Chapter 152
Asher
"I'm not saying don't do it," Marcus clarified. "I'm saying do it smart. We can't afford to show our full hand. Konstantin has resources we don't fully understand—political connections, law enforcement on his payroll, other packs he's compromised. If we go in guns blazing and come up empty, we tip him off that we're actively hunting him."
He moved to the map, studying the marked locations. "Split your forces. Blake, you take a team to Fairbanks. Hit the locations there under the guise of investigating property damage or noise complaints. Cole, coordinate aerial surveillance with our drone network—thermal imaging, movement detection, anything that might indicate hidden occupants. Asher, you stay here and coordinate the overall operation."
"No." The word came out before I could stop it, my wolf surging forward in rejection. "I'm not sitting in a war room while my mate is out there."
"You're the Alpha," Marcus said, his voice hard. "Your pack needs you here, making decisions, coordinating resources. If all three of you go tearing off into the night, who's protecting our territory? Who's maintaining pack cohesion? Who's making sure Konstantin doesn't use this chaos to strike again?"
Every instinct I had screamed to reject his logic, to shift and run until I found her scent. But he was right, and I hated him for it.
"Blake goes to Fairbanks," I said, my voice like gravel. "He'll burn the city down if it means finding her, and right now, that's exactly the energy we need. Cole, you're on surveillance and intelligence—no one's better at finding patterns in data. I'll coordinate from here and manage the local searches."
Through our bond, I felt Blake's surge of savage satisfaction—finally, action instead of waiting—and Cole's reluctant acceptance of the plan.
"One more thing," I said, turning to face the assembled pack members, warriors, and staff who'd gathered in the hallway outside the war room. "Spread the word through every channel we have. Every pack we're allied with, every lone wolf who owes us a favor, every contact we have in human law enforcement. There's a million-dollar reward for information leading to our Luna's safe recovery. Two million if the information leads to Konstantin's capture or death."
The amount caused a ripple of shock through the crowd. It was a staggering sum, enough to change lives, enough to tempt even those who feared Konstantin's reach.
"And make sure everyone knows," Blake added, his voice carrying the weight of absolute certainty, "that anyone who helps find her will have the protection of Silver Frost Pack for life. Anyone who helped hide her will beg for death before we're through with them."
As the crowd dispersed to spread the word, I turned back to the map, to those seven red marks that represented our best hope of finding Kara. My fingers traced the circle Cole had drawn, the sixty-to-eighty-mile radius that contained somewhere between dozens and hundreds of potential hiding spots.
She was out there. Alive—I could still feel that faint pulse through our bond, that stubborn thread of connection that not even Konstantin's suppression technology could completely sever. Afraid, probably hurt, definitely alone.
But not for long.
"We leave in thirty minutes," I said to Blake. "Gear up, full tactical. Take Devon and the best fighters we have. If you find any trace of her—any scent, any evidence, anything—you call it in immediately."
Blake's eyes flashed gold as he nodded. "And if I find the bastards who took her?"
I met his gaze, letting my own wolf surface enough that my eyes reflected amber in the harsh lights. "Then you make sure they understand exactly what it means to steal from Silver Frost Pack."
He grinned, all teeth and promise of violence, and headed for the armory.
Cole remained at his station, already pulling up satellite imagery and drone flight paths. "I'll find her, Asher," he said quietly, hismint steadying into something like determination. "Even if I have to scan every square inch of this territory, I'll find her."
"I know you will," I said, gripping his shoulder. Through our bond, I sent what little comfort I could muster—we're in this together, we don't stop until she's home.
Together, he echoed, his mental voice firmer now. Always.
---
Kara
The metal frame of the bed was cold enough to burn where my bare legs touched it, but I couldn't bring myself to care. I'd been staring at the pregnancy test in my hands for what felt like hours, though the clock in my head—the one I'd relied on during all those years of timed chores and scheduled abuse—told me it had only been about ten minutes since Viktor had thrown the pharmacy bag at my feet and left me alone with this impossible choice.
Not a choice. That was the cruelest joke of all. There was no choice here. Either I was pregnant, or I wasn't. Either I carried Asher, Blake, and Cole's child, or I didn't. The only thing I got to choose was whether to find out now, under these circumstances, or wait until my body made the answer obvious.
My hands shook as I turned the box over again, reading the instructions I'd already memorized. First Response Early Result. Can detect pregnancy up to six days before your missed period. 99% accurate. The clinical language felt obscene in this dank, freezing cell, like someone had dropped a piece of sterile medical equipment into a medieval dungeon.
I thought back to Maui, to those sun-drenched days that felt like they'd happened in another lifetime. The beach house with its endless windows overlooking the ocean. The yacht where Asher had knelt and asked me to marry them, where I'd said yes with my whole heart. The bed where I'd given myself to them completely, where we'd sealed our bond in every way that mattered.
We'd been so careful at first—they'd explained the risks, had asked if I wanted to wait, had offered every precaution. But after the marking, after I'd felt that complete rightness of our connection, I'd told them I didn't care. I'd wanted nothing between us, wanted to feel them fully, wanted to take that final step of trust.
Stupid, the harsh voice in my head whispered. Stupid little girl playing at happy families, and look where it got you.
But another voice, smaller and more fragile, whispered back: A baby. Our baby. Theirs and mine. The family I always wanted, the one I thought I'd never have.
The thought made my chest ache with a longing so intense it was almost painful. A child who would be loved, protected, cherished. Who would never know what it felt like to be abandoned on a doorstep in a snowstorm, or to measure their worth by how many chores they could complete. Who would grow up surrounded by three fathers who would move mountains to keep them safe.
Except I wasn't safe. And if I was pregnant, neither was this potential child.
I forced myself to stand, my legs unsteady beneath me, and walked to the corner where the toilet squatted like a porcelain obscenity. The indignity of it all crashed over me—that I was about to pee on a stick in a basement prison cell, that my future and possibly my life depended on the appearance of one line or two, that somewhere above me, men with guns and cruel eyes were waiting to find out if I was worth keeping alive.
Do it, I told myself. You've survived worse. You can survive knowing.
I followed the instructions with shaking hands, the clinical routine feeling surreal in these surroundings. When I was done, I set the test on the edge of the metal bed frame and forced myself to breathe, to count, to let the three minutes pass without completely losing my mind.
One hundred and eighty seconds. I'd endured ten years of servitude. I'd survived being locked in a storage room, frozen in a blizzard, nearly drowned in an icy river. I could survive three minutes.
But these three minutes felt longer than all those years combined.