Chapter 34 Missing

Chapter 34 Missing
ZANE'S POV

The hallway outside Jax's quarters was already crowded when I got there.
Warriors stood along both walls, and the moment they saw me, everyone went quiet. No one said anything, they just parted to let me through. I stepped into the room and stopped right by the door.

The smell hit me right away.
Fresh blood, probably less than an hour old. Enough to indicate something had gone down here.

I stood still and just looked around without touching anything. The bed was made, the desk was clean, the wardrobe door was open a little. Everything looked normal, nothing knocked over, nothing broken. If there’d been a fight, you couldn’t tell, and that actually worried me more. Jax wasn’t the type to go down quietly. He was too strong, too sharp, too careful to let anyone sneak up on him.

So, either he had left willingly, or whoever took him was someone he couldn’t fight.

Fenris shifted uncomfortably in the back of my mind. That was his way of saying something felt wrong, but he couldn’t say what.

I crouched by a dark stain on the floor near the bed, the edges were already dry. I held my hand close without touching it and could still feel a bit of warmth.

This happened not too long ago.

I stood up and took a slow breath, trying to sort out the smells. There was rain from the open window, the familiar cedar smell of Jax’s clothes, and underneath it all… something else. Something that made Fenris go still inside me.

I didn’t recognize it. It wasn't pack, not a rogue. Nothing from any bloodline I’d encountered. It felt foreign and out of place.

I moved toward the window, where rain blew in through the gap, scattering across the floor. The strange scent ended there, abruptly cut off, as if whoever had been here had stepped into the storm and allowed it to wash away their presence.

They knew what they were doing and that's why they came when it was raining.

I stepped back and scanned the room again, this time more slowly, searching for anything I might have missed. The floor, the walls, the desk.

And there it was… a small scratch on the wooden frame of the desk, so subtle you could easily overlook it if you weren’t paying attention. But once you saw it, you couldn’t mistake it for an accident. A crescent moon surrounded by seven stars.

I heard Davina’s sharp intake of breath behind me.
I straightened and caught Caspian’s gaze.
He had that look that suggested he knew something, but wasn't ready to voice it out yet.

“Talk,” I urged.

“Privately,” he replied.

“No.”

His jaw tightened. “Zane.”

“Everyone in this room is already involved. Speak.”

He glanced at Logan, then at Davina, before returning his gaze to me, then he briefed me on everything that had happened so far this morning. “The messages, the photographs, the journal. The figure who led her there this morning.” He paused, letting the weight of his words settle. “Every piece of this keeps circling back to the same point.” His eyes shifted to Davina. “I don’t think Jax was the target.”

Silence fell over the room.

I held his gaze. “Say it plainly.”

“This person isn’t coming for the pack,” Caspian said. “They’re not coming for you. They’ve been aiming toward her. Every move, every message, everything that’s happened since, it's all been designed to create pressure. On the pack, on you, on her.” He locked eyes with me. “Jax being gone isn’t random.”

The thought had been brewing in the back of my mind since I walked in, but I hadn’t wanted to confront it directly. Now, I had no choice.

The stalker, the photographs taken over weeks, the journal placed precisely where she’d find it. The hooded figure who knew her well enough to lead her exactly where he wanted her to go.

Someone had been studying her, learning her. And now Jax is gone too.

Anger suddenly bubbled in my chest.
I didn't know who it was that could do this, who it was that had the boldness to infiltrate my territory and threaten my own.
And frankly I didn't bother about their identity, but whoever it was should better pray that I don't get a hold of them, because he would pay with his life.

A knock interrupted the tension in the room and everyone turned.
A young warrior stood in the doorway, drenched, rain still streaming from his hair onto the floor. He looked at me, then at Davina, and the fear etched on his face sent my pulse racing before he even spoke.

“Alpha prince.” His voice trembled. “We found something at the eastern gate.”

“What is it?”

He swallowed hard. “Jax’s challenge token.” He glanced at the floor for a moment, then forced himself to meet my gaze again. “It was nailed to a tree outside the gate, and there was a note with it.”

Fenris went rigid inside me.

“What did it say?”

The warrior’s eyes flicked to Davina again, almost apologetically, before he read the note aloud.

“If you want him back, send the girl alone.”

The rain hammered against the window.
Nobody moved, and I felt Davina go very still behind me without needing to look at her. I could sense it the way I felt everything that happened to her deep in my chest.

I turned to face her.
Her face was pale but composed, the expression she wore when she was holding everything together through sheer will.
Her eyes were already calculating.
That was the thing about her that always unraveled me.
She was terrified, and yet she was already planning.

I turned back to the room. “Nobody tells the pack what that note said.” My voice came out flat and resolute. “Nobody moves on this without going through me first. And someone get Caspian’s tracker unit to that eastern gate before the rain washes everything away.”

The warriors sprang into action.
The room emptied quickly until it was just the three of us, Caspian, Davina, and me standing in Jax’s room with blood drying on the floor, the symbol carved into the desk, and a note that had just changed everything.

Davina looked at me. “I’m not going,” she said quietly. “In case that needed saying.”

“It didn’t.”

“Good.” She glanced at the symbol on the desk. “But we need to figure out who put that there. Because whoever took Jax knows about the journal.”

The room fell into a heavy silence, and I realized she was absolutely right.