ROVIAN.
I couldn't have heard right.
"What?"
"The Luna," The maid stammered, "Your Majesty. She's—her room is empty. Her things are gone."
I was moving before she finished, down the hall with my heart pounding for reasons I didn't want to examine.
The maids' quarters looked the same as always. Tiny. Plain. That closet of a room I'd had her moved to two years ago.
Except now it was empty.
The crown I'd placed on her head sat on the narrow bed. Next to it, a piece of paper folded once.
I picked it up.
'You're free now. Don't look for me.'
Heat flooded my chest. Not the good kind. The kind that made my vision narrow and my hands shake.
"When did anyone last see her?"
"Dinner, Your Majesty. Last night."
Last night. The pack dinner where I'd pulled Aradia into my lap and kissed her while staring straight at Daphne. My jaw clenched.
"Search the palace. Search every room. Now."
The maid hesitated. "Your Majesty, her things are—"
"Search it anyway."
She ran to relay the instruction.
I stood there holding that piece of paper, reading those seven words over and over.
She left.
My wife left.
Without permission. Without warning. Just packed up and disappeared in the middle of the night like she had every right to.
My brother.
The thought hit like cold water.
I was back in the hall, grabbing the first guard I saw. "Where's Caelan?"
"His chambers, I believe, Your Majesty."
So he's still here then.
She didn't run to him?
"Get the trackers. Best ones we have. Tell them to meet me in the courtyard in ten minutes."
"Yes, Your Majesty."
I sent a whole party after her trail before I went back to her room.
And then I stood there trying to piece together what had happened. When she'd decided to leave. How she'd gotten past the guards. Where she thought she could go that I wouldn't find her.
By noon the trackers were back.
"Well?"
The head tracker looked uncomfortable. "Her scent ends at the border, Your Majesty. We crossed into neutral territory but there's nothing after that. It's like she just vanished."
"People don't just vanish."
"No, but—she's a healer. She'd know how to mask her scent. Herbs, probably. Something to throw us off."
Of course she would.
"Keep looking." I growled.
"Your Majesty, if she doesn't want to be found—"
"I didn't ask for your opinion. I gave you an order."
He left quickly.
I sent word to the neighboring packs. I offered gold for information like a man man. I put every available tracker on it for days.
But it was always nothing.
She was just gone.
The weeks after that were a blur.
I couldn't focus during council meetings. I couldn't sleep a wink. I'd found myself standing in that tiny room at odd hours, staring at the crown she'd left behind like it might suddenly tell me where she went.
I told myself I was angry.
Fucking livid that she'd stolen my choice by leaving before I could dismiss her properly. That this was about control and order and making sure pack law was respected.
But that didn't explain why I couldn't eat. Why I snapped at everyone who spoke to me. Why I kept thinking about where she was, if she was safe, if she had enough gold to survive on.
If she ever thought about me.
And the fact that it didn't explain these things, enraged me.
Her absense shouldn't affect me.
She was a traitor.
A whore.
I shouldn't be bothered that she'd done me a favor and fucked off.
I should be grateful.
But I fucking wasn't.
Three weeks after she left, Caelan showed up during a council meeting.
We'd been in the same room plenty of times over the past two years. Pack business required it. But we didn't talk unless we had to. Didn't look at each other more than necessary. I'd mastered the art of directing questions to him through other people, of arranging meetings so we were never alone.
It had been working fine.
Now he was standing in my study while the advisors filed out, and something about the set of his shoulders told me he wasn't leaving.
I kept my eyes on the papers in front of me. "Council's over."
"I know."
"Then you can go."
"We need to talk."
"No, we don't." I signed something without reading it. "Close the door on your way out."
He didn't move. I could feel him standing there, could feel the weight of whatever he wanted to say pressing against the silence between us.
I'd gotten good at this. At pretending the sight of him didn't make something twist in my chest. At acting like he was just another pack member, just another wolf who served at my pleasure. At swallowing down the betrayal that sat in my throat every time I had to look at him.
My brother.
The person I'd trusted most in the world, before I came home early during one of my trips and saw him in my shower with my wife.
"You've been standing in her room every night," he said finally.
My hand stilled on the paper.
The audacity of this fucker.
She was my wife. Not his. And a part of me wanted to wring his neck for having the gull to talk about her to me after he slept with her right under my nose.
My hand curled into a fist as I wondered if he was jealous.
"That's not your concern." I bit out.
"It is when you're falling apart."
"I'm not falling apart." I still didn't look up. "I'm handling a security issue. A wolf left pack territory without permission. That requires investigation."
"Is that what you're calling it?"
"That's what it is."
"Right." His voice had an edge now. "That's why you can't sleep. Why Tetley told me you nearly took a guard's head off yesterday for nothing."
"Tetley talks too much."
"Rovian." He moved closer. I could see him in my peripheral vision now, standing on the other side of my desk. "You spent two years treating her like she was nothing. And now that she's gone you can't function. Do you see how insane that is?"
Something hot flared in my chest. I set down my pen very carefully. "Careful."
