CHAPTER 6: What the Water Carried

POV: Kaelen

The desk was clean. That was the only thing in the room that made sense right now. I had spent the last three hours putting the books back on the shelves, sorting the papers, and fixing what I broke yesterday, but it didn't help.

The rage was still sitting right under my ribs, keeping me awake for the seventh straight night. Sleeping felt like a waste of time anyway, and eating did too.

Rowan stood on the other side of the wood. He looked terrible. The bruises on his jaw were turning an ugly yellowish color, and even though he had cleaned up and changed his uniform, his hands were doing this tiny, uncontrollable shake against his sides.

“Report,” I said flatly. If I let the anger out, I wouldn't stop until the room was in pieces again.

“We went back over Silver Creek pass,” Rowan said, his throat clicking as he swallowed. “The attackers wore our uniforms, Kaelen. Shadowbrook colors. But they didn't move like our people. They were too clean and too efficient. They knew exactly which route we took, what time the transport moved, and the exact count of the guard rotation.”

An inside job. Or a highly organized hit. Logic said someone leaked the itinerary. My mind started looping through the names of every officer who had access to the schedules, spinning out a web of faces, motives, betrayals because a leak meant a traitor. A traitor meant my circle was compromised, which meant everything I built was built on sand.

“Go on,” I muttered, pressing my fists hard against the edge of the desk until my knuckles turned completely white.

“We found one of their dead by the stream,” Rowan continued. “His throat was completely ripped out. The wolf that did it, the scent didn't match anyone in our records. Not any known pack in the territory. But that isn't all.”

He hesitated, looking at the floor before forcing his eyes back to mine. “There was blood on the riverbank. We sampled it. It's Freya's.”

My chest tightened, but I kept my face blank. “And?”

“It was mixed with something else, something old and powerful. The magic in the blood profile doesn't match any standard lineage around here. It shouldn't be in Shadowbrook territory at all.”

Old magic, powerful blood. It didn't make sense. Freya was an omega. She was the girl who spent her days getting dirt on her nose in the herb gardens, the one who couldn't even finish a basic shift without collapsing from exhaustion.

None of the pieces were fitting together. The math was completely wrong. My thoughts kept spiraling back to the same impossible contradiction, the weak girl I knew versus the bloody evidence on the grass.

“Did you find her body?” I asked.

“No,” Rowan answered.

“Did anyone see where she went? Any tracks? Any witnesses?”

Rowan shook his head slowly. “The current runs northeast. Right toward Blackthorn Valley land. The trackers followed the blood to the water's edge, but after that, the scent just dies.”

Blackthorn. Of course. If she was dead in the river, the current took her. If she was alive, she was in enemy hands. Both options were unacceptable. I stared at the clean desk, my mind spinning the variables over and over until the wood under my fingers felt like it was about to crack.

Every night since the ambush, I had done the exact same thing. I’d press my palm flat against my sternum, right over my heart, and push my awareness into the dark.

I was looking for the bond, searching through that massive, hollow space where she used to be. Most nights, it was like yelling into a cave and hearing nothing back. Just absence.

But tonight, with Rowan’s words still vibrating in the quiet room, I closed my eyes and reached out one more time.

There.

My fingers twitched against my chest. It was faint, barely even a vibration, like a candle flame flickering in a massive windstorm. But it was there, alive. A distinct, unsteady pulse thrumming somewhere far to the northeast.

“She's alive,” I blurted, despite myself.

Rowan didn't even blink. He didn't argue with the bond. He knew better.

“Get a small team,” I ordered, my eyes snapping open to lock onto his. “Move across the border tonight. I don't care about the treaties. Track that scent wherever it goes, find out which house she's in, and bring her back. Bring her back or don't bother coming home at all.”

Rowan took a step forward, his voice dropping into that tight, careful register he used when he was trying to talk me down from a ledge. “If you cross that border, Kaelen, the pack fractures. The second your boots hit Blackthorn soil, Selene will move. She's already whispering to the elders. They'll declare you unfit before sunrise, the alliances we spent years building will fall apart, and we will have a civil war on our hands.”

“Let them talk,” I muttered, the logic in my head spinning out a dozen worst case scenarios and discarding every single one of them. I didn't care. Let the whole territory burn.

“I'm going.”

“Kaelen, look at me.” Rowan's hands were shaking harder now, but his eyes were steady. “I know you don't care. That's exactly why you can't go. You leave, and we lose everything. Let me handle it. You stay here, you keep the mask on, you play the stable Alpha for the elders so they don't lock this place down. I'll take the team. We go in secret, we find her, and we get out before anyone even realizes we crossed the line.”

I stared at him, my palm still pressed against the faint, ticking pulse in my chest. The logic was clean, brutal, and completely right. If I stayed, I could hold the line. If I left, there would be nothing left for her to return to.

“Fine,” I said. “Go. And Rowan? If you lose her again, don't come back.”

×××

I hated it. Every single second of it. But I agreed because Rowan’s logic was flawless, and because I had absolutely no other choice. Patience had never been my strong suit, but right now, it was the only weapon I had left in the armory.

Later that night, the door opened.

Selene.

She wasn't wearing her usual silk robes. She didn't try to cross the distance between us, didn't try to put her hands on me. She just sat down in the chair across from my desk, her fingers folded neatly in her lap, her eyes cold.

I didn't answer. I just watched her face. I looked past the perfect posture, past the polished, heavy mask she always wore, and that's when I saw it. It wasn't jealousy. It wasn't her usual burning ambition, either. It was fear. Real, raw, unadulterated fear hiding right in the tight corners of her eyes.

“What are you afraid of, Selene?” I asked.

She stood up, her movements entirely mechanical, and smoothed down the front of her dress. She turned and walked out of the room, leaving the question hanging in the dark between us.

Hours later, the room was pitch black. I lay back, forcing my breathing to slow down, and reached out for the bond one last time before trying to close my eyes.

The pulse was there. It was stronger now, distinct against the background noise of my own racing thoughts. But as I focused on it, trying to map out the distance, I felt something else underneath the rhythm.

It was tiny and rapid. A frantic little flutter right against the main pulse.

And that's when it hit me.

A child?

I sat straight up in the dark, my palm slamming hard against my sternum. The realization didn't just hit me. It completely wrecked me. Everything shattered and rearranged itself in a fraction of a second. The math finally made sense.

The old, powerful blood at the riverbank, the secrecy. All of it.

Freya was alive and she was pregnant with my child. And she was out there right now, somewhere in enemy territory, completely convinced that I was the one who tried to kill her.