Chapter 178
Kaelen’s POV
The cupcake box hit the ground before I knew I’d dropped it.
Pink frosting smeared across the cobblestones. Lyra’s favorite—vanilla with the little sugar flowers on top. I’d stood in line for a long time because she’d asked so nicely and because saying no to that face was something I’d never learned how to do.
None of that mattered now.
“Where is she?” My voice came out low. Dangerous. Not a question—a command.
Betty backed into the counter. Her flour-dusted hands flew up, palms out, the universal gesture of please don’t hurt me. “She was right here, sir. Right here by the window. I turned around for a moment to box the scones and when I looked back—”
“A moment.” I repeated it slowly. Tasting each word like poison.
“I’m so sorry. She must have slipped out when the other customer opened the door. I didn’t see—”
I grabbed her shoulders. Too hard. I knew it was too hard because her eyes went wide and white and her mouth opened in a silent gasp, but I couldn’t make my hands loosen. Pure panic had seized me. My claws were pressing against the insides of my fingertips, begging to extend. In a bakery. A mortal bakery.
Our pup. Alex’s voice was a snarl inside my skull, wild and desperate. Find her. NOW.
“Which direction?” I forced the words through clenched teeth. “Did anyone see which direction she went?”
Betty shook her head, tears forming in her eyes. “I don’t—maybe left?”
I released her. She stumbled backward into a shelf of bread loaves. I was already moving.
The door nearly came off its hinges when I shoved through it. The street was crowded—merchants, shoppers, a cart loaded with barrels blocking half the road. Too many scents. Too much noise.
I shut my eyes. Shut out everything.
Find her.
There. Beneath the layers of baking bread and horse dung and cheap perfume—there it was. Baby shampoo. Lavender soap.
My daughter’s scent.
I ran.
Not the careful, measured stride of an emperor moving through his city. I ran, shoving past a merchant who swore at my back. Alex was howling in my chest, clawing at the edges of my control.
The scent trail wove left, then right, then doubled back. Each time it faded, my heart stopped. Each time I caught it again, I could breathe.
Two blocks. She’d gone two blocks from the mortal bakery.
Then I saw her.
Mismatched shoes—one pink, one purple, the purple one flopping because it was too big. Braids half undone, ribbons trailing. Running toward me with her arms outstretched, her face blotchy and tear-streaked and the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen.
“DADDY!”
I dropped to my knees. She slammed into my chest hard enough to knock the air out of me and I didn’t care. A huge, overwhelming relief washed over me. I wrapped my arms around her and held on like the world was ending.
“Lyra.” My voice cracked. I buried my face in her hair. Baby shampoo. Lavender. Safe. “Don’t ever do that again. Do you hear me?”
“Daddy, I found her!”
I pulled back. Looked at her face. She was crying, but she was also smiling joyfully—that incandescent, whole-body smile that children produce when they believe something truly magical has happened. The sudden shift hit me with a fresh wave of shock.
“Found who, baby?”
“MOMMY!” She bounced on her toes, gripping fistfuls of my shirt. “I found Mommy!”
The world went still.
Not quiet. Still. Like all the sound and movement and life on this street had been pressed under glass.
“Lyra.” I tried to gently explain, holding her shoulders carefully. “Sweetheart, you’ve never met your mommy.”
“But I DID!” She was vibrating with conviction. “She looked exactly like you said! Night hair, Daddy. And her eyes—” She cupped her own face with both hands. “Green. But not like mine. Deeper. Like the forest where we go riding. That green.”
My throat closed.
“And she smelled…” Lyra scrunched her nose, concentrating. “Like jasmine. And rain.”
Jasmine and rain.
Elara’s exact scent. The emotional weight of searching for my mate for three years with no result shattered me in that instant.
“Where, Lyra?” My hands were shaking. “Where exactly did you see her?”
“On Maple Street. Two blocks away.”
“What was she wearing? Can you remember?”
Lyra nodded eagerly. “Dark blue pants. A white shirt with buttons. And a brown jacket.”
Specific. Too specific for a child’s imagination.
“Was she alone?”
Lyra’s smile dimmed. “No. There was a man. He had worried eyes.”
Jealousy and rage surged through my chest, hot and violent. A man.
I grabbed Lyra’s small hand, rushing us toward the location on Maple Street. When we reached the exact spot she pointed out, I stopped. I closed my eyes and pulled in a deep breath, desperate to catch that phantom trace.
Nothing.
I couldn’t catch Elara’s scent at all. My inner agony magnified, leaving me entirely dependent on Lyra’s encounter. The crushing weight of the last three years of fruitless searching crashed down on me all over again.
Lyra looked around the empty street, her lower lip trembling. She began to cry miserably, a heartbroken sound. “Why didn’t she want me, Daddy?” she sobbed. “Why did she say she’s not my mommy? She said she has her own kids far away!”
The revelation twisted a jagged blade in my heart. A deep, possessive jealousy, anger, and profound heartbreak consumed me. She might be alive, I realized, the core of my soul fracturing, but she’s living a completely different life.
I dropped to one knee, pulling Lyra against my chest while she cried. “Listen to me, little one,” I murmured, comforting her while I secretly searched the street for any glimpse of the woman I had spent three years looking for. “Maybe… maybe it was just a sweet misunderstanding. That’s all.”
I stood up, lifting Lyra into my arms. My gaze swept across every face on the street. Every dark-haired woman. Every moment the one I had been searching for so long might appear. But none of them was her.