Alpha's Dark Desires-Chapter 143: A Mate I Couldn’t Find

Kane’s POV:

Finding Elena was easier said than done.

It had been over a week—a week of dead ends, sleepless nights, and the suffocating silence of a bond she had completely shut me out of.

I couldn’t feel her emotions.

I couldn’t hear her thoughts.

I couldn’t tell if she was safe, afraid, or in pain.

The only thing I knew?

She was alive.

The bond still pulsed in the back of my mind, a constant, agonizing reminder that she existed somewhere out there. But it gave me nothing else.

And it was driving me insane.

Dean wasn’t faring much better, though he wouldn’t admit it. He liked to act like he didn’t give a shit, but I knew better. I saw the way his smirk didn’t quite reach his eyes anymore. I noticed how he’d grown restless, his patience wearing thinner by the day.

I caught him pacing in the woods more than once, eyes glowing red, muttering under his breath when he thought no one was listening.

And when I confronted him?

His answer only made me want to punch a hole through a tree.

"I can only reach her when she’s asleep."

I had stopped breathing.

"You can what?" I asked, voice deadly calm.

Dean had shrugged like it was nothing, but his eyes were stormy. "I can access her mind when she dreams. But she doesn’t know where she is either."

That should have been a relief—knowing she was okay, that she wasn’t being tortured or worse.

But it wasn’t.

Because it meant one thing.

Someone was hiding her.

And if Elena couldn’t even tell us where she was?

Then whoever took her knew exactly how to keep her from being found.

And there was only one bastard I could think of who would go that far.

Ace.

The name alone sent a violent, murderous growl ripping from my chest.

If he had her—if he so much as touched her—

I would end him.

It wouldn’t matter if I had to burn his entire fucking territory to the ground.

Ace had always been our worst enemy, a rogue-turned-warlord who had been building his empire in the shadows for years. He was strong, unpredictable, and worst of all? He knew things.

I had no doubt that if Ace was behind Elena’s disappearance, then this wasn’t just about revenge.

It was about power.

It was about taking something from me.

I exhaled sharply, trying to bury the storm of anger and desperation beneath my Alpha instincts. Losing control now wouldn’t help me find her any faster.

We needed a plan.

We needed to find Ace’s hideout before it was too late.

I turned to Dean, who was leaning against a tree, arms crossed, watching me with an unreadable expression.

"Tell me exactly what she said in the dream," I demanded.

Dean raised an eyebrow. "Demanding much, Alpha?"

I snapped.

In an instant, I had him pinned against the tree, my claws at his throat, my wolf teetering on the edge of savagery.

"Tell. Me." I growled, my breath hot with fury.

Dean didn’t fight back. He didn’t even flinch.

Instead, he smirked. "Touchy."

But there was no humor in his voice.

Only tension.

Only restraint.

Because underneath it all, we both knew the truth—

Dean wanted to tear Ace apart just as much as I did.

And for once?

I was glad we were on the same side.

Because no matter what it took, no matter how ruthless we had to be—

We were going to find Elena.

And when we did?

Ace was going to beg for death.

Every day without Elena was a slow descent into madness.

I had warriors scouting every border, patrols running day and night, trackers searching for the smallest trace of her scent.

I even called in favors from allies, rogues, and information brokers.

And still—nothing.

Not a single fucking clue.

It was like she had vanished off the face of the earth.

My hands curled into fists as I paced my office, my claws extending and retracting. I could feel my wolf restless beneath my skin, howling in frustration.

"She should be ours. We should have found her by now."

"I know," I growled back at him, my jaw clenching.

But knowing that didn’t help.

Nothing fucking helped.

I slammed my fist against the wall, cracking the plaster.

I had resources. I had power.

I was the fucking Alpha.

So why—why—couldn’t I find my own mate?

I hated this.

The helplessness. The uncertainty. The way my bond with Elena was still alive but gave me nothing. It should have guided me to her, should have at least let me feel something.

Instead, it was like grasping at smoke—there, but just out of reach.

And then there was Dean.

That bastard could still reach her when she slept.

It didn’t matter that he claimed he couldn’t see her surroundings.

It didn’t matter that he swore she was safe.

Because he had access to her, and I didn’t.

And that?

That fucking ate at me.

I wanted to tear the bond wide open, to force my way into her mind, to make her talk to me, to demand she tell me where the fuck she was.

But I couldn’t.

Because she had locked me out.

Me—her mate.

And that realization was enough to nearly bring me to my knees.

She had shut me out.

Because she was afraid.

Afraid of me.

I exhaled sharply, dragging a hand through my hair, my pulse pounding in my ears.

I had done this.

I had fucked up so badly that the one person I was meant to protect ran from me.

And now?

She was alone.

Or worse—she was with Ace.

That single thought sent a murderous rage pulsing through me.

