The Hockey Alpha Captain's Secret Heir

3

DAMON

' You are not even pretending to sleep. ' Grant, my wolf, has been bothering me for an hour now, ever since I left the celebration still going strong downstairs and shut myself in my room instead of staying for the last of it.

I should be happy. I keep waiting to feel it, the settled, certain thing a claiming is supposed to bring, the sense that the hardest part is finally behind me. Instead I just feel like I swallowed something wrong and it has not finished going down.

' It's done. ' Grant again, quieter this time. ' Whatever this is, it's done now. You did what Father needed. '

I did what he needed. I didn't do what I wanted, and there is a difference between those two things that's been sitting in my chest all night like a stone.

I don't let myself think about her name. Not directly. Every time it surfaces I push it back under, because thinking her name tonight of all nights feels like a betrayal of a whole different kind, and I have already committed one of those today.

A knock sounds on my door hard enough to rattle the frame.

“ Damon. ” Zeke's voice sounded, devoid of the celebratory looseness he had an hour ago. “ You need to come downstairs. ”

I am up and across the room before he finishes the sentence. Something in his tone has every hair on my arms standing up before my brain catches up to why.

“ What happened? ” I pull the door open.

“ Elena is gone. ” He answers.

The world tilts sideways for a second.

“ Gone where? ” My voice comes out steadier than I feel.

“ Gone, Damon. Her room is empty. The bed was not slept in. Her window is unlatched, and her aunt was seen near the house hours ago, climbing out the same window like she didn't want anyone using the door. ” Zeke's jaw is tight as he explains. “ Nobody has seen Elena since the ceremony ended. ”

I am already moving past him down the hall before I have decided on my next plan of action. She must have ran away because she was too hurt to stay.

' Why does this feel like losing something? ’ Grant's voice is low, confused, like he can't explain his own reaction any better than I can explain mine.

I don't answer him. I don't have an answer that doesn't scare me.

Downstairs, the great room is still littered with the last of tonight's celebration. Half-empty glasses, someone's coat forgotten over a chair, and things messed up, but the mood has shifted entirely. My father stands near the fireplace with his Beta, and the look on his face when he turns to me is not concern. It's calculation.

“ Your mate's friend has run off in the middle of the night. ” He says it flat, like it's an inconvenience rather than anything worth alarm. “ Probably jealousy caused this. Girls do foolish things when someone else gets claimed instead of them. ”

Something in me rejects that explanation so fast and so completely that I almost say so out loud before I catch myself.

“ She wouldn’t just leave. ” I keep my voice level. “ Not without a word to anyone. That’s not Elena. ”

My father's eyes narrow slightly at how fast I defend her, and I make myself stop talking before I say something that gives him more than he already has.

“ It doesn’t matter why she ran. ” He waves a hand. “ A lone wolf outside pack protection is either a liability or a corpse by winter. Either way, she was useless, and it’s good that she is not our concern anymore. ”

“ She is part of this Pack. ” The words are out before I can stop them, harder than I mean them to sound. “ She is pack until she is formally released, and nobody released her. If something is wrong— ”

“ Then it's wrong on her own account, not mine. ” My father's voice drops to a familiar level which always aims to end arguments. “ I have a claiming to finish celebrating and a new daughter-in-law upstairs who doesn't need her wedding night poisoned by drama over a girl who couldn't handle watching someone else win. ”

Brielle. The root of all problems. My jaw grits when I think about her and how I have to put up with her for my whole life.

' Send the search party out anyway. ' Grant's voice cuts through my thoughts. ' You are Alpha's son and the heir to this Pack. You don't need his permission for a patrol. '

He is right. I don’t need any permission anymore.

“ Zeke. ” I turn to him, already pulling my jacket off the chair where I dropped it hours ago. “ Get four teams out. Search borders first, then the deer trails toward the ridge…she knows those better than most of us do. She used to run along them with her aunt as a kid. I want eyes on every inch of territory before sunrise. ”

“ Damon. ” My father hisses from behind me, but I am already turning around and walking away.

“ I am not asking you for anything, Alpha. ” I don't look back at him. “ If something has happened to a member of this pack on my claiming night, I need to know what, why, and how before the sun is up. ”

I don't wait to see whether he argues further. I am already at the door, already shrugging into my jacket, already running through every place I can remember her mentioning as a kid.

I search her at the old fishing spot past the ridge, her grandmother's abandoned cabin, then a dozen other places where she loves to hide when she doesn’t want to face the world.

But I don’t find her anywhere.

' You care more about her than you are letting yourself admit. But…she doesn’t belong to you anymore. Brielle is our mate. Remember that. ' Grant's voice is quiet now, almost gentle.

I don't have room in my chest right now to argue with him. I just need to find her. It’s like I can’t breathe before I find her.

And when I do find her, I will make sure she never leaves my room again.