Chapter 98: Where Is Adeline?

Author’s pov~

"What do you mean she is missing?" Raven said calmly, his tone almost casually detached as he leaned his massive, bare frame against the doorframe, blocking Blake from entering. "Weren’t you two supposed to be studying together?"

Blake’s breath came in hard, ragged hitches, his voice rough with suppressed rage. "That’s why I’m here. She was supposed to meet me, but she didn’t show up. She’s not in her dorm. She isn’t picking up her phone, and her friend, Sierra, doesn’t even know where she is, and..." He paused, his jaw clenching so hard a muscle twitched in his cheek. "...this morning, when you found out we were planning to study together, you were furious. That’s why I’m standing at your door, Raven."

Raven tilted his head, his dark eyes narrowing into dangerous slits. "And what, exactly, are you trying to imply?"

"You’re obsessed with her!" Blake blurted out, stepping straight into Raven’s personal space, his Lycan aura flaring with desperate anger. "I fucking doubt you’d just let her go! You know where she is, don’t you? You took her!"

Raven’s gaze darkened to a pitch-black void, but instead of striking him down, he turned on his heel and walked back into the depths of his bedroom.

"Get out of my room, Blake," Raven warned coldly.

Driven by pure instinct, Blake didn’t leave. He stalked into the private quarters behind him, then froze.

A suffocating, heavy silence fell over the room.

Blake’s eyes scanned the space, instantly taking in the evidence scattered across the dark floorboards. Raven’s white dress shirt lay near the foot of the bed, its buttons ripped completely off and thrown carelessly aside. His heavy coat was tossed on the couch. And on the massive canopy bed, the dark velvet sheets were violently rumpled, twisted, and soaked in the heavy, unmistakable scent, and the room was heavily filled with his heightened Lycan scent.

Blake turned slowly, his gaze dead serious, his knuckles turning pale as he locked eyes with Raven before dropping to the crescent marks of nail prints on Raven’s shoulders.

"What were you doing?" Blake asked, his voice calm, his mind already filled with chaos. ’Adeline is missing!’ ’No one knows where she is.’ ’Raven’s room is a mess, a mess that looks like he had just wrecked something or maybe someone in the most intimate way possible.’ ’Raven is calm, way too calm.’

Wait... Sierra knows. She knew that Raven was the one who grabbed Adeline out of the corridor. She saw it happen before her eyes. Why didn’t she tell others?

"She’s here, isn’t she?"

Raven didn’t answer.

"Raven, I’m asking you."

"So, you have come all the way here because you thought I did something to her?" Raven said, his voice flat. Raven casually pulled a plain black shirt from the wardrobe and dragged it over his broad, marked shoulders, completely unbothered by the storm brewing in front of him.

Blake scoffed. "It is not just a thought. I know it for a fact now. Wanna know why?"

"Because I’m surprised, Raven. You are still so calm even after I said Adeline is missing. You were so protective of her from the first day that you were ready to stand against all the other three thrones just because we dared to breathe in her direction. So why is the Lord Protector not worried about her now? It must be because of only one single reason, and that is you fucking know she is not in danger. So where is she now?"

"Yeah, she is safe," Raven muttered and casually buttoned up his shirt, leaving the top two buttons undone.

"I want to see it myself. Where is she?" Blake growled.

Raven’s anger flared up, his gaze burning.

"Why the fucking hell is the Prince of the First Throne so worked up over her?" Raven’s voice cut through the room, low, lethal. His dark gaze burned into Blake’s. "Did you forget who the fuck she is? She is my Luna. She is under my protection, and under my bloody watch. You don’t get to come tearing through my fortress demanding answers about what’s mine."

Blake took a hard, aggressive step forward, his knuckles white, his chest heaving as his own Lycan aura flared violently to meet Raven’s suffocating pressure.

"Don’t give me that noble bullshit, Raven!" Blake spat, his voice laced with pure, desperate rage. "Protection? Is that what you call keeping her locked away in your tower while the whole academy searches for her? She isn’t a trophy for you to lock behind steel doors, and she sure as hell didn’t ask to be claimed by a monster like you! Look at this room. I can smell your possessive filth coating every damn surface in here!"

Blake’s dark eyes flicked around the bedroom until they locked onto the only closed space left, the heavy, dark-timber en-suite bathroom door.

A dark, lethal shadow crossed Blake’s face, his jaw clenching so hard. Without a single second of hesitation, he bypassed Raven, his heavy boots thudding against the hardwood as he stalked straight across the master bedroom. He grabbed the brass handle, bypassed the lock with a burst of raw Alpha strength, and yanked the bathroom door wide open.

"Adeline!" he roared, his voice echoing off the cold Italian marble walls inside.

He stepped over the threshold, his frantic, golden-lit eyes scanning every inch of the vast, sprawling luxury sanctuary. He shoved past the frosted glass partition, storming toward the oversized walk-in rain shower. Steam still clung faintly to the glass, but the stone bench was empty. His boots skidded slightly on the polished floor as he spun around, lunging toward the deep, freestanding obsidian soaking tub tucked near the back wall. The water was still, reflecting nothing but the dim vanity lights above.

"Adeline, where the fuck are you?" he growled, his breath coming in short, ragged rasps as he tore open the double-panelled vanity mirrors and checked behind the heavy velvet privacy drapes framing the floor-to-ceiling windows.

He was tearing the room apart like a frantic, starving beast, his sharp Lycan senses utterly overwhelmed. The heavy, intoxicating scent of Raven’s raw dominance was so thick in the air, so suffocatingly dense, that it choked out everything else, masking the faint, trembling pulse of the scentless girl hiding mere inches away from his reach.

Raven slowly walked over to the doorway, leaning his broad shoulder lazily against the frame. He crossed his massive arms over his chest, watching Blake’s desperate, frantic search with a dark, triumphant smirk playing on his lips.

"Satisfied, bro?" Raven rasped out, his voice dropping into a deadly, mocking purr that echoed in the cold room. "Or do you want to check under the towels next?"

Blake froze in the centre of the marble floor, his fists balling tight at his sides, his chest heaving violently as he turned to face Raven.