If Ace had touched her—if he so much as laid a fucking finger on her—

I was going to do more than just kill him.

I was going to rip him apart piece by piece.

A knock at the door pulled me from my storming thoughts.

"Come in," I barked, barely containing my temper. fгee𝑤ebɳoveɭ.cøm

A tracker stepped inside, bowing his head. "Alpha, we’ve... we’ve found something."

I froze.

Every muscle in my body went taut as my gaze snapped to him.

"What?" My voice was low, sharp.

The tracker hesitated. "A scent trail. It’s faint, but—"

I was already moving.

"Show me."

This was it.

Finally.

I didn’t care how faint the trail was—I would follow it to the ends of the fucking earth if I had to.

Because no matter what it took—

No matter how many bodies had to drop—

I was getting Elena back.

I ran.

Faster than the tracker, faster than the warriors trailing behind me.

The world blurred around me as I pushed my wolf to the limit, my heart hammering in my chest, my lungs burning with the force of my desperation.

This is it. This is it. This is it.

I repeated the words like a fucking prayer, like a mantra that would make them true.

Because they had to be true.

I couldn’t take another disappointment.

Not when every hour without Elena felt like another piece of my soul withering away.

The tracker led me through the dense forest, past the pack’s outer borders, down a stretch of land I hadn’t touched in years.

And then—

We stopped.

The scent trail ended.

Just... stopped.

As if she had never been there at all.

The tracker turned to me, swallowing nervously. "Alpha... it just vanishes here."

I didn’t respond.

I couldn’t.

Because the second my wolf realized—

The second I realized—

That I had been led to another dead fucking end—

A savage, gut-wrenching roar tore from my throat.

The trees shook from the force of it.

Birds erupted from the branches, scattering into the sky like dark omens.

I fisted the earth, my claws digging into the soil, my breath coming in ragged gasps as I fought the uncontrollable rage building inside me.

Another dead end.

Another fucking failure.

I slammed my fist into the ground, splintering the earth beneath me.

This was the fifth lead. The fifth one.

Every time, the same thing happened.

Her scent—so faint, so fucking elusive—would appear, only to vanish like a ghost.

Like she was being erased.

No tracks. No witnesses. No sign of struggle.

Nothing.

I clenched my jaw, my breathing ragged.

This wasn’t natural.

It wasn’t possible.

Someone was helping her.

Or worse—someone was hiding her.

And that meant someone was going to die.

I stood, my body vibrating with unspent rage, my vision darkening at the edges.

I turned to the tracker, who took an involuntary step back, his face paling.

"Find out who the fuck is behind this." My voice was ice, sharp enough to cut through bone. "I don’t care how you do it. I don’t care what it costs. Find them."

Because if I couldn’t find Elena—

Then I would hunt down every single person keeping me from her.

And I would burn their world to the ground.

I couldn’t even find stupid Ace himself.

Nobody knew where the fuck he was.

Not his old contacts, not his usual haunts, not even the mercenaries who owed me their lives.

It was like the bastard had just... vanished.

Like a fucking ghost.

Which made no damn sense.

Ace was many things—a backstabbing prick, a ruthless bastard, a fucking problem—but he was not the kind of man to go quiet.

He thrived in the shadows, sure. But he made sure everyone knew his name.

So why the fuck couldn’t I find him now?

Where was he hiding?

And more importantly—

Where the fuck was Elena?

I slammed my fist against the wall of my office, splintering the wood on impact.

"Fuck!"

I was losing it.

Losing her.

And I didn’t know how to stop it.

Dean leaned against the far wall, arms crossed, watching me with that same infuriatingly calm expression.

"Throwing a tantrum won’t bring her back," he drawled.

I spun toward him, my wolf on edge, my patience razor-thin.

"And what the fuck have you done, huh?" I snapped. "Aside from creeping into her head like a fucking stalker?"

Dean smirked, but there was something... off about it. Something tight.

Like he was barely keeping himself together.

"I told you, dumbass. I can only access her when she’s asleep. And even then, she’s kept in some kind of warded space. It’s blocking my link to her. I can see her, but I can’t pull anything about where she actually is."

A warded space?

My mind reeled.

Ace didn’t have the power to pull something like that off.

Hell, neither did his usual rogue rats.

Which meant someone else was involved.

Someone dangerous.

My jaw tightened, a fresh wave of fury rolling through me.

If Ace had fucking sold her off, I would rip him apart piece by fucking piece.

But before that—

I had to find him.

And if he was hiding like a coward, then I’d do what I did best.

Make him come to me.

I turned to Dean, my eyes gleaming with cold intent.

"If we can’t find him..." I said, voice low, lethal.

Dean arched a brow. "Then what?"

A slow, deadly smirk curled my lips.

"Then we make him come to us."

New novel chapt𝒆rs are published on free(w)ebnovel(.)com