**AXEL**
The run back to the packhouse is brutal, not because the distance is far but because every step drives the truth deeper into my chest, and by the time Atticus and I hit the edge of the territory my lungs are burning and my control is hanging by a thread. The bond is wrong, stretched thin and hollow where Bella should be, and the absence is loud enough that it feels like a constant scream under my skin.
She’s gone.
Not lost. Not hiding. Taken.
We don’t slow when we reach the house, we don’t bother shifting back to anything resembling calm, and the guards at the doors barely have time to straighten before we’re past them and moving through the halls like a storm that’s already decided where it’s going. I can feel the pack reacting before anyone says a word, tension rippling outw
