Ch. my pack erased me, the lycan king didn’t 9 my pack erased me, the lycan king didn’t 9

Chapter 9 

Chapter 9 

Nothing was taken. 

That’s what made it terrifying. 

My laptop. My cash. The silver knife in my nightstand. All exactly where I’d left them. 

+45 Coins 

But my duffel bag had been slit open. The lining cut out. Someone had been searching for anything with my real name on it. 

I didn’t sleep. At six a.m., I walked into the hallway and ran straight into the Lycan King in a black t–shirt, holding two coffees. 

“One’s for you,” he said. “I was going to leave it outside your door like a coward.” 

“A vampire was in my room.” 

He set both coffees on the floor. His whole body changed. The calm didn’t vanish. It went colder. For one second, the air around him rippled, the way it does right before a wolf shifts. 

“Inside my Hall,” he said softly. “No vampire has crossed my walls in two hundred years.” 

“Then someone let one in. Someone with a key and a reason.” 

“I’ll pull every record in this Hall.” He was already reaching for his phone. “Every guard. Every door. Including mine.” 

That stopped me. “You’d check yourself?” 

“I’d check myself. I had a wolf at my table hurting women for ten years, and I didn’t see it. I’d rather be embarrassed 

than useless.” 

He handed me my coffee. Our fingers touched. 

Sparks again. Brighter. 

His jaw clenched like he’d felt it too. 

“Six years I’ve ruled this Council,” he said quietly. “Nobody’s ever closed a war in ninety minutes. Nobody’s ever 

knocked out a wolf in front of me. Who are you, Sienna Ashford?” 

“Nobody,” I said. “Ask my parents.” 

I meant it as a joke. It came out flat and ugly, and he heard it. 

Chapter 9 

+45 Coins 

He didn’t push. That’s the thing about Kael Draven I can’t get over. He just walked me to the stairs and said, “For the record, whoever taught you that you’re nobody was lying.” 

Then Monday came. And everything cracked open. 

Kael opened Council with the Hollow Ridge treaty. Then a guard slid a thin blue folder down the table to me. 

“New petition. Missing wolf. Filed by a northern pack. They’re offering half their hunting lands for any information.” 

“How long missing?” 

“Seven months. Though the family says…” He hesitated. “They say they didn’t notice she was gone for eleven days.” 

Every Alpha at the table laughed. 

I didn’t. 

I opened the folder. 

A photograph clipped to the corner. A girl in a midnight blue dress, hair to her waist, not smiling. The night of my 

ceremony. 

ASHFORD, SIENNA ROSE. Age 22. Only daughter of Alpha Gideon and Luna Clara Ashford. 

Sienna Rose. 

My middle name. My whole life, I thought it was for the flowers. 

Attached, a personal letter. 

My mother’s handwriting. She makes her S’s like little ribbons. 

To whoever finds her, 

Her name is Sienna. She takes her coffee with too much sugar. She hates pink. She sleeps curled on her left side, even in wolf form, with one paw over her nose. She answered every question I asked her for twenty–one years, and I stopped 

answering hers for one. 

I did it on purpose. It was the worst thing I have ever done. I cannot tell you why in this letter, because the reason is the same thing that will get her killed. 

Please. If she is alive, do not tell anyone you found her. 

Tell me. Only me. 

Chapter 9 

Tell her I have every notebook. Tell her I never stopped writing. 

– C. Ashford 

+45 Coins 

My hands were perfectly steady. I have no idea how. 

Every wolf at the table was staring at my face. Logan’s Beta, by the wall, was staring. Old Holloway had closed his 

eyes. 

And Kael had gone completely rigid on his throne. 

“Miss Wilde,” he said gently. “Is there something you’d like to tell this room?” 

I closed the folder. I stood. 

“Yes, sir. My name is Sienna Ashford.” 

The room didn’t breathe. 

“And this case is mine.”