The Brave Human Mate

10.

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King Romulus' POV

Queen Amory was within reach—reach!
And he had failed, again!

Romulus couldn't believe it, he could and couldn't.
The questions continued to bounce back and forth, but hearing the admiration that came with Red Moon's missing Healer, the entire pack had readied their pitchforks and claws to hunt for her.

And hunt for her they had.

Romulus had nearly fallen to the floor after three days of searching nonstop through the territory. He couldn't understand how an injured human female could make it so far without being caught, someone had to have seen her!

"I want an Enforcer-wide alert, Marrow and Petrio know what she looks like. Get them to link it throughout. If she's undercover again then—"

"What if she is waiting for us to leave, Romulus...What if she won't return until we—"

"I can't lose her again!" Lyall had frowned and nodded, knowing that there was no arguing, not when the king was acting like this. "I'll drag her back to the kingdom myself if I have to. Kicking and screaming and—"

"This...This is why the wolves think you're hunting her down. This is why we're coming up empty-handed. You need to make a better release of this. It sounds as though you put a death warrant on her!" As long as Romulus has known Lyall, he was usually a stoic male, but seeing him starting to grow angry—Thoroughly livid over their loss of direction, Romulus caved.

He was exhausting both himself and his resources over a woman in the wind, literally. He was only now starting to become clear that plans were starting to fall short if he continued on this path.

"I know what you owe her, but believe me, Alpha. If she wants to be found, she will be."

"She's running from me." Lyall bobbed his head in partial agreement, as it wasn't entirely out of character for the former Queen to worry about being killed over a title that didn't exist to her anymore.

"Wouldn't you? To preserve yourself?" Romulus growled, which meant that they were on the right path—Or had been until the door to the borrowed study had been barged into, leaving two of the highest-ranking males to turn fiery towards the intruder.

"Knock, Alpha—"

"You may be the Royal Delta, Lyall. But let's not forget who's father worked closely beside Alpha King Randal." There was little argument to be had, but it was clear that that was why Alpha Stephen knew how to plan and conjure.

Especially when he held up a leather satchel, a scorched one.

"My team and I tracked down past the inn, I split us off and I'm thankful we did. We found a scorched part of the forest burned to a crisp." He offered, and that caused the King to frown.

"I don't think anyone reported a fire in the area." He deemed and the Alpha had shaken his head.

"Couldn't smell anything. If Rhea was here, I would ask her to research these." Stephen had dug into the satchel and thrown down the talisman, the only remains of the fire besides Rhea's buried bag.

"You still call her Rhea...Funny, even when you know better than—"

"To me, she is Healer Rhea. For the past nine years, she has been Rhea to me. Excuse me for not calling her a different name when I can't speak it outside to my hunting party." He hissed, confirming that the male had more than enough bite to go toe to toe with the Alpha king.