Nicholas’s POV
The scent was wrong.
I realized it the instant I stepped into the healer’s wing. It was too clean, too still. For three months her presence had clung to these hallways like soft musk under antiseptic, a whisper of wild honey and old books. Now it was gone, stripped out of the air like a ransacked house.
Norman’s hackles shot up in my skull. Mate.
My gaze snapped to the open cabinet doors, the empty cot. Her chart, usually clipped neatly to the end of the bed, hung loose and fluttering in the breeze from the window.
“She’s gone,” I muttered.
Dan appeared in the doorway, chest heaving from his own patrol. “Alpha?”
“Where is she?” My voice came out a snarl.
He glanced at the orderly still lingering by the supply closet. “Tell him.”
The orderly swallowed. “She didn’t sh