"Or what?" There was something in his voice I hadn't heard in a long time. Real anger. "You'll do to me what you did to her? She was your wife." He slammed his hand on the desk. "She was your wife and you tortured her for two years and never once told her why."
I was on my feet before I'd decided to move. "You want to know why?"
"Yes. Actually, I do. Because I've been watching you destroy her for two years and I've never understood it."
"You never understood it." I laughed, but there was nothing funny about it. "That's rich coming from you."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"It means you know exactly what she did." My voice came out low. Dangerous. "You were there."
He went very still. "What are you talking about?"
"Don't." I moved around the desk toward him. "Don't play stupid with me. Not about this."
"Rovian—"
"Two days!" The words came out bitter. "Two days after I left for that issue on our borders two years ago, I needed something from the palace, and I came home early. I wanted to surprise my wife before I left again. And I found you in my chambers."
His face had gone pale. "Rovian—"
"In my shower. With my wife. Choking her like the whore she is as you fucked her from behind." I was right in front of him now. Close enough to see the way his expression changed from confusion to horror. "You fucked her the moment I was away. She welcomed you into her body after I'd been gone for only two days! So don't stand here and ask me why I treated her the way I did. You're lucky I didn't have you both outcasted."
"That wasn't—" His voice came out strangled. "That wasn't Daphne."
I turned away from him in irritation, "Don't lie to me."
"I'm not lying!" He grabbed my arm and I nearly hit him. "Rovian, that wasn't Daphne. That was Sera."
The name meant nothing to me. "Who?"
"Sera. My—" He swallowed hard. "My lover. The woman I've been seeing for three years." The words were coming out fast now, desperate. "My chambers were being renovated. And you were supposed to be gone for three more weeks. I thought—I thought it was safe to use yours. I never—goddess, I never knew you came back early."
"She had dark hair," I said, but my voice sounded wrong even to my own ears. "The right build. I saw—"
"Sera has dark hair. She's about Daphne's height." He was looking at me like I was something broken. Something that needed to be handled carefully. "But it wasn't her. It was never her."
The floor felt unsteady.
"You're lying."
"I'm not." He took a step toward me. "Rovian, I swear to you, I would never do that to you. She's your wife. I would never touch her."
"Then why—" I couldn't finish. Couldn't put into words what I was feeling because I didn't know what I was feeling. "Why didn't you say anything?"
"I didn't know." His voice cracked. "I didn't know you saw anything. Didn't know you thought—" He stopped. Looked at me. "Is that why you've barely spoken to me for two years? Why you won't look at me during council meetings? Why you're never alone with me?"
I didn't answer.
I fucking couldn't.
"You thought I betrayed you," he said quietly.
"I saw you. In my chambers. I thought—" The words stuck in my throat.
"You thought wrong." He moved closer. "And you never asked. Never gave me a chance to explain. You just decided I was guilty and shut me out."
"Like I did with her," I said, and the realization hit me so hard I felt it like a physical thing.
"Yeah." His voice was bitter. "Like you did with her."
I sat down. Had to. My legs weren't working right anymore.
Those months after our wedding played through my mind like a fever dream. Her smile when she saw me. The way she'd argue with me about healing techniques and look genuinely offended when I disagreed. How she'd fall asleep on my chest and I'd stay awake just to feel her breathe.
How fucking disarmed I was in her presence.
Then what came after.
Coming home and seeing what I thought I saw. Walking away before I did something I'd regret. Letting it burn in my chest for three weeks while I finished the campaign. Coming home and looking at her like she was poison.
The way her smile had died when our eyes met in the courtyard.
Moving her to the maids' quarters. Calling her a whore in front of everyone. Two years of cruelty while she tried to understand what she'd done wrong.
And she'd done nothing wrong.
"Oh goddess."
Caelan didn't say anything. Just stood there watching me fall apart.
"I destroyed her." My voice came out broken. "I destroyed her for nothing."
"Yes." He wasn;'t sparing me.
I looked up at him. "Where would she go?"
"I don't know." He moved toward the door. "And honestly? I hope you never find her."
Something violent surged through me. "She's my wife."
"She was your wife." He stopped at the door, looked back. "You gave up that right when you spent two years making her life hell."
I couldn't breathe around what I was feeling. I'd never experienced such a loss. "I have to fix this."
"Some things you can't fix." His hand was on the door handle. "Some things you break, and they don't go back together."
"I don't care." I stood up. "I don't care how long it takes. I'm finding her."
"Why? So you can hurt her more?"
"So I can spend the rest of my life making her believe what we had was real. So I can apologize."
"You're insane."
Maybe I was.
But she'd chosen me once without any bond forcing her to. Had fallen in love with me because she wanted to.
I'd fallen for her.
And I'd destroyed it all over a mistake I'd been too proud to question.
She was out there somewhere. Hating me. Trying to forget I existed.
I sat there, letting the determination leak into my mind like poison.
I'd find her even if I had to search every territory from here to the coast. Even if I had to grovel and beg. Even if she tried to run again.
I'd burn the world down if that's what it took.
She was mine.
And I was bringing her home.