Chapter 14 Embers for the Fallen #2
No blood. No broken furniture. No scuff marks on the floor, no disturbed dust patterns, no evidence of a fight.
That should have been relief.
It wasn't.
Voluntary disappearance was still dangerous.
Potentially more dangerous. Because if Silas could reach into Ronan's mind whenever he wanted, if the compulsion I'd torn apart last night was already rebuilding, then Ronan running meant he was alone and vulnerable and exactly what Silas needed to complete whatever plan he'd been building for thirty years.
I left the apartment too fast.
The pack house was organized chaos when I arrived.
Evan stood near the main table with maps spread across the surface, Nate beside him marking safe routes and choke points with the methodical attention of a druid who understood terrain like living language.
I walked in and the room read my face before I spoke.
“Ronan's gone,” I said.
The room shifted immediately.
Conversations cut off mid-sentence. Wolves turned toward me with the instant alert focus of predators hearing prey-sound. Even the ones who'd been moving stopped, attention snapping to center.
Daniel spoke from near the window. “His apartment?”
“Empty.”
“Scent trail?” Luke was already moving toward the door.
“I'll track from the apartment.” Jonah joined him. “If he shifted, I can follow.”
Evan's leadership clicked into place. “Luke, Jonah—apartment and immediate perimeter. Marcus, Sienna—check town borders, see if anyone saw him leave. Elena, David—forest access points, all of them. He's dire, he'll use routes regular wolves avoid.”
The pack mobilized.
Pairs and teams forming instantly, wolves grabbing gear and heading for doors, the practiced urgency of people who understood that time mattered and delay meant death.
I tried to anchor myself by doing what I could do—mapping likely routes, checking known trails, marking distances on the spread maps in ways that might narrow the search parameters.
But my hands were shaking.
Time stretched.
Fifteen minutes became thirty. Thirty became an hour.
They found nothing.
No clear scent trail leading away from the apartment—rain had started sometime after dawn, washing away tracks. No witnesses who'd seen a massive dire wolf leaving town. No evidence at forest access points, no disturbed underbrush, no tracks that made sense.
Ronan was a blank space on the map. A ghost. Gone as thoroughly as if he'd never existed.
I felt myself starting to unravel.
Small signs at first—breath coming too fast, vision tunneling slightly at the edges, the specific sensation of my soul-stitching pulling apart under strain it wasn't built to handle.
I pressed my palms flat against the table and tried to hold still, tried to breathe through the panic climbing up my throat.
Daniel's voice cut through the noise. “Gideon. With me. Now.”
Not a request.
I followed him to the side room, Evan coming behind us and closing the door with deliberate quiet.
The three of us stood in the sudden silence, and I could feel them both assessing me with the careful attention pack brought to wounded members they weren't sure would survive.
Daniel spoke first. “What's going on with you?”
“Ronan is missing—”
“Not that.” His voice was firm but not unkind. “You look like you're about to come apart at the seams. This isn't normal worry. This is panic. So tell me what I'm missing.”
I looked at him. At Evan. At two men who'd trusted me with their pack's safety, who'd let me exist in Hollow Pines despite knowing my father's name, who deserved truth even when truth cost me.
“Ronan is my tether,” I said.
Beat of stunned silence.
Evan's eyes went wide. Nate—who'd slipped in behind us without my noticing—made a small sound that might have been shock or understanding or both.
“Tether bond?” Daniel's voice was careful. Measured. The tone he used when checking facts that would reshape strategy. “You're certain?”
“Completely.” The word came out rougher than I meant. “I discovered it a week ago when I was examining the weave in his mind.”
Evan processed fast. “Does he know?”
“No. I haven't told him. Haven't told anyone. I was still trying to understand what it meant, how it happened, why him specifically.”
“Why does it matter now?” Evan's question wasn't dismissive.
I took a breath. Let it out slow. “Tether bonds are rare.
Old magic. They form between a witch and another being when the witch's soul recognizes an anchor point—a stabilizing presence that keeps their magic from consuming them.
Without a tether, a witch's power eventually burns through their own structure. We patch ourselves, stitch our souls back together after every working, but the damage accumulates. The stitching fails. Eventually we collapse under our own weight.”
Nate spoke quietly from near the door. “That's why you looked so wrecked after breaking Ronan free last night.”
“Yes.”
“And now you can't feel him through the bond.” Evan was putting pieces together with the methodical precision of an Alpha running battle calculations. “Which means either he's blocking it deliberately, or he's far enough away that the connection is too thin to read, or—”
“Or Silas has him.” Daniel finished the thought. “And if Silas has Ronan, he's not just holding a dire wolf. He's holding Gideon's lifeline.”
“We need to find him.” My voice came out steady despite everything.
Evan straightened. “Nate and I stay here. Someone has to coordinate town defense, oversee civilian training, get the children evacuated. Dad, Michael—you go with Gideon. Track Ronan. Bring him back.”
Daniel nodded once. “We leave in an hour. Gather supplies, weapons, anything you need for extended search. If Ronan shifted and ran, he could be anywhere in a fifty-mile radius by now.”
“Wider.” I forced myself to think tactically. “Dire wolves are faster than regular pack. Stronger endurance. If he's been running since last night, he could be seventy, eighty miles out.”
“Then we cover ground fast.” Daniel was already moving toward the door. “Michael and I will prep. You do whatever you need to do to stabilize yourself enough to travel. I need you functional, Gideon.”
They filed out.
I closed my eyes.
Reached for the tether one more time.
Please. Please let me feel him. Let me know he's alive. Let me find north again.
Nothing.
Just emptiness.