Chapter 23 Tessa
TWENTY-THREE
TESSA
The violent pounding on Kaidan's chamber doors that morning shattered the intimate cocoon of their post-mating bliss like ice cracking under pressure.
Tessa's eyes flew open, her body still languid and warm from their passionate union last night.
The mate mark on her hip pulsed with a tender heat that reminded her of everything that had changed between them—how she was now irrevocably his and he was hers.
My mate, she thought happily. The completed bond hummed between them, carrying Kaidan's immediate shift from contentment to razor-sharp alertness.
"What the hell—" Kaidan's voice carried the dangerous edge of a king disturbed, his protective side already flaring as he rolled from the bed with predatory grace.
Tessa pulled the furs around her naked body, her scientific mind already cataloging the urgency in those demanding knocks. This wasn't a casual morning update—this was a crisis.
"Kaidan!" Bjorn's voice carried through the thick doors, strained with worry. "We need you now."
Kaidan yanked on his pants with sharp, efficient movements, his face set in that granite expression Tessa had learned meant someone was about to face his wrath. "This better be worth interrupting—"
"Eli's missing." Elora's voice cut through his growl.
The words hit Tessa like a tidal wave. She scrambled from the bed, grabbing Kaidan's discarded shirt and wrapping it around her body as she rushed toward the door he'd just opened.
Bjorn and Elora stood in the corridor, their faces etched with the kind of concern that made Tessa's stomach drop. Bjorn's usually composed demeanor had cracked, while Elora's pale blue eyes held genuine fear.
"Missing how?" Kaidan's voice carried the lethal calm of a predator preparing to strike. "Elaborate. Now."
"I checked on him last night, like I always do before I go to bed," Elora said, her words tumbling out in an unusual rush. "He was in his guest suite, working on those seismic readings. But this morning—" She spread her hands helplessly. "Gone. Bed not slept in. No note, no explanation."
Tessa's mind raced with possibilities, each more disturbing than the last. "He wouldn't have gone out alone, especially not in that blizzard. Eli's too smart for that—he understands Arctic conditions better than most people."
The mate bond carried Kaidan's surge of protective fury, so intense it made her breath catch. His hand found her lower back, a possessive gesture that grounded her even as her own panic threatened to spiral.
"Someone took him," Kaidan stated with deadly certainty. "No other explanation makes sense."
"Magnus," Tessa whispered, the name tasting like poison. "After last night's council meeting, after you publicly claimed me as your mate—he must have snapped."
Bjorn's brown eyes hardened. "The question is how he got inside the palace. Our security—"
"Is compromised." Kaidan's voice could have frozen the Arctic Ocean solid. "Someone on my staff betrayed us."
Tessa's analytical mind kicked into overdrive, sifting through recent interactions. "That server from our private dinner—the one who kept staring at us with that disgusted expression. He had access to the guest wing."
"I remember him now," Elora said grimly. "Henrik. Been with the palace for three years, always seemed resentful about the research station."
Kaidan's hands clenched, his control hanging by a thread. "I'll fire every last one of them if I have to. Tear this place apart until I find who—"
"Later," Tessa interrupted, surprising herself with her firmness.
Through their formed bond, she felt his need to protect, to control, and to dominate the threat.
But right now, action mattered more than retribution.
"We can deal with palace security and staff after we find Eli. If Magnus has him..."
She didn't finish the thought. Didn't need to. They all understood what Magnus was capable of—the lengths he'd go to prove his point about humans being a threat and Kaidan being a terrible king.
"He's using Eli as leverage," Kaidan growled, his protective instincts now focused like a laser. "Trying to force my hand."
The irony wasn't lost on Tessa. The night she'd officially become Kaidan's mate, gaining the ultimate protection of an Alpha king, someone had stolen away the man who'd brought her here in the first place. The peaceful afterglow of their completed mate bond felt like a lifetime ago.
"We need to move," she said, already heading back into the chamber to grab her clothes. "Every minute we waste gives Magnus more time to—"
"To what?" Elora's voice carried the same deadly edge as her brother's. "What's his endgame here?"
Tessa pulled on her thermal pants with quick, efficient movements. "Probably wants to prove that the king having a human mate will bring nothing but danger. If something happens to Eli while I'm 'distracting' Kaidan..."
"The clans will blame me for putting desire before my duty," Kaidan finished, his voice rough with understanding and fury.
The political implications made Tessa's chest ache. Magnus wasn't just threatening Eli—he was threatening everything she and Kaidan had built together. Their mate bond. His kingdom. Her place in Frosthaven.
"We get everyone," Kaidan commanded, shifting into full alpha mode. "Every clan member who can track. Bjorn, mobilize search teams—I want this kingdom scoured from border to border."
"Already calling them in," Bjorn confirmed, his phone pressed to his ear.
Tessa laced her boots with trembling fingers, the mate mark on her hip a constant reminder of what she stood to lose.
"The storm will have covered any tracks, but maybe we can find where they took him.
Magnus isn't exactly subtle—he'll want us to find some trace because he would love a public fallout. "
"This is about intimidation," Kaidan said grimly, helping her into her parka. "He wants me to come looking for him and publicly humiliate me, like my father publicly humiliated his."
The fury radiating through their bond made Tessa's skin tingle. Her mate was ready for war, and part of her—the part that was now permanently linked to his polar bear—relished the deadly promise in his movements.
"Then let's not disappoint him," she said, meeting his fierce gaze. "But we do this smart. We find Eli and get him to safety first. Then we end Magnus for good."
