The ghost mate:tearing the alpha's Shadow

chapter 3

– Kael pov

I woke up reaching for her.

My hand closed on cold moss. Empty air. The space where her body should have been.

She was gone.

I was on my feet before my eyes were fully open. The forest was grey with early light—the same grey that had hidden her face from me all night. The dead rogues were still scattered in the mud where I'd left them. Their blood had dried black on my hands. Their bodies were already cold.

And my mate had vanished.

Find her. My wolf's voice was a snarl in my skull. Now.

I scanned the forest floor. Her footprints were there—small and hurried, leading away from me toward the Silvermoon border. I followed them. Ten paces. Twenty. Then nothing.

Not faded. Disappeared.

Like she'd been erased from the world.

I stopped. Breathed in. Tried to catch any trace of her on the wind. Nothing. That scent that had hit me like a fist when I first saw her—pine and rain and something sweeter underneath that had made my chest crack open—was gone. Completely. As if someone had reached into the air and pulled it out by the roots.

I stood at the edge of the trees staring toward Silvermoon territory. The sun was just beginning to burn through the mist. Somewhere in that direction, she was walking away from me. Maybe she was still running. Maybe she was already home.

I didn't know her name. I didn't know her face. I had held her in the dark for hours, had felt her breath against my throat and her hands in my hair and the way her body arched under mine—and I couldn't have picked her out of a crowd of two.

She's ours, my wolf growled. We marked her. We claimed her. She belongs to us.

Then why can't I feel her?

The bond—that invisible thread that should have connected me to her from the moment my teeth sank into her throat—was silent. Not broken. Silent. Like a door slammed shut from the other side. Like a phone ringing in an empty room.

I had never heard of a bond behaving this way. Fated mates felt each other across continents. They sensed each other's pain, each other's joy, each other's direction. I had marked her. I had claimed her. And I had nothing.

My wolf paced inside my chest. Restless. Angry. The incomplete bond was already pulling at me, a low hum of wrongness that I couldn't shake and couldn't ignore. It sat beneath my ribs like a second heartbeat—muffled, distant, wrong.

I didn't know how long I had before it started affecting me. Before my control started slipping. Before my wolf decided to take matters into its own teeth.

I returned to my pack house as the sun rose fully over the mountains.

The Nightwolf territory stretched around me—thousands of acres of forest and stone, dozens of subordinate packs, warriors who would die at my command. I had built this. I had fought for this. And none of it mattered right now.

My Beta, Tegan, was waiting in my office. He was standing by the window, hands clasped behind his back. His expression was carefully neutral—the way it always was when he was about to deliver news I wouldn't like.

"The Silvermoon delegation has confirmed," he said. "The mating ball is in three days. Alpha Leon expects you to choose a bride from their pack to seal the alliance."

"I don't want a bride from Silvermoon." I pushed past him to my desk. "I already have a mate."

Tegan's eyebrow lifted. Just slightly. The most reaction I'd ever seen from him. "And where is she now?"

The question hit harder than any blow I'd ever taken in battle.

"She's gone," I said. "Her scent vanished. The bond is silent. I can't track her."

Tegan was quiet for a moment. "Then attending the mating ball is not a waste of time. Your wolf needs stability. An incomplete bond is dangerous. You know what it can do to an Alpha."

I knew.

It could drive a wolf mad. It could strip an Alpha of control until he was nothing but a snarling animal in human skin. It could destroy everything I had built—my pack, my territory, my sanity. I'd seen it happen to an Alpha once, years ago. He had rejected his mate for political reasons. Within six months, his wolf had taken over completely. They found him in the forest, fur and claws and no memory of the man he'd been.

I would not become that.

"The council expects you to attend," Tegan continued. "The alliance with Silvermoon is critical. Their territory borders ours. Their warriors supplement ours. If their Alpha falls—"

"I'll attend." I cut him off. "I'll stand there and I'll let them present their daughters and their elders and whoever else they want to throw at me. But I won't choose anyone."

"And if the council insists?"

I turned to face him. "The council doesn't control me. My mate is out there. And I will find her."

Tegan bowed and left.

I stood alone in my office, staring out the window at the forest where I'd lost her. The trees stretched on for miles, dark and silent. Somewhere in that direction, she was out there. Breathing. Living. Carrying my mark without knowing whose teeth had put it there.

I looked down at my hands. Her blood was still crusted under my nails from where I'd marked her. Dark. Dry. The only proof I had that she was real.

Somewhere out there, a woman was wearing my bite. She didn't know my name. She didn't know my face. She didn't know she was tied to the deadliest Alpha in the region.

I was going to find her.

Even if I had to tear Silvermoon apart to do it.