The Luna You Betrayed Is No Longer Yours

Chapter 130: Chapter 130 Her wolf spirit might be returning

_Alaric’s POV_

My wolf refused to settle. ƒгeeweɓn૦vel.com

That was the thing that told me something beyond the search was wrong. Phillip had been restless since the morning Rowena disappeared, which made sense, which was expected, but this was a specific kind of restlessness that had a different quality to it. Not frustration at a stalled search, or the general agitation of a wolf whose instincts were being kept on a leash.

He was feeling something happening to her in real time. We weren’t even mates, how was that possible?

“Rowena is in great pain,” he said. He didn’t say that once. He kept saying it throughout the morning with persistence, as if reporting a fact that he needed me to act on. “Right now, she’s in pain and we’re standing here.”

“How can you eceh feel it? We have no bond together.” I asked in frustration and fear.

“Her wolf spirit is returning and I feel a connection between us.”

What?

I was standing at the window of the operational room looking at the city and I believed him completely because Phillip had never given me false information about anything that mattered.

I turned around.

“Reid.”

Reid looked up from the laptop where he had been coordinating the vehicle trace team.

“Wherever she is, it’s not a clean holding situation,” I said. “Something is actively happening to her. I want every name on the extended Drake Ashford associate list found and questioned today. Not tomorrow, but today. And I want the vehicle trace team doubled.”

“Doubling the team pulls resources from the border coverage,” Reid said.

“Pull them,” I said. “She’s inside the city. I know she’s inside the city. Phillip knows she’s inside the city. Put everything on the interior.”

Reid nodded and immediately made the calls.

I went back to the window and a person flashed in my mind.

Could it be Kaelen?

I had been turning this over for two days and I was finished turning it over. He had put her name in the press the night before she disappeared. He had Virella, whose resources and contacts were not fully mapped. He had a motive that I understood precisely because I understood what it was to want something you couldn’t have and to become destructive about not having it, except I had chosen a different response to that feeling than he had.

He had chosen to burn things.

“I want Kaelen Varkos detained,” I blurted out before I could think further. “Formally. Emergency investigative provision. I want him in a regional authority holding room within the hour.”

Reid paused. “The legal basis needs to be documented.”

“Suspected involvement in the disappearance of a protected regional figure,” I stated. “I have circumstantial basis and I’ll have more before the hold expires. Do it now.”

He obeyed and made the call.

Kaelen’s detention hit the outlets forty minutes later.

I read the coverage while Reid briefed me on the trace update.

And of course, there were comments on the post. The comments that came back were not entirely what I had hoped for too.

People were frustrated and angry.

They had been watching their Alpha King remain out of the capital for days. The Ridgecroft complaint had generated noise even after it was resolved. The Kaelen detention now, read to some of the regional population as a personal move rather than a governance one had spiked them again.

The comment sections said so in an unfiltered way. They didn’t hold back and just lashed out.

*He’s been gone for days over a woman.*

*Detaining an Alpha for personal reasons. This is an abuse of position.*

*What happened to governing the region instead of chasing the Marchioness around the country.*

I read all of it and didn’t care one bit. I would do more if permitted. I can abuse my power all day for Rowena, and no one would ever dare to take this position from me.

“Hurry up and draft a statement,” I told Reid.

He picked up his pen.

I thought about what I needed to say and decided to say exactly what was true.

“The Alpha King’s presence in this region is in direct service of an active investigation into historical criminal activity affecting a prominent regional family, Ashthornes.” I said. “The investigation has been underway for weeks for the circumstances surrounding Smith Ashthorne’s death. The Marchioness of Ashthorne was abducted while conducting legitimate investigative activities related to this case. Every resource available to this office is currently deployed in finding her.” I paused. “The detention of Kaelen Varkos is pursuant to the investigation and has been documented through proper legal channels.”

Reid was writing.

“Add one more section,” I said.

He looked up.

I thought about Rowena standing at the site where her father and brothers died. Rowena pulling her helmet off at the competition with her hair coming loose and the crowd changing around her. Rowena leaning into my chest in the dark between the trees and letting herself be held for two minutes before stepping back and straightening up.

“The Alpha King loves Rowena Ashthorne,” I said. “That is a personal statement made publicly because the circumstances warrant it. He will use every authority available to him to bring her home. Anyone who wishes to interpret that commitment as a distraction from governance is welcome to review the full record of what this office has accomplished in the past thirty days and reconsider their position.”

Reid looked at me over his pen.

“Are you sure about this one? You want to make it public?

“Leave all of it in,” I replied instead, before he could finish.

He sighed and sent it.

Phillip didn’t fully settle. He wouldn’t until she was home. But something in him acknowledged what had been said and quieted slightly.

The statement generated exactly as much response as Reid had predicted. Most of it were noise, some of it support, a small portion of it the warmth of people who had decided that a man saying clearly that he loved someone and was going to find them was something they could believe in.

I wasn’t thinking about the response, their opinion didn’t matter to me. I would do whatever I wanted to save my woman.

“We really have to move faster. They’re doing so much terrible things to her, they’ll kill her wolf.” Phillip said in frustration, also crying to climb the surface of my sanity. That told me the situation was extremely grave.

I turned back to the room.

“What do we have on the vehicle plates?” I asked.

“Nine eliminated,” Reid said. “Three remaining. Two are registered to companies. One to a private individual.”

“Who’s the private individual?”

“We’re running the name now,” he replied.

“How long is it going to take?” I was this close to losing my cool. Moon goddess. I ran a hand through my hair.

“Twenty minutes, Alpha. Just twenty minutes.” Reid saw my frustration instantly.

“I give you just ten minutes!”