78: Find her, Galire

78: Find her, Galire
“Don’t let anybody leave the building. Secure every exit. I will interrogate everyone present myself.” Alaris said to the bodyguard as Akera's body was taken away.

“By the way, where is my queen?” He muttered and looked around the room, but she was nowhere around. He could have sworn he felt her presence earlier. He even saw she was wearing a floral dress and sandals; something that was not fit for the event, but it was the first thing she laid her hands on when the mindlink came.

He hoped to explain the mindlink stuff to her when he saw her.

“Perhaps she returned to the bedroom.” As he was about to leave, a voice echoed throughout the hall.

“Hello, people of Eldradragon. Your king has committed an abomination. The woman he married and crowned as your king is a werewolf. A mortal enemy to our kind. Her name is Athena Singingbird…”

“Damn it.” He cursed, not waiting to listen to the other part.

His heart raced frantically in his chest, not for the fear of what the elders or the people of Dracorith think, but for the fear of Athena, her safety. She had been acting strangely before the coronation, and she managed to convince him that everything was okay.

As he took his first step, he saw that all of the elders eyes were on him, including the servants and the guards. They look at him as if he had betrayed them. That was when it struck him harder that he had to get to Athena as quick as he could.

He scoffed, ignoring their angry looks, and vanished into thin air.

His eyes deepened when he found the room empty and her scent; it was faint, which meant she hadn’t been in the room since she left.

“Find her, Galire,” he growled. His perfect white teeth elongated into fangs and his fingernails into claws as he went into hunting mode.

“She’s calling out to you, Alaris… She’s hurt and is on the roof…” Galire whimpered, and a loud growl escaped from Alaris’s mouth. How could that bitch, Ladya, lay hands on his woman?

He clenched his fist and vanished into thin air, leaving dark mists behind.

He appeared on the roof, his hair flying in the air as the breeze blew it. His amber eyes looked around, his nose sniffing the air like a wolf's that he wasn’t, but there were no signs of her except for the smell of blood that filled the air and two bodies lying on the ground. One of the bodies was naked, and the other had its stomach opened with its intestines lying beside her on the ground.

His eyes moved quickly, and it landed on Ladya, who stood shaken, staring into space, a gun in her hand like she was in a trance.

He appeared next to her and gripped her by the neck, lifting her off the ground and slamming her hard against the ground, snapping her out of her trance as her bones made breaking sounds.

“Where is she?” He demanded, his teeth gritted as his claws pierced her flesh.

He knew it was fruitless asking her and decided to do what he knew how to do best. He held her gaze and looked into her soul, looking past her deepest part into her memories, and like a movie flashback, he saw what he never expected.

LADYA’S MEMORY

Athena had said something that infuriated Ladya. Just when Ladya was about to pull the trigger on her, two wolves appeared. One of them was white, and the other was grey. The grey wolf took Ladya’s maid by the neck, and the other white wolf went for Athena, hitting her on the head and knocking her out.

He stepped forward with deep ocean eyes and growled at Ladya, saliva dropping from its mouth.

“Stay away from her!” The wolf growled and turned around, shifting into a naked human.

He took advantage of Ladya’s shock and unbound Athena’s hands. He threw her over his shoulder and jumped off the roof, disappearing into the darkness, and a gunshot was fired, hitting the grey wolf before he could jump off the roof.

He howled and whimpered, wriggling on the floor before his wounds died down.

His grip on Ladya loosened, and she dropped to the ground like a sack of potatoes, coughing and rubbing her neck like she was saving herself from dying.

“She betrayed you… She met with him at the hall on her way to the throne hall…” She coughed, and Alaris’s eyes narrowed.

“You think she loved you? No... ”Strenuous cough.

“She was a spy, an undercover whose mission was to unearth our secrets and use them to harm us.”

“Shut up!” ALARIS growled at her, delivering a kick to her stomach that sent her flying over the roof, and thud, her head hit the wall and split into two.

“That is for lying; an elder child was mine and for all the hard times you gave Athena.

“Seal all the exits of Dracorith. We have wolves amongst us, and I want them alive.” Alaris ordered his subordinates and shifted to his dragon form and flew off. He circled around, his eyes scanning everywhere, and after hours and hours of searching, he finally landed dejectedly. He shifted back into his human form and returned to the bedroom he shares with Athena.

The room felt empty without her presence. It was as if it was void. He stood motionless in the middle and just gazed, his head foggy, his heart cold. He couldn’t push away the guilt that gripped him. He should have expected a day like this. He should have prepared. He should have protected her. He shouldn’t have let her wander alone carelessly. It was all his fault.

He threw his fist in the air and gripped his hair tightly, as if wanting to pull it off his scalp. It’s no doubt that the wolves have prepared for this day. How long have they been planning her abduction? How did they know she was in Eldradragon? Who sold her out?

Many questions flooded his mind, all of which made him look stupid with every answer he gave.

He wanted to summon Jason but then realised he had just lost his father. He scratched his eyebrow and tapped his feet on the ground.

“You need to act fast, Alaris,” Galire said, sadness lacing his voice, and Alaris felt his pain. He was the first to meet Athena, and then she was taken from him. Now after they had met again, she slipped away right in front of them.

“Kaden has prepared for this. There is no way he will let us get her back easily.” He sighed.

“There is a high possibility that he is not going to keep her in his pack house. There is a chance that he already has a place arranged for her. It may not be the pack; it could be in Switzerland, Norway, or even the USA. Who knows, they could be on a ship right now, and I don’t want to think about the things he could do to her…” His knuckles paled as his hands turned into fists by his side, his blood raging, anger coursing through his veins.

Athena was his sanity. Without her, he is insane. Without her, he would go insane. His urge to burn something was like a persistent nausea. Holding it down was a hard task, suffocating and torturous.

He gulped and grabbed the dress she had worn earlier. Luckily, the maids haven’t taken it away. He clenched his hand around it like a treasure and slowly raised it up. He pressed his nose into it and inhaled her scent. He drew in another round, another and another until the fire in his vein slowly died. The more he smelt her scent, the more the ache and emptiness he felt.

“I will contact some of my acquaintances who work at sea. Have her photos sent and keep your eyes out for her.” He mumbled and clutched the ripped dress to his chest.

He climbed on the bed and lay on his back and stared at the ceiling. He needed his mind clear to be able to think of something, and doing that away from the gossips, furies and disappointments of his subjects was the best thing.