Chapter 51: FIND MY MATE
Alexander’s POV
My hands searched the bed for her but found nothing. Not even her warmth.
What the fuck?
My eyelids part, and I am surprised to find the bed empty. How the hell did she get up without my noticing?
“Aira?” I call out, but my only response is silence. I get off the bed and head straight for the bathroom, and disappointment fills me when she isn’t there. She left the room too. How deeply asleep was I?
“Aira, where are you?” I say it a bit louder, but I still do not get any response. Cursing beneath my breath, I make my way out of my room and down to the kitchen. Then I head into the garden. And then to the maid’s chambers.
She is nowhere to be found.
And that is when I lose my mind.
My breathing becomes more controlled, and the beast in me slowly begins to awaken. My sight becomes sharper, along with my other senses. My canines lengthen, and the rage bubbling within me becomes too much to control.
“WHERE THE HELL IS SHE?!”
My voice shakes the very foundation of this palace, and everyone jolts awake. The guards rush to me, and I grab the nearest one by the throat. “Find her! find my mate!” I ordered before flinging his body across the room. He grunts, but quickly gets back on his feet and joins his colleagues in carrying out my order.
“What’s going on?” Carla asks as she rushes towards me. I run my hand through my hair, and I swear it feels as though I am going insane. This is exactly what happens to me when Aira is away from me for too long. I lose all my sense of reasoning and control.
And it doesn’t fucking help that I have no idea where she is.
“We will find her; just relax,” Carla says to me calmly before joining the others in the search. An hour passes, and we still do not find her.
“She isn’t in the palace, your majesty; we have searched everywhere,” one of my guards reports back to me shakily. The others cower in fear as my growl fills the air. I ignore all of them and storm up to the security at the gate.
I pick the first one I see by the throat, and his feet dangle in the air. His hands claw at mine, grabbing his neck, but it is no use; just the tiniest bit of pressure, and I would snap his neck in half.
“How could you let her escape?!”
His face turns a bright shade of red as he struggles to breathe while speaking. “I swear, your majesty, we were up all night and no one went in or out of this gate. She must have used some other route to escape!”
“What are you saying? That she just vanished into thin air!” I demand, and his eyes slowly begin to shut.
“Your majesty, please, that is enough; you are killing him!”
My eyes snap to Carla, and my growl becomes feral.
“Who the hell gave you the authority to tell me what I can and cannot do?” I snap at her, and the fear in her eyes is visible. Yet she still stands her ground.
“No one, your majesty. But I know for a fact that Aira wouldn’t want you killing us like flies because she isn’t here. You are her mate; if anyone can find her, it is you. Just let go of all this anger and concentrate on tracking her,” she says.
As much as it kills me to admit it, she is right.
I drop the already unconscious guard on the floor and take a deep breath. “Open the gate,” I order his associate, who hurriedly does as he is told. When the gates are open, I file out with my guards.
My eyes rise to the full moon, and a gust of wind blows my hair. But that’s not all. It is faint, but I catch it. her scent.
I let my Lycan take control, and I gave him only one order before handing him the reigns.
‘Find her.’
He grunts before bolting into the woods with a speed my men could hardly keep up with. He follows the scent of our mate through the woods, and I soon realize that we are out of my territory. We are now on forbidden lands, and I can’t help but wonder how the hell she got all the way out here.
I never bothered exploring this part of the woods because my father always warned me to never do so. Apparently, ancient spirits haunted these parts of the woods and took the lives of anyone who dared trespass.
But I would rather die than abandon Aira on such dangerous grounds.
The air becomes cold, and we are soon enveloped by fog. At this point, we rely on her scent and not on our eyes to lead us. And soon, we will see her.
My feet come to a halt as soon as my eyes fall on her, seated in the middle of a graveyard atop a hill. She had her hands wrapped around her legs and her head down as she cried profusely.
Without wasting another second, I rush towards her.
“Your Majesty, wait!” I hear one of my guards say, but I completely ignore him and rush up to my mate with full speed.
The moment I pass through the gates of the graveyard, a chill I have never felt before in my life courses through my body. The fog clears up, and the world becomes deathly still.
I sprint past dozens of graveyards, not minding the fact that I am growing colder and colder from within. It was as though the closer I got to Aira, the weaker I became.
But I did not care.
Her cries become more audible, and it is like she is sending daggers straight into my heart. I am barely a few feet away from her when she lifts her gaze.
And that is when I freeze.
Her eyes have turned a demonic shade of black, and the liquid cascading down her face was not tears but blood.
Her teeth have sharpened into canines, and it was almost as though I was staring at a demon.
But this was no demon.
This was Aira.
My Aira.
I took a step toward her but only ended up crumbling to my knees. It is almost as though the blood in my veins is frozen, making me incapable of moving.
My hand reaches out for Aira, but she only snarls at me in response.
“Aira, it’s me. It’s Alex,” I say in between shivers, and she stops.
I watch her eyes return to their normal shade of brown as the white in them returns. The blood on her face is washed away with her tears, and she crawls into my arms.Material © NôvelDrama.Org.
The second she touches me, all the ice melts, and I gain full control over my body. Wrapping my arms around her body, I hold her tightly to me as she sobs into my chest.
“It’s okay, it’s okay,” I whisper into her ear as I caress her hair and back. “You are safe now. I am here.”
She continues to hold onto me tightly as her tears flow like a river. I do not care how long we stay in that position because I kept trying to find the answer to one question in my mind.
What was that great wave of power radiating off her?
I have never felt anything like it before.