Trifecta: Stone [Completed]

Chapter 19: Resolute

Serge's POV

She had been gone more than a week.

We still had no luck finding Elise.

After we had exhausted searching every inch of the territories, we had sent people to the nearest towns to search for an hint of her scent. The only possible lead filled me with dread, because it had been at a gas station along the Trans Canada Highway, and by the time her brother had gotten there to confirm the scent it had been nearly overridden by the scents of countless humans and he had not been sure.

We had not been sure, but I believed it had been her. The direction had been south east, and nothing could ever make me forget who lived in that direction and all that they had taken.

The eastern king.

I was furious, but I harnessed the feeling and used it do everything that might possibly help. We had discussions and meetings and I did what work there was while I waited.

I preferred to be angry and busy, because when I stopped everything else came crashing back to me and threatened to cripple me.

Every minute I had spent with her paraded through my mind and taunted me. Every time she managed to push past the curse to grasp some of her former happiness beckoned and then disappeared like smoke when I tried to grasp it. Every time I had seen the curse afflict her pointed the terrible suffering she must be experiencing even now.

And I tried to avoid my pain that she was gone and my fear that she was lost to me forever. We were doing everything we could, but until we figured out her location there was little more I could do.

What I wanted was to be out there with the scouts who were trying to track her down, who were actively searching. My animal side wanted that action to soothe myself with, but I was needed here. It was my place to lead.

If... No, when they located her, then I would drop everything and leave.

In the meantime, while I fulfilled my role, I help sort through all the information gathered from Mark and Fenton. Every detail of their lives we could get our hands on was laid out before me, and surely in one of these details we would find a connection to where she was.

Then I would go and rescue her.

Her presence in my life, now that she was gone, highlighted how isolated I had been before. I had friends, I had my pack, but I had been alone.

And then I had her and I loved her, and she said that she loved me. If I had known what I now knew, Mark and Fenton would be imprisoned or dead and she would be safe with me.

I could not take it anymore. I had to release some of the pent up anxiety inside me. I opened the door, stripped off my clothing and transformed. Denizen's ears perked up as I trotted out of the house. He came up to me and greeted me affectionately.

I wagged my tail a bit in response, then I started running.

Usually, when Denizen came with me, I paced myself so that he would keep up easily. I tried to hold myself back, but this day I needed to run with everything in me, as if it were possible to run fast enough to escape from the problems I could not solve.

I gradually lost my pet in the forest behind me, but I did not slow down. Perhaps it meant that I was a terrible leader, but this run was all for me. But even running solved nothing, because she was not there. I missed our runs together. I missed her. I worried for her.

My certainty that Elise's disappearance was the work of the eastern king only grew, although there was still no direct evidence pointing towards him. What was he doing to her?