Chapter 14
Marshall
Finding her became my obsession. Every lead, every possibility, every chance she might be safe.
I stared at the map covering my office wall, red pins marking every location where the investigators had found traces of Annalise's journey after I banished her.
Bus stations, small towns, dead ends that led nowhere.
Six weeks of searching, and I was no closer to finding her than the day I'd finally started looking.
Today was her eighteenth birthday. Somewhere out there, Annalise was turning eighteen alone, carrying my child, believing I'd thrown her away because she wasn't worth fighting for.
She is worth everything, Ranger said with quiet intensity. Our mate, our pup, our future. Find them.
"I'm trying," I said aloud to my empty office.
The door opened without a knock, and Jackson entered carrying a stack of reports.
My Beta looked as exhausted as I felt, with dark circles under his eyes from the long nights we'd both been pulling.
Once I'd finally started the search, he'd thrown himself into helping with the same desperate energy that drove me.
"Anything?" I asked, though his expression already told me the answer.
"Three more dead ends," he said, dropping the files on my desk. "The sighting in Denver was a false lead—wrong girl entirely. The bus driver in Salt Lake City thinks he remembers her, but it was two months ago, and he sees hundreds of passengers every day."
I rubbed my face, feeling the weight of failure pressing down on me. Every day that passed was another day my pregnant mate was alone in the world, another day my son grew without knowing his father existed.
"There's something else," Jackson said carefully. "Corbin Pierce called. He wants to meet with you."
Corbin Pierce was the best private investigator money could buy, a wolf shifter and former FBI agent who specialized in finding people, human or supernatural, who didn't want to be found.
I'd hired him the day after my conversation with my mother, giving him unlimited resources and every piece of information Jackson and I could provide about Annalise.
"When?"
"He's waiting downstairs."
I was on my feet before Jackson finished speaking, hope and dread warring in my chest. A meeting meant news, but whether that news was good or bad remained to be seen.
Pierce was exactly what I'd expected from his reputation—mid-fifties, silver hair, sharp eyes that missed nothing. He carried himself with the quiet confidence of a man who'd spent decades tracking down truth in a world full of lies.
"Alpha Kane," he said, rising from his chair as I entered the conference room. "Thank you for seeing me."
"Tell me you have something," I said without preamble.
"I do." He opened a leather portfolio and extracted several photographs. "But first, I need to ask you something. How far east was your mate willing to travel?"
"As far as she needed to go to get away from me," I said bitterly.
Pierce studied my face for a moment, then nodded. "That's what I thought." He spread the photographs across the table. "These are from a bus station in Portland, Maine, taken two months ago."
My heart stopped. The images were grainy, black and white security footage, but there was no mistaking the figure climbing off a Greyhound bus. Annalise, looking thin and exhausted, carrying a single duffel bag that contained everything she owned in the world.
No, it didn’t contain everything she owned in the world. It contained everything she had been willing to take.
I knew because I had searched her room in the Alpha house after she fled, a desperate, half-mad hope driving me.
The room had been neat, almost untouched, except for the gaping emptiness in the closet and the bare top of her dresser.
She had left behind the expensive leather jacket I’d bought for her seventeenth birthday, the delicate necklace from the year before.
She’d left every single thing I, or my parents, had ever given her.
The realization had hit me then, standing in the silent room.
I had bought her a leather jacket because Scarlett loved leather.
I’d bought her a necklace because Veronica had commented on how beautiful it was.
I had never once stopped to ask Annalise what she liked, what colors she preferred, what her style was.
I had just bought her things, generic symbols of affection for a girl I hadn't truly seen.
The duffel bag in the grainy photograph contained only the things that were truly hers: a few changes of worn clothes, the photo of her parents she kept on her nightstand, and the faded teddy bear she slept with when she originally moved into the Alpha house.
She had walked away with nothing but her past and her pain, refusing to carry any part of me with her beyond our pup.
"Maine," I breathed.
"The trail goes cold after Portland, but I've narrowed the search to three possible destinations along the coast. Small towns where a pregnant girl might find work and a place to disappear."
