All Chapters of The Alpha's Lost Mate.: Chapter 81 - Chapter 90

143 Chapters

Ethan's Birthday

Ethan SteeleEthan had decided, weeks ago, that turning seven wouldn't feel any different from being six, because that was what had happened every other year of his life, one ordinary day sliding into the next without any noticeable shift, and he was mildly surprised, standing in the kitchen doorway watching Miriam wrestle a cake out of its pan while his mother laughed at something his father had just said, to discover that this year felt different after all."You're staring," Tessa said, appearing at his elbow with the particular bluntness she brought to every observation. She'd been invited for the week, staying in one of the guest rooms with her parents, and Ethan had found, over the past few days, that having her permanently nearby instead of only at lessons was considerably better than he'd expected it to be. "Is something wrong with the cake?""Nothing's wrong with the cake," Ethan said. "I just noticed that everyone seems happier than usual tonigh

The Plan against Ethan

Dominic SteeleDominic read Caius Holt's report three times before he trusted himself to speak, and even then, the words came out low and controlled in a way that cost him considerable effort to maintain."He's not just trying to take him," Dominic said. "He's building an entire legal case around him first."Caius had arrived that morning with a folder considerably thicker than anything he'd brought on any of his prior visits, and he sat now across the study desk with the particular grim patience of a man delivering news he already knew would land badly."My office intercepted correspondence circulating through Draven's territory over the past several weeks," Caius said. "Correspondence that makes his intentions considerably clearer than anything we understood from the phone data alone. Draven isn't planning a simple extraction for the sake of leverage. He's building a formal argument, one he intends to bring before the wider regional council, framing Ethan as w

Not Again

Sophie SteeleSophie was still holding the folder when Dominic said the words that made every muscle in her body go rigid at once."I want him gone by tomorrow morning."She looked up slowly, certain for a moment she'd misheard him. "Gone.""Away from here. Somewhere secure, somewhere Draven's people have no knowledge of and no way to trace." Dominic's voice had gone into the flat, controlled register he used when he was working through a decision he'd already made and simply hadn't finished explaining it yet. "I have contacts through the regional network, a secure property two states away, staff I trust completely. He'd be safe there while Caius handles the council proceedings and we deal with whatever comes next.""No," Sophie said, and the word came out sharper than she intended, immediate and unthinking, straight from some place in her that had been braced for exactly this conversation without her fully realizing it."Sophie—""No," she said again, standing n

Vivienne's Allies

Vivienne SteeleVivienne had been making phone calls since before dawn, and by the time Dominic found her in the smaller study, three empty cups of tea lined up on the desk beside a legal pad covered in names, she looked considerably more composed than the vehicle movement report currently circulating through the rest of the house had any right to allow."You've been busy," Dominic said, taking in the pad, the careful columns of names crossed out or checked or circled with question marks."I've been doing the one thing I've actually spent thirty years becoming good at," Vivienne said, not looking up from the call she was finishing, murmuring a polite closing before setting the phone down. "While you and Sophie were arguing about how to fortify this house last night, I was reminding myself that a house is not the only defense available to this family.""What are you doing, exactly?""Calling in thirty years of relationships," Vivienne said. "I have known nearly ev

The Broken Light

Sophie SteeleSophie was tucking Ethan in for the night, the house locked down tighter than it had ever been, extra guards visible even from his bedroom window, when he said something that made her hands go still on the blanket."The man from the car with the broken light was there again," Ethan said, in the way he said most things, already halfway settled against his pillow. "Outside, near the gate. I saw him from the window before you came in."Sophie's heart stopped for a full second before restarting at a considerably faster rate than it should have. "What man, sweetheart? What car?""The grey one," Ethan said. "From the field, at the gathering. The one with the man who had the scar. His car has a broken light. The one on the back, on the left side. It doesn't turn on all the way, just flickers a little, like it's tired."Sophie kept her voice as even as she could manage, sitting down carefully on the edge of the bed. "You've seen this before. The broke

