Chapter 16%
Draven stood at the airport exit, rain soaking through the collar of his trench coat, but he didn’t move. Thunder rolled low above the city. No umbrella. No bag. Just the weight of his past wrapped around his shoulders like iron chains.
He’d flown across oceans, across packs and borders, but he didn’t even know where she was.
“Alpha Draven, the hotel has been arranged.” His assistant approached cautiously, carefully offering him a black umbrella. “Would you like to rest first?”
Draven didn’t look at him. Rain rolled down the sharp line of his jaw like silent tears. He shook his head. “Keep looking,” he said, his voice hoarse.
There was something primal in his energy tonight–unsettled. His wolf paced restlessly beneath his skin, snarling at every passing scent, aching for something it had long been denied.”
Back at the hotel, Alpha Draven tore off his tie with a frustrated tug, then slumped down onto the edge of the bed. The city lights outside flickered through the window like ghostly fireflies. He reached for his phone, only for the screen to light up with a new message from Caleb, his beta.
[Alpha, I found something strange. A comic. It feels a bit… like you and Madam.]
A link followed below.
Draven’s brows furrowed. He tapped it with a hesitant thumb. The comic’s cover opened to reveal a familiar figure–seen only from behind, yet every inch of her posture struck him like a blow.
That slender back…
was her.
His fingers trembled uncontrollably as he flipped to the first page.
It started innocently enough. A scene from a university art room. Sunlight streaming through dusty windows. A girl sitting with her knees tucked up, sketching with charcoal. Outside the door stood a man, watching her in silence.
Draven exhaled sharply.
“This is…”
He turned the page. His pulse quickened. Page after page mirrored moments only they had shared–him braving a snowstorm to bring her a scarf infused with his scent, her laughter as he nervously gifted her a misshapen paper rose after a fight, the time he snuck her into the Pack’s winter gathering and declared her his mate–long before the bond had even fully settled.
Until the comic’s chapter seven.
The scene shifted.
“The doctor said I might never be able to have children again.“}
The female lead lay on a hospital bed, her face pale, hollow. Her scent–he could remember it even now–cloaked in pain and fear.
The male lead beside her… his expression went from devastated to cold.
Draven’s grip on the phone tightened. A faint growl rumbled in his chest. He had lived that moment. Felt his wolf retreat, ashamed.}
It wasn’t a comic.
It was her diary.”
A silent scream of betrayal carved into digital panels.
He kept reading.
“He started coming home late, his shirt smelled like someone else.”
“Today is our mating anniversary. He said he was working.“}
“He brought her home. Said she was fertile.“}
‘Said she was carrying his pup.“}
“Said her safety should be my first priority.”
The last panel struck like a blade. The woman dragging a suitcase in the pouring rain, behind her a burning villa reduced to ruin.
The dialogue box whispered a single line:
“I don’t want you anymore.”
Draven’s wolf howled from within, wild and wounded.
Thump.
A droplet splashed onto the screen. Another followed. He reached up and found his cheeks wet with tears.
Unbidden.
Unstoppable.”
He remembered that awful night. The sterile scent of the hospital. Her blood. Her scream as the healer explained the complications. The way she turned her face away from him when he tried to comfort her.
She had bled out in agony, and he had been angry.”
Not at her. At fate. In the universe. But he’d let it reflect in how he looked at her.
Treated her.
2/2 400%
10:49 AM υποτυμμα
He remembered that awful night. The sterile scent of the hospital. Her blood. Her scream as the healer explained the complications. The way she turned her face away from him when he tried to comfort her.
She had bled out in agony, and he had been angry.
Not at her. At fate. In the universe. But he’d let it reflect in how he looked at her.
Treated her.
He remembered his words, slurred from wine and self–pity.
“Why does it have to be you who can’t give me an heir?”
His own voice haunted him.
He had said it.
And with it, something had broken. Something that no howl, no apology, no gift of moonstone or memory could fix.
That’s when he had started spending his nights elsewhere. Letting the silence between them stretch into an unspoken war And then Freya Hart appeared–pretty, fertile, and everything a future Luna was supposed to be. Or so the Elders whispered Draven groaned, pressing the heel of his palm to his eyes. His wolf snarled in fury, not at her. At him. For being so stupid. So blind.% His thumb trembled as he scrolled to the end of the post.
There, in the comments, was a single author’s reply:
“Thank you for your concern. The female lead is doing well now. She has found a new life.”
Attached was a blurry photo of a woman sitting before an easel, holding a…pup?!
Draven froze, his fingers trembling as he zoomed in.
No… Not a wolf pup. Just a normal dog.
A puppy.
Tiny, fluffy, cute. Tucked into the woman’s lap, nipping playfully at her paint–stained hand.
His lungs stopped working the moment he finally confirmed who the woman was.
Could it be…?
His wolf surged forward, flooding his senses, nostrils flaring, searching the pixels for a trace of her scent.”
“Ella…” he whispered. Not her name now. He didn’t know what she went by. But to him, she would always be Ella Moonfall.
Not the mate he marked.
But the one the Moon gave him.
And the one he lost.
And now he believed he had found her.
He stood frozen, his heart pounding like a war drum. The comic burned in his mind. He had thought she’d vanished, maybe hidden among the rogues or exiled to the human world.
Somewhere out there, Draven was sure she still carried his scent.”
And his second chance.
Alpha Draven growled low, a vow echoing through every bone in his body.M
He would find her.
