Xavier’s POV
The crushing disappointment from the false lead weighed heavily on all of us. The girl we had found in the woods wasn’t Mia. She looked similar, but her wolf made it clear there was no bond, no connection. We had been fooled by our own desperation.
I couldn’t stop replaying the moment in my mind—the fleeting hope that we had finally found her, only to have it ripped away. We returned to the pack with heavier hearts, the silence between us louder than any argument we could have had.
“She’s out there somewhere,” Sean murmured as we got back to the house.
“Is she?” Nathan’s voice was bitter, his face twisted with guilt. “Or did we lose her for good?”
I didn’t have the energy to answer. Instead, I went straight to my room and poured myself a drink. The whiskey burned as it sl
