Chapter 285 Ten Hours of Hell

Chapter 285: Chapter 285 Ten Hours of Hell

Sebastian’s POV

I’d planned to swing by and pick Emilia up so we could drive back to the pack house together after work. But when I called Emilia’s office, they told me she’d left in the afternoon. Hours ago.

Fine. She’d gone home early. Nothing strange about that.

Except when I walked through the door of the pack house, she wasn’t there.

I reached for her through the mind-link out of habit, expecting that familiar hum at the edge of my mind. There was nothing. Just a flat, dead wall where she should have been.

"The link’s blocked," Ryder said inside me, low and uneasy. "She’s shut us out."

My stomach dropped. I pulled out my phone and called her. It rang and rang and went to voicemail. I called again. And again. By the tenth try, my hand had gone tight around the phone hard enough to make the case creak.

The whole house was in an uproar by then. Dinner had come and gone, and Emilia still hadn’t come back. I finally couldn’t sit still any longer. I grabbed my car keys, snapped an order to the guards on my way out, and went to look for her myself.

Two hours later, I came back with nothing, and the first thing out of my mouth was, "Is she home?"

Mila shook her head. Her hands were twisting in her lap. "No. I’ve already sent three of the pack guards out to search. Still no word. Where in the world is that girl? Why wouldn’t she tell any of us anything? This isn’t like her."

The moment I heard she still wasn’t back, I turned on my heel and drove straight out again.

By midnight, the pack house was lit up like it was daylight. Normally, every window would have gone dark hours ago. Tonight, nobody was sleeping. What had started as four or five guards combing the territory had grown to more than twenty by eleven, and still nothing. It was as if she’d simply dissolved into thin air.

I drove all night through Silverlake. I mind-linked every Alpha I trusted, called in favors from the ones whose lands bordered ours, and asked them to have their people sweep their territories. Wolves I hadn’t spoken to in years answered anyway, because they could hear something in my voice they’d never heard before. By the time the sky started to gray, Emilia was still nowhere.

At seven that morning, I came home to talk it through with my parents. Everyone looked terrible. Mila’s eyes were red-rimmed. Titus’s jaw was set.

But it was Mila who kept catching my attention. She’d open her mouth, then close it. Frown at her hands, then say nothing. Like there was a thought turning over behind her eyes that she refused to let out.

"What is it?" I said. "You know something. Say it."

She hesitated. "Emilia isn’t the kind of girl who runs from her problems, Sebastian. If she’s gone quiet, it’s because she’s caught in something she doesn’t know how to face. Don’t work yourself into a panic. Just... give it a little time."

"Why is it always time?" My voice came out sharp and cold. "Why is it always ’don’t panic,’ ’give it time,’ ’let me handle it’? Why do the people in this family always have to keep things buried? You get so clever about hiding the truth, all of you, so sure you’re protecting the ones you love. And in the end, you’re the ones who cut them the deepest."

"Sebastian." Ryder’s voice cut in, quiet but firm. "That’s enough. Stop before you say something you can’t take back."

Mila didn’t answer. The light seemed to go out of her face, and she looked away from me, down at her clasped hands.

I dragged a breath in and pushed past it. There wasn’t time for this.

"Get some sleep," Tiffany said, catching my sleeve as I moved to leave. Her eyes were shining. "You look awful."

"I’m fine." I couldn’t even feel my own exhaustion anymore. "Emilia is missing. How am I supposed to sleep?"

"We won’t find her by burning ourselves out," Titus said. "It takes time. If she’s still gone by morning, we’ll pull in every contact we have and turn Silverlake over stone by stone. Stay home. Rest. Otherwise, you’ll be too wrecked to be any use to her when we do find her."

It sounded like comfort. It also sounded like an order.

I didn’t take it. I stood up. "If staying out there gets her back one hour sooner, then let me be wrecked."

I walked out of the living room and slammed straight into someone in the doorway. My hands came up to steady them, and when my eyes focused on the face in front of me, my whole chest seized.

"Emilia?"

Behind me, I heard the entire family go still, and then the rush of chairs and footsteps as they poured toward the door.

"Where have you been, sweetheart?" Mila reached her first, gripping her arms. "You scared the life out of us."

"Emilia, were you playing hide-and-seek with us? Do you have any idea how frightened we were?"

"Why couldn’t we reach your phone? You could have sent one word. We practically tore this city apart looking for you."

"I almost worried myself into the grave last night. Do you understand that?"

She stood there under all those anxious eyes and endless questions, and for a moment, something behind her expression seemed to break open. Then she smoothed it over, the way she always did, like she’d never felt a thing in her life.

"I’m so sorry I worried everyone. I really am." Her voice was steady. "I went to Lakewood to see my aunt yesterday. It was urgent, and I didn’t have time to let anyone know."

"And your phone?" I asked. "We couldn’t get through at all."

"I lost it."

I took a slow breath and pressed my fingers to my forehead. I wanted to be furious. I’d spent ten hours climbing straight out of my own skin, imagining every terrible thing that could have happened to her. I remembered the last time she’d vanished, how we’d found her afterward with her body torn open by a whip, scars laid across her skin. The thought that it might have happened again had nearly driven me mad.

But then I looked at her. Her face was gray with exhaustion, her eyes hollow, like something had scooped the light out of her overnight. And whatever I’d been about to say died in my throat.

"It’s fine," I managed. "You’re back. That’s what matters."

I took her hand and pulled her upstairs, ignoring the calls behind us, and the moment the bedroom door shut, I turned and wrapped both arms around her and held on far too tight.

"Do you have any idea what these last ten hours did to me?" I said into her hair. "I was terrified you’d disappeared out of my life for good. Let this be the first time and the last time, Emilia. Because I don’t think I’d survive it twice."