I stared at the photographs, drinking in every detail. She looked so young, so vulnerable, clutching that duffel bag like a lifeline. The urge to reach through the image and protect her was overwhelming.
Our mate, Ranger said with fierce longing. She's so far away.
"What's the plan?" I asked.
"I'm heading to Maine tomorrow to follow up on these leads personally. I'll start with the most likely locations and work my way down the coast." Pierce's expression grew serious. "Alpha Kane, I have to ask—what are your intentions when we find her?"
"To bring her home," I said without hesitation. "She's my mate, and she's carrying my heir. She'll want to come home once she realizes I'm looking for her, that I’m sorry for what I said."
Pierce and Jackson exchanged glances, and I saw something that looked like concern pass between them.
"If she doesn't want to come?" Pierce asked carefully.
The question caught me off guard. "Why wouldn't she want to come home? She's been living among humans for two months. She'll be grateful to return to the pack."
"Marshall," Jackson said quietly, "you called her a whore, severed the mate bond, banished her, and threatened to set warriors on her, all in front of the entire pack. She might not be as eager to see you as you think."
"That was a mistake," I said dismissively. "She'll understand once I explain what happened, once I apologize. I’ll explain that I was always planning to be completely devoted to her after her eighteenth birthday. She's my mate—she'll forgive me."
"Will she?" Pierce's voice was carefully neutral.
"From what your Beta has told me, this girl has been through significant trauma.
She might have built a new life, found stability.
Showing up unannounced could destroy all of that.
Demanding she return with you is unlikely to achieve your desired outcome. "
"She's carrying my pup," I said, my voice growing harder. "That's my heir she's carrying. I have rights."
"Actually," Pierce said bluntly, "you don't. You formally rejected her as your mate in front of witnesses. Legally, you have no claim to her or the pup."
The words hit like a physical blow. "That's not—"
"It is. You severed the bond, banished her from pack territory, and renounced any claim to her.
In human courts, you'd have no standing whatsoever.
" Pierce's expression grew more serious.
"However, the Alpha Council might take a different view regarding your heir.
They could potentially argue that an Alpha's heir belongs with the pack regardless of the mother's wishes. "
Mention of the Alpha Council sent a chill down my spine. The governing body of all North American wolf shifter packs had the power to make decisions that superseded individual pack law. If they decided my son belonged with the pack...
"You think they'd force her to give up the pup?" I asked.
"I think they'd consider the needs of the pack over the desires of a rejected mate," Pierce said honestly. "But that's a last resort, and it would destroy any chance you have of reconciliation."
We don't want to take our pup from our mate, Ranger said with distress. We want our family together.
"I don't want to force anything," I said. "I just want to bring them home where they belong."
"Even if she doesn't want to come?" Jackson pressed.
"She will," I said with more confidence than I felt. "She has to. She's my mate, and that's my heir she's carrying. The pack needs its Luna and its future Alpha."
Pierce closed his portfolio, his expression unreadable. "I'll find her, Alpha Kane. But I strongly advise you to prepare for the possibility that she won't welcome your return to her life."
After Pierce left, I found myself back in my office, staring at the photographs he'd left behind. Annalise, at eighteen, alone and pregnant, stepping off a bus three thousand miles from home.
Today is her birthday, Ranger reminded me sadly. She should be here.
It was like a silver knife to the chest. Today was supposed to be the most important day of Annalise's life. Her eighteenth birthday, followed by our Luna ceremony, marked the completion of our mate bond. The pack had been planning the celebration for months.
A knock on my door pulled me from my brooding. "Come in."
My mother entered, her face etched with pain. "Today is her birthday," she said without preamble.
"I know."
"Right now, we should be celebrating," she continued as if I hadn't spoken.
"The entire pack should be gathered for the biggest celebration we've had in years.
Annalise's eighteenth birthday party, followed by the Luna ceremony.
She should be wearing her ceremonial dress, accepting the pack's loyalty, taking her place as our Luna. "