The Chase

Rowan AshbyRowan had six men stationed around the lower lawn, closer together than any lesson had ever warranted before, and he still felt the wrongness of it in his gut the moment the grey sedan came through the service gap near the old maintenance road, moving fast, no headlights, cutting across the outer edge of the grounds with a precision that told him instantly this wasn't a wrong turn or a lost delivery driver."Contact, western boundary," he barked into his radio, already moving, cutting across the grass at a dead sprint toward the children clustered near Brooke on the lesson field. "Get them inside. Now."Brooke reacted instantly, years of training overriding any hesitation, scooping Ethan up with one arm and grabbing Tessa's hand with the other, half dragging both children toward the covered walkway that led back to the main house, and Rowan's chest seized watching the sedan angle hard, correcting its path directly toward that same stretch of open ground

Taken

Sophie SteelSophie had Ethan's hand in hers the entire walk from the house to the car, Rowan's men forming a tight corridor on either side, and she would spend every night afterward replaying those last thirty feet, certain there had to have been some warning sign she'd missed, some detail that would have let her hold on tighter, move faster, do anything differently at all."Straight into the car, both of you," Rowan said, holding the door open himself, scanning the dark tree line beyond the drive with the particular tension he'd carried since the broken taillight had cleared the fence hours earlier."How much longer until we're actually moving?" Sophie asked, glancing past him toward the trees, unable to shake the feeling that the dark had eyes."Two minutes, maybe less," Rowan said. "Sophie first, then Ethan, then I'm right behind. Nobody stops walking until they're in that seat.""I'm not stopping," Sophie said. "Ethan, stay right against me, okay?""I k

Across the Line

Dominic SteeleDominic had Caius Holt on speakerphone before the car had even cleared the villa's gates, and the answer he got back made something in his chest go cold with a fury he hadn't fully allowed himself to feel until this exact moment."I need authorization to cross the regional boundary," Dominic said. "Now, Caius. Not in an hour. Now.""I understand the urgency," Caius said, and there was genuine strain in his voice, the sound of a man caught between procedure and instinct. "But crossing an active boundary line without formal authorization, particularly into territory this contested, requires a minimum quorum of council sign-off. I'm working on it as fast as I possibly can, Dominic, but I cannot simply wave you across on my own authority alone. That kind of unilateral crossing has triggered actual conflicts between territories before, and I won't be the one responsible for starting a war on top of everything else happening tonight.""My son is somewhere

The Drawing

Sophie SteeleSophie was still gripping Ethan's notebook against her chest when the memory hit her, sudden and vivid, cutting through the panic with a clarity that made her sit bolt upright in the moving car."Stop," she said. "Rowan, don't go straight to the coordinates Halvard gave us. Not yet.""Sophie, we don't have time to..""Listen to me." She was already flipping through the notebook, hands shaking so badly she nearly tore a page, searching backward through weeks of Ethan's careful, methodical sketches until she found the one she was looking for, dated nearly a month ago, before any of this had begun. "Two weeks before all of this started, Ethan drew this. He told me it was just a dream, nothing important, the kind of thing he draws sometimes without knowing why."She held the notebook up, angling it so Lena could see it in the dim glow of the dashboard light, a rough child's sketch of a tall structure with a distinctive slanted roofline, a water tower besid

The Warehouse

Lena MarshLena had thirty seconds, maybe less, before Dominic moved regardless of whether she'd finished confirming anything, and she worked through them with the same focused speed she'd used through every crisis of the last month, because a wrong guess now meant walking into the wrong building while Ethan disappeared somewhere else entirely."Rowan, I need everything you're seeing, right now," she said into the radio, the tablet balanced on her knee, with the satellite feed pulled up alongside the thermal pass from twenty minutes earlier."Four guards outside, positioned roughly northeast, northwest, and two near the loading dock on the southern face," Rowan's voice came back low and clipped. "Vehicle idling out back, rear doors open. They're moving fast, like they've been told to hurry.""How fast?" Dominic asked, leaning toward the radio. "Give me minutes, Rowan, not impressions.""Five, maybe less, before that vehicle's loaded and moving," Rowan said. "

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