Kaidan's smile was all teeth and danger. "Now you're thinking like a queen."
They rushed from the palace into the aftermath of the historic blizzard, the unstable terrain reflecting the dangerous stakes of their desperate search.
The peace and unity of their mating night lay shattered like the ice and snow around them, replaced by the crushing weight of responsibility and the terrifying possibility that they might already be too late.
Tessa gripped the dashboard of Kaidan's Jeep as they navigated the treacherous post-blizzard terrain.
The vehicle lurched over chunks of ice and debris, but Kaidan's hands remained steady on the wheel and his eyes fixed ahead with laser focus.
Even in crisis mode, her mate radiated that raw commanding presence that made her pulse stutter.
"Talk to me," Kaidan commanded. "What's going through that mind of yours?"
"I keep thinking about Magnus's motivations. Sure, the ancestral land thing is personal, and the whole kingship rivalry between your fathers runs deep—but this feels bigger than family pride."
The Jeep's engine growled as they climbed a steep incline, and Kaidan's light blue eyes flicked to her briefly. "Meaning?"
"Meaning maybe this isn't just about becoming king." Tessa watched the landscape scroll past—pristine white broken by jagged outcroppings of dark stone. "Maybe he's willing to destroy Frosthaven completely and rebuild from scratch. A scorched earth approach."
Kaidan's hands tightened on the steering wheel. "Explain."
Tessa's scientific mind raced. "Think about it—he's targeted the research station repeatedly, tried to kill me twice, attempted to assassinate you, and now he's kidnapped Eli. That's not the behavior of someone who wants to inherit a functioning kingdom."
"It's the behavior of someone who wants to eliminate all opposition," Kaidan said grimly.
"Exactly." Tessa pointed toward a cluster of arctic foxes moving in erratic patterns near a rocky outcropping. "Look at the wildlife. They're avoiding that area completely—and that's one of the weak points I identified on the fault lines."
Kaidan's eyes followed her gesture, his enhanced vision picking up details she could barely make out. "The geological surveys from thirty years ago showed this entire western region sits on unstable bedrock."
The implications crashed over Tessa. "If Magnus triggers a catastrophic earthquake here, it wouldn't just destroy the research station or kill Eli. It could take out half of Frosthaven."
"That sick bastard," Kaidan snarled, his alpha dominance radiating through the confined space of the Jeep. "He'd rather rule over ruins than not rule at all."
What if we're too late? What if he's already set everything in motion? The thought of losing Eli—the man who'd brought her to the Arctic and become a mentor—made her stomach clench with sick dread.
"We need backup," she said firmly. "If I'm right about this—"
"Already on it." Kaidan grabbed the radio with one hand, never taking his eyes off the treacherous terrain ahead. "Bjorn, spread the search teams to all major fault lines. Check for any sign of explosives or sonar equipment."
Bjorn's voice crackled through the static. "Copy that. Where are you headed?"
"Western cliffs. The major fault line by the icy precipices." Kaidan's voice carried the utter authority of a king issuing battle commands. "If Magnus wants maximum destruction, that's where he'd stage it."
"Be careful," Bjorn's concern bled through the radio. "That area's been unstable since the last glacier shift thirty years ago."
As they approached the towering ice cliffs that marked Frosthaven's western border, Tessa squinted through the windshield. The landscape here looked almost alien—massive sheets of blue-white ice carved into impossible spires and overhangs by centuries of wind and weather.
"There," she breathed, pointing to what looked like parallel lines pressed into the snow. "Tire tracks."
Kaidan slowed the Jeep, his enhanced vision confirming what she'd spotted. "Military-grade treads. Heavy vehicle equipped for ice terrain. It's Magnus's truck."
The tracks led up a winding path carved into the cliff face, disappearing around a bend that would take them out of sight of the main territory. Tessa's heart pounded against her ribs as they began the ascent, each turn revealing more of the spectacular—and terrifying—drop to their right.
"Kaidan," she said quietly, her earlier bravado crumbling as reality set in. "What if this is exactly what he wants? What if he's luring us up here to—"
"To finish what my father started thirty years ago." Kaidan's hand found hers briefly, his touch grounding and reassuring despite the circumstances. "But he underestimated one thing."
"What's that?"
His smile was a dangerous promise. "He's never faced a mated king who will stop at nothing to protect his future queen and their future kingdom."
Tessa's stomach twisted into knots as the Jeep climbed higher, each hairpin turn revealing more of the terrifying drop that yawned beside them. The ice cliffs stretched endlessly upward, their blue-white faces gleaming like frozen tears in the Arctic sunlight.
Her earlier confidence—the scientific certainty that had driven her analysis of Magnus's probable endgame—crumbled like unstable ice beneath the weight of stark reality.
Up here, isolated and vulnerable, she felt the crushing magnitude of what they faced.
Magnus wasn't just some disgruntled rival; he was a calculating predator willing to destroy everything, including innocent lives, to claim what he believed was rightfully his.
"What if he's got Eli up there rigged to some kind of explosive device, waiting for us to arrive so he can take us all out in one catastrophic blast?"
"Then we deal with it," he said with the kind of calm certainty that made her remember why she'd fallen for this Alpha king in the first place. "Together."
Together. The word should have been comforting, but instead it filled Tessa with a different kind of dread. She'd just found her mate, just experienced the most perfect night of her life, and now they were potentially driving toward their deaths on an ice-covered cliff in the middle of nowhere.