Chapter 9 - Find Me

𝐀𝐔𝐑𝐎𝐑𝐀

When he was gone, I refused to let the rest of my tears fall. I did not want to worry the wolf. He was hurt enough. 

I shook away my fears, looking around the room as I soothed him. 

My little cell was cleaner than I thought it would be. If Sonya saw this, she would freak seeing that this was better than anywhere she had let me sleep in. 

I just need to clean up a bit and it would be livable. 

My head had began to ache again and this was was the second time. The first time being when my mind had first played tricks on me when the brute, Kaleb had held. 

And now it had happened again with yet another. This one even more startling clear than the last. It must be a side effect of the Moon core. 

"It is no trick," The core prowled through my thoughts, replying. "I chose you for a reason," 

"Why me, what do you want?" I tried to ask but I as quickly as it had come I felt her presence recede back into the background. 

She tricked me once and pulled me into this abyss. Once bitten, twice shy. She needed me alive because she has turned me into a vessel and I needed her to shut up if she would be speaking in riddles. 

The wolf had no broken bones and would need to rest so I let him while I got to work and went to bed.

—

𝐙𝐀𝐘𝐍𝐄

I'd been awake since four, working through realm and pack reports at my desk. Supply inventories, security logs, the bureaucratic mess of managing a property this size without staff. By five-thirty, I'd confirmed what I already suspected—we'd need temporary help within the week or the place would collapse under its own neglect.

I checked the clock and stood. Time to wake the thief.

The corridors were silent as I descended to the lower levels. I slid the bolt free and pushed the door open, already calculating how long it would take her to complete the task list Sonya had prepared.

The room was empty.

I stepped inside, scanning the space with methodical precision. The mattress was made with military corners, the cracked basin scrubbed clean, the floor polished to a dull shine where grime had been worked out of the stone. The wolf was curled in the corner, watching me with those unsettling green eyes, but the girl was gone.

Three possibilities presented themselves immediately. One: she had somehow bypassed the security wards and fled the estate, which was functionally impossible without triggering alarms. Two: she was hiding somewhere within the room, though a thorough visual sweep confirmed otherwise. Three: she had left the cell of her own accord and was somewhere else in the estate.

I examined the door frame. No signs of forced exit. The bolt had been locked from the outside when I arrived, which meant either someone had let her out, or she had never been secured properly in the first place. Cyrus had been the last one to see her, and while he was impulsive, he wasn't careless.

I made my way back upstairs, moving through the corridors with purpose rather than haste. The others would be waking soon regardless—Kaleb was always up by six, and Rafayel never slept more than four hours at a time. I found them gathered in the main hall, Sonya already awake and clinging to Cyrus's arm like she expected an attack.

"The human isn't in her cell," I said, my tone neutral and factual.

Kaleb's eyes flared violet immediately. "She escaped?"

"Unlikely," I replied, adjusting my glasses. "The wards are intact, and there's no evidence of forced exit. She's somewhere in the estate."

"I told you she was sneaky," Sonya said, her voice pitched with urgency. "She's been planning this from the beginning. She probably seduced one of the guards before we dismissed them, or found some hidden passage. Aurora always finds a way to twist things in her favor."

I didn't bother responding to speculation without evidence. Instead, I turned toward the eastern wing, intending to conduct a systematic search, when movement in my peripheral vision made me pause.

A figure in a plain gray uniform passed through the archway at the far end of the hall, a duster in one hand and a rag in the other. She moved with quiet efficiency, wiping down the ornate mirror near the corridor entrance before continuing out of sight.

"There," I said, gesturing toward the archway.

Cyrus's nostrils flared. "That's her."

We followed at a measured pace—no need to rush when she clearly wasn't fleeing. When we entered the sitting room, she was balanced on a step stool, cleaning the upper corners of a bookshelf with the same methodical care I used when organizing reports. The wolf sat at the base of the stool, watching her work.

She didn't acknowledge our presence. Just continued dragging the duster along the carved wood molding, her movements precise and unhurried.

"You were supposed to be in your cell," Kaleb said, his voice still carrying the rough edge of his wolf.

She paused, glanced down at us with those mismatched eyes, then gestured at the room around us with the duster before returning to her work.

I looked around the sitting room properly for the first time. The floors gleamed. The windows were spotless. Every surface that had been covered in a fine layer of dust and neglect now reflected the early morning light. I stepped back into the hallway and scanned the corridor we'd just walked through.

Immaculate.

I walked past the others, inspecting the room with clinical attention. I checked corners, ran my finger along the windowsill, examined the baseboards. Not a speck of dust. Not a single missed detail. The kind of thoroughness that would require hours of focused labor.

"When did you begin?" I asked, turning to look at her.

She didn't answer, of course. Just met my gaze with that same exhausted calm, then descended from the stool and moved to the next section of shelving.

"She's been awake since before you," Cyrus said, and there was something in his voice I couldn't quite identify. "I can still smell the lemon polish on her hands. Hours of it."

I felt something cold and sharp lodge itself beneath my ribs. I had been awake since four. I prided myself on discipline, on being the first to rise, the last to rest. It was a point of principle, a mark of superiority that separated me from those who indulged in weakness.