“It’s not your fault.” I pat him on the shoulder. “She planned this. Left the lights on, made it look like she was home. She knew someone might be watching.”
“Shit.” Ethan runs a hand through his hair.
“She gave her puppy to a neighbor this morning. Left through a side exit.” I sink onto his couch. “Trail goes cold at the curb.”
“There’s more.” Ethan crosses to his laptop and pulls up an email. “Violet asked to be let out of her lease early. She’s willing to pay the penalty.”
My vision blurs. I lean back, struggling to breathe.
“And she sent her resignation to pack headquarters. Effective immediately. No notice, no explanation.”
Her apartment. Her job. Her dog. Every connection between us, severed. She spent the entire day systematically dismantling every piece of our life together. And I was in Miami.
“Did you try the main house?” The question scrapes out of my throat.
“First place I checked. Got the butler. He said she hasn’t been there in a while.”
“What about friends? Anyone she might go to?”
“I called everyone I could think of. Nobody’s heard from her.” Ethan sits beside me. “I even looked at the bus and train stations. Called in favors with transportation security. It’s like she vanished.”
“She’s a wolf,” I say quietly. “She can’t just vanish.”
“She can if she doesn’t want to be found.”
The truth of it settles over me like a shroud. Violet doesn’t want to be found. Doesn’t want to talk to me, see me, give me any chance to explain.
Ethan’s voice becomes gentle. “I’m sorry, Darius.”
I shake my head, fury building beneath the devastation. No. This isn’t over. She doesn’t get to decide for both of us, doesn’t get to walk away without giving me a chance to explain, to fight for us.
I let her go once. When she turned eighteen, when I realized what she was to me, I pulled back. Let fear and duty dictate my choices.
I won’t make that mistake again.
“What are you going to do?” Ethan asks, uncertainty in his eyes.
“Find her.” I stand up, resolve hardening in my chest. “Whatever it takes. Wherever she’s gone. I’ll find her, and I’ll make her listen.”
My wolf snarls his agreement, ready to hunt, to claim, to fight for what’s ours.
Violet thinks this is over. She’s wrong.
It is just beginning.
Chapter Twenty-One
Violet
The corner of Anne’s couch swallows me whole. A mug of tea is clutched between my palms; it’s almost too hot to hold. The warmth seeps into my skin but doesn’t touch the cold knot in my chest.
Anne emerges from the kitchen, brown hair pulled back in a loose ponytail, concern etched into every line of her face. She settles into the armchair facing me, one leg tucked beneath her.
“How are you feeling?” she asks quietly.
The tea burns going down. “I’ll be okay,” I lie.
Anne studies me with those warm eyes that have seen too much loss. Does she know I’m fracturing from the inside out? That every breath feels like swallowing glass?
