Page 61 of The Alpha King's Fate

“You should have called me, my queen,” Chase said. “I would have been close if anything—”

A loud bang cut him off, and they all turned to look at Jax with his palms flat.

“You can fawn over your queen another day,” Jax said calmly, contradicting his almost violent action. "Shall we get on with this?"

"Yes, Alpha," Dylan said, pulling out the chair on Jax's right.

Ryker pushed him out of the way and smiled at her as he gestured for her to take the seat. Dylan went to sit next to her, but Ryker took that seat and grinned at him. The pack Beta's jaws clamped together as if restraining himself before walking around to the other side of the table.

When she finally looked at Jax again, that coldness she had known for a long time when she'd first met him was back in his eyes. His gaze drilled into her and then Ryker, who didn't seem to care that he was winding his king up.

"Where's Alpha Erik?" Jax asked.

"He left soon after you did, Alpha," Gavin answered.

What? Their parents had left them, and then their Alpha had abandoned them, too. Jax didn't react, as if he wasn't surprised by the news, but her fists balled up in her lap.

"Have you stopped the searches?" Jax asked.

"Yes. All the teams came back after we heard the news," Chase answered.

"Wait. We're not looking for them anymore? We can't do that," she said.

"We can't risk anyone else being taken when we don't know where they are," Jax said.

It was logical, and Jax didn't say it with a condescending tone, but she felt stupid for not realising it.

“Right,” she said. “Sorry.”

“There’s nothing for you to apologise—”

“What did you find out?” Jax continued, cutting off Ryker.

The others looked at each other and then at her, likely realising that something was off between them.

“The scouts that saw the Hunters returned to their pack immediately, but that was around the same time Faith went missing. They had been out looking for a few of their pack members,” Dylan said.

“And all of them are still alive?”

“No broken bonds reported,” Gavin said.

“I’m still linked to my boys,” Ryker said. “But it’s strange, almost like it’s muted. I can’t even begin to track them.”

“You can track your pack members?” she asked.

She could find anyone in the pack if she concentrated on the pack link and if they were close enough to her, but she also needed their scent and her keen hearing. Was that something she could learn to do, too?

“Only Alphas can do that,” Jax answered.

And again, she felt small.

How was she supposed to have known that when she wasn’t included in any of it? She’d been focused on learning what she could do as a red wolf, but she was still almost clueless about the others.

“Right,” she said again.

There was a pause that felt awkward. Was she disrupting their meeting? Perhaps they didn’t want her there.

“We need some sort of trackers on all our scouts just in case,” Chase suggested. “They seem to be taking the smaller teams or solitary wolves. I don’t know if that’s because they’re watching us. Goddess forbid anyone else gets taken, but that should be a priority before we risk resuming the searches. What do you think, Layla?”

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