Page 7 of Bound By Fate

I rolled my eyes. “Go away, Stralia, and send Ryland in here immediately.”

“Cade—”

“Now.”

After staring at me for another full half minute, and realizing I was serious about my position, she spun around in a huff and slammed out of the room. But when Ryland didn’t materialize, I went for him myself.

“Alpha?” Ryland asked, bowing formally in the presence of the other, still nervous guards.

“I want surveillance footage of the last four hours from everywhere in the palace.”

“The guards are combing through it.”

“I want to comb through it myself,” I told him flatly. “I want you to round up every single available guard and send them out in search of Zephyrine immediately. I want her found. Tonight.”

Ryland paled at the request. “Is there any sign of where she might have gone, Alpha?”

I pursed my lips and shook my head. “Have them contact every local precinct and sheriff, have them be on the lookout for her. Distribute photos of her to every town and city in the kingdom. Issue press releases.”

Ryland nodded slowly.

“Any idea how she’s traveling?”

I scoffed furiously. “You tell me!” I almost roared. “Are there cars missing? The helicopter? Horses? Do any inventory and figure it out. We’re wasting time standing here.”

“Yes, Alpha.” He bowed again and rushed off, more to escape my wrath than to get to work, I was sure, but again, I was plagued with the idea that I wasn’t mad at him.

I was furious with myself. Why hadn’t I sensed that something was amiss with Zephy? More importantly, why hadn’t she come to me and told me? Everything we’d worked so hard toward over these past weeks was gone now, in a puff of smoke. All the trust I thought we’d built was for nothing.

Inhaling deeply, I squared my shoulders and prepared myself to deal with her undoubtedly distraught parents. I wasn’t looking forward to undoing this mess, but Zephyrine had left me little choice.

It was bound to be a long night ahead for everyone, but I would not rest until Zephyrine was in front of me, explaining what the hell was going on.

Chapter2

Zephy

“It’s not senseless, Stralia,” Cade said huskily, his hands stroking the pale face in front of him as I gaped at the scene in horror. “I’m in love. It’s true. I believe that we’re mated. I feel it inside me and that it will come to fruition. You must accept it, Stralia, because it is the only way for us to move on—both of us.”

My head drew back, tears filling my eyes as she answered his proclamation with a deep kiss. Dizziness swept over me, and I stumbled forward, gasping as I fumbled to escape my own eyes.

Over and over, the same scene replayed in my head like a movie I had no control over, no matter how much I tried to scrub it from my mind. I took a deep breath, and the wind picked up, rushing in from the dropped top of the convertible. Sand bits of debris from the roadway slipped into the vehicle chipping against the car.

Nothing took away the pain of the sickening reality that the fae I had fallen so hopelessly in love with had always been in love with his childhood sweetheart. I’d hoped that the more miles I put between myself and the palace, the easier the memory would fade, but after a full day of traveling, stopping only for gas and bathroom breaks, I felt worse, not better.

I couldn’t get Cade and Stralia out of my mind.

All the signs had been there in hindsight. Maywin had warned me almost from the moment we had driven into Ironhelm Place about their relationship. The whispers among the staff had reached her ears within days. The Alpha King-to-be was apparently not shy about his relationship with the dead stable keeper’s daughter. It had made sense at the time, the two growing up together as orphans after the war. Stralia, lost in the palace, Cade coming into his own. He had confessed his once-upon-a-time feelings but assured me they didn’t exist anymore.

And I’d been stupid enough to believe that he had seen more in me than her and overlooked their long-time connection, even encouraging Stralia to come back when Cade had put her in the north wing, believing that he really could keep his distance from a romantic standpoint.

The blinders were off now, and I wouldn’t stand in their way any longer.

My body was broken and weary in my thirteenth hour, my eyes burning, the car now smoking as I tried to figure out where I was. My calves and buttocks were numb from so many hours of driving, and the car appeared tired of me, too. A swirl of smoke began to choke out of the hood of the car as I mentally debated where to stop.

In my mind, I’d already decided to end my journey at the next major-ish city I found, the streak of small towns fully behind me now.

I hadn’t headed back toward my childhood home in Carrottville, so I was truly out of my element now. But even as I was thinking about pulling into the upcoming city, the little black convertible I’d taken from the multi-car garage at Ironhelm Place died in the middle of the road. Panic seized me, and I gasped, putting the vehicle in park before turning it over again.

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