Cade POV
The council meeting was about territory expansion when it happened.
I was sitting at the head of the table, listening to my father's advisor talk about consolidating our borders, when something slammed through the fated bond so hard I couldn't breathe.
Harper.
She was becoming something. Power was radiating off her through our connection like nothing I'd ever felt before. It was like she was waking up. Like something inside her that had been sleeping was finally opening its eyes.
I gripped the table so hard my knuckles went white.
"Cade?" My father was looking at me. Everyone was looking at me. "Are you alright?"
I wasn't alright. I was drowning.
"I need air," I said, standing up too fast. My chair scraped against the floor loud enough to make everyone jump. "Continue without me."
I walked out before anyone could respond.
My office was on the top floor of North Pack headquarters. Private. Soundproof. The place where I made decisions that affected hundreds of lives. Right now I couldn't even make a decision about whether I was going to pass out or throw up.
I called my father immediately.
He answered on the second ring. Like he'd been waiting for this call.
"Where is she?" I demanded. "Where did Harper go?"
Silence.
"Where is my fated mate, Father?"
"She left," Victor said. His voice was calm. Too calm. "Three months ago. She walked away from this pack and she has not returned."
"I know she left," I said. "I need to know where. I need to find her."
"Why?" Victor asked. And there was something in that single word that made me realize my father understood exactly what had happened. That he'd known all along.
"Because she's mine," I said. "Because the rejection doesn't mean she stops being mine."
"You rejected her, Cade," Victor said. His voice was getting harder. "You rejected your fated mate publicly. You married another woman. You told the entire pack that she wasn't good enough. And now you want to go find her because you finally realized what you lost?"
"Yes," I said. "I'll fix it. I'll explain. I'll—"
"You'll do nothing," Victor interrupted. "Harper deserves to be away from you. She deserves to build a life where she's not waiting for an Alpha who was too stupid to keep her. She deserves to become whatever she wants to become without your interference."
I'd never heard my father speak like that. Like he was disappointed in me. Like he was actually disappointed in himself for teaching me to think the way I did.
"She's getting stronger," I said. I didn't know why I was telling him this. He probably already knew. "I can feel it through the bond. She's not broken anymore."
"Then maybe you finally understand what you threw away," Victor said.
He hung up.
I stood in my office with the phone in my hand, feeling Harper on the other end of the bond like she was pulling me toward something. Toward her. Toward a life I'd rejected because I was too scared and too ambitious and too convinced that power came from control.
I looked out the window at Ravensfall spread out below.
She was somewhere in this city. Somewhere close enough that I could feel her through the bond. Somewhere I couldn't reach her.
Sienna walked in without knocking.
She was wearing one of her designer dresses. The kind that cost more than most people made in a month. Her blonde hair was perfect. Her makeup was perfect. Everything about her was exactly the kind of wife an ambitious Alpha was supposed to have.
I realized I absolutely hated her.
Not in an angry way. In a sad way. Like looking at a beautiful thing that was fundamentally empty.
"The council is waiting," she said. "Are you coming back?"
"No," I said.
"Excuse me?"
"I said no. I'm not coming back to the meeting."
She walked over to me and put her hand on my arm. It felt like someone was touching me with a dead thing.
"What's wrong?" she asked. She actually sounded concerned. That was the worst part. She actually cared that I was falling apart because that meant she might care about losing the status that came with being my wife.
"This was a mistake," I said. "All of it. The marriage. The strategy. Rejecting her. All of it."
Sienna's hand dropped from my arm.
"You're talking about that Omega," she said. Her voice changed. Became sharp. "You're having second thoughts about rejecting some Omega because you finally realized she could have been useful?"
"No," I said. "I'm having second thoughts because I realized she was everything and I threw her away like she meant nothing."
Sienna's face went cold in a way that made me understand she'd never actually cared about me. Just about what I could give her.
"Well," she said, "I hope she was worth it. Because you just ended your political future by admitting that in front of me."
She left.
I didn't care.
I sat at my desk and pulled up every connection I had. Every person who owed me a favor. Every resource I could access.
Then I made a call to Dominic.
Dominic had been my advisor for five years. He was one of the few wolves I actually trusted. One of the few who didn't just tell me what I wanted to hear.
"I need you to find someone," I said when he answered. "Someone who disappeared three months ago. I need to know where she is and who she's with."
"Harper?" Dominic asked.
Of course he knew.
"Yeah," I said. "Find her."
There was a long pause.
"Sir," Dominic said carefully, "are you sure you want to do this? Because if you send people looking for her and she doesn't want to be found, you might lose her permanently. Right now there's still a thread between you. That thread could break if you pull too hard."
"I have to try," I said. "I have to at least try."
"Okay," Dominic said. "I'll send my best people. But Cade, I want you to prepare yourself for the possibility that when we find her, she doesn't want to see you."
I hung up before he could say anything else.
That night I did something I hadn't done since Harper left.
I watched the video of the rejection.
I'd avoided it for months. Couldn't bear to see it. But I pulled it up from the council archives and I watched myself stand in front of thirty wolves and destroy the most important person in my life.
I watched her face break.
I watched her leave with her head up even though everything inside her was falling apart.
And I realized that Dominic was right. I was terrified. Not of the search. Of what would happen when we found her.
Because Harper wasn't broken anymore.
Harper was becoming something.
And she probably hated me.
My phone buzzed. A message from Dominic.
"We have a lead. The South Territory. She's been spotted near The Sanctuary. We're investigating."
The Sanctuary.
That's where the rogue Alphas operated. Where wolves went when they wanted to disappear from traditional pack life. Where Rowan Cross ran his operation outside the rules that had built my entire world.
Harper wasn't just leaving me.
She was choosing something else. Someone else. A completely different life that didn't include me in any way.
And the worst part was that I could feel through the bond that she was happy.
Not sad. Not broken. Happy.
She was becoming something powerful and she was doing it without me.
That night, for the first time since rejecting her, I understood what I'd actually lost.
Not just a fated mate.
Not just a woman who loved me.
But the one person who could have made me actually worthy of being an Alpha.
And I was terrified that she'd never let me close enough to fix it.