#Chapter 73: Fooled All Along

Alaric The moonlight barely cut through the canopy, casting silver slivers over the forest floor. Snow had fallen lightly earlier, dusting the pine needles beneath my paws as I moved. But I hardly noticed any of that. My mind was only on one thing: Elara. And her scent was in the air, faint but present. She hadn’t just left. She wouldn’t do that. No. She had been taken. I wasn’t sure how or why, but I was sure of it. I could feel it in my bones, in every fiber of my being, like it was the surest thing I’d ever felt beyond loving her or Ella or Zoe. I pressed forward, weaving through the narrow paths between the trees, my nose low to the ground as I followed that faint scent. But beneath the crispness of the frost and pine trees, there was something else there. Fainter—hidden. Sarah’s scent. I slowed. Her scent was tangled up with Elara’s—unmistakable, sharp where Elara’s was soft. They had crossed paths here. I didn’t stop. I couldn’t.