The triplets felt it like a punch to the gut—that sudden, violent severing of the mate bond. One moment it was there, warm and pulling like a cosmic fishing line, and the next?
Snap.
Gone. Just a hollow ache in their chests, like someone had reached inside and scooped out a chunk of their hearts with a rusty spoon.
"WHAT THE HECK?! Where did it go?! It was RIGHT THERE! I was about to follow it! I had a PLAN!"
"The pull... it just disappeared. Poof. Gone. This doesn’t make sense! Fated mates don’t just—vanish! They’re not a bad cell signal! You don’t just lose them in a tunnel!"
It wasn’t just Caesar and Caelian who were panicking, even Caelus, the fortress of stoicism, felt his composure crack. His face an unreadable mask of stone, but his eyes were darting back and forth like a man trying to solve a Rubik’s cube while the building was on fire.
What does this mean? Is our fated mate dead? Did someone kill her? Did she spontaneously combust? Is that even possible?
Their wolves fell silent. Suspiciously silent. The kind of silence that precedes a storm.
Except for Caesar’s wolf, Ryder.
Ryder was having a full-blown meltdown. Howling. Scratching. Throwing himself against the walls of Caesar’s consciousness like a furry battering ram. Caesar’s teeth clenched so hard his jaw creaked, veins bulging on his neck as he fought to maintain human form.
"I’M FINE," he growled through gritted teeth, even as his fingers started elongating into claws. "TOTALLY FINE. THIS IS FINE."
Through the chaos, the faint scent on Azura’s body became more pronounced—cutting through the perfume fog like a lighthouse beam in a storm. It was unmistakable now.
Without warning, Caesar whipped toward the window, muscles coiling to leap.
"We have to find out what’s going on! Maybe something’s happened to our fated mate! Maybe she’s in danger! Maybe she’s being attacked by a rogue! Maybe she’s—"
"Wait. Don’t be rash."
Caelus’s hand shot out like a viper, grabbing the back collar of Caesar’s leather jacket and yanking him backward with the casual strength of someone reeling in a particularly dramatic fish. Caesar’s legs kept running in place for a second, like a cartoon character who hadn’t realized the ground had been pulled from under him.
Caelus didn’t even look at him. His eyes were fixed on Azura—the sleeping, drooling, breast-groping disaster sprawled across the bed like a beached whale having a weird dream.
Then Caelian spoke up, his voice carrying the weight of a man who had just remembered something very important.
"Actually... I’ve heard a rumor."
He tapped his chin thoughtfully. "There’s a pack that hired a witch to set a trap. A fake mate bond. The idea is that when intruders like rogues, rival packs, or anyone dumb enough to slip into their territory, they feel the pull and immediately abandon their mission to chase it. Like dogs chasing a particularly juicy steak."
Caelus’s eyebrow twitched.
"But here’s the kicker," Caelian continued, warming up to his story. "If the intruders are smart enough to ignore the pull and stick to their mission, the witch waits a bit... and then deliberately severs the fake bond. Makes it seem like something terrible happened. So the intruders who were smart enough to ignore it suddenly PANIC, thinking something happened to their mate, and eventually rush toward the trap anyway. It’s a double-layered scheme. Devious. I respect it, honestly."
The room fell silent.
Caelus slowly turned his head to look at Caelian, his eyes narrowing.
"What you just described... fits perfectly with what’s happening to us right now."
"I hear things. Women talk. Men talk. I just happen to be very, very good at listening. Especially in bed."
Caelian shrugged, looking far too pleased with himself.
"Witches usually avoid staying in wolf packs. They prefer forests or human territory—too many territorial disputes and territorial pissings here. But if I remember correctly..." He tapped his chin again. "This Crimson Crest Pack actually has a witch who’s been living here for over ten years. And she’s apparently some kind of weird genius. Like, ’creates potions that give wolves three nipples’ kind of genius."
Caesar finally stopped his frantic movements, his muscles still twitching like he was one wrong word away from Hulk-smashing through the wall. He stared at his brothers with the wide-eyed expression of a man who had just been told Santa Claus wasn’t real.
"Are you two seriously telling me..." He pointed a shaking finger at the empty space where the mate bond used to be. "...that the pull we felt—the one that made my wolf almost tear my soul apart trying to chase it—was just a SPELL? A FAKE? A TRAP? Like a cosmic prank call?!"
Caelus crossed his arms. "It could be. Or it might not be. The problem is, Oliver didn’t feel anything from the moment we entered this pack. Unlike us, who got hit with the pull like a freight train made of hormones and desperation."
Caelian turned to look out the window, where Oliver was still perched in a tree like an extremely stressed owl, scanning the perimeter with the intensity of a man who had not signed up for this emotional rollercoaster.
"But the thing is," Caelian said, tapping the windowsill thoughtfully, "Oliver’s senses are still numbed. Don’t forget that two years ago, our enemy poisoned him with enough wolfbane to knock out a herd of elephants. His wolf still can’t sense his fated mate until all that poison is completely flushed out. So it makes sense that he can’t feel the fake bond either. His senses are basically on a permanent coffee break."
Caesar ran a hand through his dark hair, frustration radiating off him in waves. He looked like a man who had been promised a steak dinner and was now being told it was actually a picture of a steak dinner.
He then jabbed a finger at Azura, who was still fast asleep, completely oblivious to the fact that three alpha kidnappers were having an existential crisis two feet from her bed. She was drooling. Peacefully. The audacity.
"Then explain the SCENT on this weird girl’s body! That smell is CLEARLY our fated mate’s scent! So this girl was with our mate before! Which means our mate is REALLY in this pack! It’s not just a trick!"
"About the scent..."
Caelian walked over to the bed with exaggerated deliberation, like a detective approaching a crime scene. He sat down on the edge of the mattress, leaning in close to Azura’s sleeping form. His nose twitched as he prepared to conduct a thorough investigation.
But then—
Just as he lowered his head, Azura’s hand—the one that had been happily groping her own breast in her sleep—suddenly shot out and landed squarely on his cheek.
SMACK!