The cottage was empty.
There wasn't even a trace that anyone had been there. The cabinets were bare, the bedsheets were crisp and new, and the lingering scent of the injured she-wolf was gone—replaced by the clinical smell of lavender and soap from freshly washed floors.
Zoriana huffed in a mix of disappointment and growing fear. What had happened to the woman? Was she dead? Trafficked? Or simply sent back to her pack? She sat on the edge of the bed, her thoughts racing, when she saw something shimmer near the floorboards. Zoriana reached down and picked up a delicate golden bracelet. She flipped it over in her fingers; the engraving read: “Lila."
Zoriana sighed and bit her lip. Perhaps it belonged to the Omega who had cleaned the cottage, but she felt a bone-deep certainty that it belo
