60: Theodore

My fingers were frozen against the cool marble of the bathroom sink, but inside my chest burned with an ache so fierce I could barely breathe. I caught my reflection in the mirror – eyes wild with fear, jaw clenched tight enough to crack teeth. Somewhere out there, Emma was gone, taken, and the bond that had only just begun to bloom between us stretched like a gossamer thread ready to snap. I couldn't feel her emotions anymore, just the faintest whisper that she still existed in this world. It wasn't enough. Not nearly enough.

The bathroom in my hotel suite had become an impromptu command center, the white tiles and gilded fixtures an absurd backdrop for the nightmare unfolding. Forensic experts in blue gloves moved methodically through the space, collecting samples, photographing surfaces, their voices low and clinical. I had insisted on staying, and Elijah – his face a mirror of my own devastation – had planted himself beside me with the immovable weight of a man who had lost too much already.

"Find something," I whispered, unsure if I was speaking to the forensic team or to some nameless deity who might be listening. "Anything."

The mate bond pulsed inside me, achingly thin but present. Two days. I had known Emma for only two days, yet her absence carved a hollow so deep in my chest I wondered if I would ever stand straight again. One hundred and seventy-five years I had lived, and nothing had prepared me for this – the raw, primal terror of having your mate ripped away not long after finding her.

Aeson, my Lycan half, paced restlessly within me, his purple-blue eyes searching through mine for any trace of Artemis, Emma's wolf. But there was only silence from her. Whatever had taken Emma had rendered Artemis unconscious too, severing the most basic communication between our primal selves.

In the living room beyond the bathroom door, Elena moved with restless energy, touching surfaces, peering under furniture, her brow furrowed with concentration. I could smell her grief mixing with determination – a pungent cocktail that matched the churning in my own gut.

"Can you still feel her?"

Elijah's voice startled me, low and rough with barely contained anguish. He stood beside me, this man who had been a stranger days ago and was now bound to me through our shared love for Emma. His green eyes – so like his sister's – searched mine with desperate hope.

I nodded, swallowing past the dryness in my throat. "The bond is there. Stretched thin, but not broken." My voice sounded hollow in the tiled space. "I can't feel her emotions. Aeson can't sense Artemis. Wherever she is..." The words scraped against my throat like broken glass.

"She's unconscious," Elijah finished for me, his shoulders dropping slightly. "But alive."

"Yes." The single word carried the weight of both relief and terror. Alive but taken. Alive but unreachable. Alive but in the hands of someone who had managed to neutralize an entire contingent of my Lycan guards.

Elijah pressed his back against the wall, sliding down until he sat on the floor, his knees drawn up like a much younger man. The posture struck me – the proud Alpha of the Blood Moon Pack reduced to this protective curl of limbs. I recognized the instinct; when the world becomes too sharp-edged, make yourself smaller, protect the vital parts.

"I will find her," I said, the words emerging as a growl, Aeson pushing through. "Whatever it takes."

Elijah looked up at me, something shifting in his expression. "We will find her," he corrected, and in that moment, something solidified between us – a pact sealed in shared pain.

The door to the suite burst open with enough force to bang against the wall. Chris, my brother, my most trusted security advisor, stood in the doorway, chest heaving, eyes bright with adrenaline.

"Theo," he gasped, propriety forgotten in the urgency of the moment. "Sophia is awake."

I met his frantic eyes, hope flaring like a struck match in my chest. Sophia had been knocked out that morning by someone on behalf of Benjamin. If this was related, she might know who did it.

I turned back to the lead forensic investigator, a wiry Lycan with spectacles perched on his narrow nose. "Is there anything here that smells like whoever did this? Anything we could use for identification?"

The investigator exchanged glances with his colleagues, then nodded slowly. "We've isolated one item, Your Majesty." He reached into his kit and pulled out a clear evidence bag containing a white flannel. "This cloth carries a distinct scent – definitely wolf, but not the Queen or any member of her pack that we've cataloged."

I took the bag, the plastic cool against my fingers. Through it, I could detect the faint musk of an unfamiliar werewolf. Someone who had touched Emma, who had put their hands on my mate. Aeson snarled inside me, claws pushing at my skin in his eagerness to tear, to hunt, to destroy.

"Thank you," I managed, passing the bag to Chris. "Take this to Sophia. See if she recognizes the scent. It might be our only lead."

Chris nodded, his face set with determination. "On it." He didn't wait for my response, already turning toward the door, his shoulders rolling in the telltale motion that preceded a shift. By the time he reached the hallway, claws were extending from his fingertips, the air around him shimmering with the energy of his transformation.

I caught a glimpse of fur and muscle as he disappeared down the corridor – his Lycan form would get him to the hospital in minutes, far quicker than any car could navigate the Royal City's winding streets.

The lead forensic expert cleared his throat, drawing my attention back to the bathroom. His team had finished their work, equipment packed with meticulous care, faces drawn with what I recognized as regret.

"I'm so sorry, my King," he said, his voice low with genuine remorse. "Other than the flannel, there's no evidence to enable us to determine who would have done this."

The hope that had kindled at Chris's news guttered like a candle in a draft.

"We've found traces of a chemical compound," he continued, holding up a sealed vial containing swabs. "We believe it is what was used to render the Queen unconscious. We'll have it analyzed immediately and update you as soon as possible."

I nodded, unable to form words around the knot in my throat. A chemical. Something that could take down not just Emma but Artemis as well. Something that could incapacitate multiple Lycan guards simultaneously. This was no impulsive abduction; this had been planned with chilling precision.

As the forensic team filed out, murmuring respectful goodbyes, I felt my legs give way beneath me. I slid down the wall, mirroring Elijah's position on the opposite side of the bathroom, my head falling into my hands. My fingers tangled in my hair, pulling until the pain gave me something to focus on besides the yawning emptiness in my chest.

Across from me, Elijah's breathing was ragged, the sound of a man using physical control to hold back a tide of emotion that threatened to drown him. Brother and mate, united in our impotence, in our fear.

"She's strong," Elijah said after a long silence, his voice barely audible. "Stronger than anyone gives her credit for."

"I know," I replied, and I did. I had seen it in her eyes the first moment we met – a quiet, unbreakable resilience beneath the diplomatic exterior. "Whoever took her doesn't know what they've done."

"They've declared war," Elijah said simply, his Alpha authority bleeding into the words. "On both our houses."

I raised my head to meet his gaze, feeling Aeson's power surge through me, my eyes shifting to their Lycan purple-blue. "On the Kingdom. And they will learn what that means."

For the first time since Emma had been taken, I saw something like hope flicker across Elijah's face – not the desperate hope of a man clinging to possibilities, but the cold, certain knowledge that retribution would come. His eyes flashed Alpha-gold in response to mine, and in that moment, centuries of Lycan and werewolf division seemed meaningless.

We were predators whose mate and sister had been stolen. Nothing else mattered.

Outside the bathroom, Elena appeared in the doorway, her face pale but composed. "Chris just called. Sophia recognized the scent." Her voice trembled slightly.

I was on my feet before I realized I had moved, Elijah rising in the same fluid motion beside me.

"Who?" we demanded in unison.

Elena's eyes met mine, then shifted to her mate. "It was Benjamin Thorne himself."

The name hung in the air between us, and I felt the mate bond pulse once, sharply, as if Emma herself had heard the name of her captor. Somewhere, in the darkness of unconsciousness, she was fighting to come back to us.

"Hold on," I whispered to her across the stretched thread of our connection. "I'm coming for you."