The Beta's Missing Mate (Book 16 Of The Regal Eclipse Pack Series)

Chapter 13

One Month Later

Aidan sat staring at his glass of bourbon, his mind a thousand miles away in Missouri. He'd gone over that night with Ana so many times in his mind, wondering what he could have done differently. Not the sex part. That he was fairly certain she'd enjoyed every second of, though in his darker moments, he wondered if he had under performed and she just hadn't been impressed. Had the sex completely sucked? He didn't think so, but maybe it had. Losing her for so long had him over analyzing every detail of that night. 

But the biggest thing he would have changed would have been finding out her last name. That should have been the first thing he had done. Then he could track her down. Or try to. As of right now, trying to track her had not been easy at all. 

He wished he had told her he was interested in more than just a one night stand with her. He'd sort of hinted at it, but apparently not well enough. Waking up and finding her gone the next morning had made his heart clench, and he'd been on edge since that day four months ago. He was distracted and well aware of it. 

He felt like his world was crashing and burning around him now and had been for the last few months. Xavier had gone missing, and that had been the pack's main focus. Xavier would one day be the King of all Werewolves, and the fact that he had somehow ended up disappearing was sort of mind blowing to them all. 

Xavier had gone with Damien, his cousin, on a pack visit. Typically, Damien conducted his pack visits with his twin brother, Dylan. But both of them had found their mates not too long before the visit was scheduled and certain circumstances had arisen that made Dylan not want to take off and leave his mate. 

Given that Damien and Dylan were both hybrids, both panther shifters and werewolf, they were able to change their human mates to hybrids as well. Damien, Dylan and their older brother Dimitri were the only hybrids in the world, and give that werewolves in general were unable to change humans into anything, they hadn't known for sure that they'd be able to change their mates. 

But since it was the first time, they had no idea Dylan's mate would be unconscious for four days straight, with her waking up the morning they were supposed to leave. She'd successfully become both a werewolf and panther shifter, but it stressed Dylan out quite a bit, as he'd been unable to do anything but helplessly wait for her to wake up. 

Damien hadn't tried to change his own mate yet, not sure how it would go, and so he volunteered to go on the pack visit without Dylan, and had asked Xavier to go with him instead, which Xavier agreed to. 

On the flight there, the plane had gotten caught up in a storm, and crashed in Missouri of all places. The state Aidan's mate lived in. Regal Eclipse had immediately headed out to the crash site. Knowing their own pack members were probably badly injured and would need to be under their own pack doctor's care, given their quick healing and immortality, they wanted to retrieve them right away before any questions were raised. And while the pack had no problem finding Damien and the two pilots, Xavier had gone missing. The plane had been split in two, and Xavier wasn't at either crash sight. 

The pack had set up at a hotel nearby and spent the next few weeks searching for Xavier. They'd searched the wilderness, through the Ozark mountains, and the hospitals, police stations, and anywhere else they could think of. Aidan had been shocked when three weeks after the crash, the Alpha of the Ozark Pack from Oklahoma called to say that they'd had Xavier, but he'd taken off. He'd been in their pack clinic, them unknowing at first who he was, and he'd slipped out when he'd been left alone.  

The pack had flown to Oklahoma and that was when they began to put things together, learning that Xavier had lost his memories, and someone had taken the Prince and tortured him.

The men who had taken him hostage had taken members of Ozark Pack as well, which ended up leading Alpha Tate to them. He'd killed them both, and set the place on fire after rescuing his own pack members and Xavier, though he had no idea who he really was. He hadn't wanted any sort of evidence of the werewolf's existence to be found. Tate had given Regal Eclipse the laptop he'd retrieved from the scene. 

Trevor and Micah, part of Regal Eclipse's cyber security team, had combed over the laptop, reading through all of the notes that had been kept in it. They'd learned what had happened to Xavier and after reading through the laptop himself, Aidan couldn't quite blame the Prince for disappearing. He'd been tortured by one sadistic fucker named C. His trust levels were probably non-existent and they realized that more than likely, Xavier had no idea that he was a werewolf. 

Reading it all over had made Aidan almost physically ill. He couldn't imagine having to deal with that kind of misery for weeks. He hoped where ever Xavier was right then, he was okay and not in some other person's clutches. Aidan's great great grandfather, Ragnar, former Beta of Regal Eclipse, seemed to think that Aidan had gotten on a semi. Which meant that he could be anywhere. 

Though finally, they'd had a breakthrough. Someone had ran Xavier's prints, which had triggered some sort of program Trevor had set up. Ragnar, and Xavier's parents had gone after him and would hopefully be bringing him home soon.

But all of this had meant that the search for Aidan's mate had sort of been put on the back burner. He could understand why, but his time was running out. If he didn't find her soon, he would start to obsess over his need to mark her as his. It would consume him and make it hard for him to concentrate on anything except her. It would make him vulnerable and distracted. He had too much going on to allow himself to be distracted by a woman, mate or not. But he was already starting to obsess over her, though he tried to ignore it for the most part.

But Ana was always on his mind; he couldn't seem to get her out. She'd taken up residence four months ago when she'd entered his life and hadn't left. He jerked off to images of her cumming for him almost nightly. He dreamed of her constantly, and he woke up, frustrated because she wasn't there, and because he had no idea where she was. He had no idea if she was safe. If he sat around and thought about it too much, he would drive himself crazy. 

Ghost, his wolf, was all too quiet now, frustrated at the loss. He was pissed off at Aidan and himself, and Aidan couldn't blame him. Aidan hadn't even shifted in a while because his wolf was so annoyed with him. He shut Aidan out completely. 

Aidan hated it, but he could do nothing about it. It made him feel even more lonely and frustrated, but his wolf wanted nothing to do with him. He could feel his presence, but that was about it. Aidan had taken to going to the gym most mornings and taking out his frustrations on a punching bag. 

He knew his family was aware though. Ragnar, his great great grandfather, would spar with him quite a bit, and his own father had gone out of his way to check on him more than normal. Aidan knew they were worried about him, but he brushed it under the rug, trying his best to ignore it all. 

He'd spent a great deal of time on the web, searching for every Anna he could find in the Saint Louis area, combing through social media accounts among other things, but none of the women he'd come across were her. He sometimes wondered if that really was her name or if she'd given him a fake one.

Dominic had been helping him too, and was pretty convinced that Anna was a variation of something else, or maybe a middle name. He truly needed a last name, he'd told Aidan.