions because that was all I had.

There were no pictures of us (a fact I realized once I started searching for her in earnest) and she had practically cleared out all of her belongings, leaving me with the one thing I had left of her: her handkerchief.

It was where the dogs came in, and once I finished giving my instructions each man came forward with his dog to take a sniff before heading off. I repeated this action until I was the only one left in the square, resisting the urge to take a sniff of the piece of fabric myself since the scent of it was almost completely gone.

I returned the square cloth back to the Ziploc bag I now stored it in, and as the men went from door to door, I oversaw their actions and watched the sun rise into the sky.

Two hours passed like this before I realized that we weren’t making much progress, and by this time most of the residents of Rogueland had already started their mornings. Several of them passed by my men on the way to their work places, grumbling at the inconvenience, and when I barked out the new orders through gritted teeth, I received odd looks.

“Tell the men to bring all of the women out into the council building for inspection,” I told one of the only men who belonged to my back, a Delta named Quinn.

His eyebrows rose up to his face at the order, almost disappearing into his hairline, and he cleared his throat.

“S-sir, most of them have already gone to work and I—”

“Do I have to repeat myself, Quinn?” I asked softly, and instantly his face paled.

With a quick head jerk that was supposed to represent a nod, he turned on his heels and practically ran away from me, and as I watched his retreating figure, I felt a pang go through me.

I wanted to find my mate, and the chances of doing so here were low. In truth, I believed that Alpha Dean was hiding her and pretending to look.

It made more sense that he would do that, as he

‘You should’ve marked her a long time ago,’ Alec complained gruffly inside me, and I bit down a sharp reply because it wasn’t that simple.

Marking her would’ve meant that I had to declare her as the Luna and things were more com—

My thoughts ground to a standstill when I saw a girl with black hair.

Her back was to me, but the shape, and her height were just about the same as my mate’s. I was moving before I had any conscious thought it what was happening, and sharply I grabbed her ark and turned her and—

It wasn’t her.

The girl’s startled face came into view, and a moment passed before I saw fear creep into her face as soon as she realized who I was.

I let go of her with an apology at the tip of my tongue, but she let out a shriek before sprinting off, her legs pumping away as fast as she could make them, as if she thought I would force her back to my Pack to be a Breeder or order her killed.

The sun was high in the sky at this point, and the feeling of eyes on me made the hairs at the end of my neck stand. Cursing low under my breath, I felt my mood go even darker, and after a moment of thought I started to make my way back to the trucks.

When I got to mine, Quinn was waiting nervously, having delivered my orders to the other men.

“Call me if anything interesting comes up.”

Quinn gave me another nervous nod as his eyes darted up warily, and I slammed the truck’s door shut, unaware of the events that would play out over the course of that afternoon.