Chapter 3 The Woman Who Died
Lucien Ashcroft's POV
The blast slammed me back against the courtyard wall as the screams of people filled the courtyard and thick smoke blanketed the entire execution ground. From where I lay, I ignored the cut on my forehead and ran straight to the site of the podium where Serena had been kneeling just seconds ago.
"Serena!" I cried, hacking and coughing as the smoke stung my throat, tearing through bits of splintered wood and frantically searching for any trace of her beneath the ruins.
"Lucien, come back here right now, the guards must clear the area, and we don’t know if there’s more of those things lying around," my father commanded, seizing my arm and hauling me away from the flames.
“She’s right there, Dad, we need to find her because she could be alive under all this wood,” I said, brushing his hand away and facing the head commander who was leading the rescue team.
"Commander, were any of your men able to get anything from the heart of the blast, or did any of them catch a glimpse of the attackers’ direction of flight?
“The platform was totally destroyed, Alpha Prince, and there are no survivors anywhere near the center, so we must assume her body was either turned into mist or buried deep under the flaming ruin.” the The commander replied, shaking his head as his men threw more buckets of water on the blaze.
Two days later it was the High Council's turn to meet in public to deal with the consequences, the Chancellor stood before the pack leaders to read out the official findings.
"The murderer Serena Blackwood is now officially dead, taken out by the very explosion which was intended to undermine our justice system, and the kingdom can take comfort in the knowledge that the Blackwood murders are at an end," the Chancellor declared, his voice booming over the council hall as the other Alphas voiced their agreement.
I sat on the back of the room, my hands clenched hard on the table because not one word in their report was a word I believed, especially not when our trackers had come across some odd tracks that led away from the backyard just after the blast.
Somebody had deliberately triggered that explosion to serve as a distraction, and somebody had snatched Serena just as the chaos began before the fire could reach her, but I kept quiet about that because my father had already told me to drop it completely.
"You've got to stop this, Lucien, the pack needs stability and for you to continue hunting down a dead criminal is making the royal family appear weak," my father said to me later that night as he found me looking at a map of the borderlands in my study.
"I can't just forget about her, Dad, because you made me be quiet at that trial when I knew she was with me, and now she thinks I left her to die," I said, my voice weighed down by a regret that had been gnawing at me for weeks.
"We acted appropriately to guard the throne while we hunted down the actual danger, and had you dared speak, the council would have called you her partner," he said icily, and then turned on his heel and walked out before I could utter another word.
Seven years later, the burden of that morning had never truly left me, even as I took on more duties for the kingdom and spent every spare moment secretly hiring private trackers interested in prospecting in my territory.
Every single one of them came back negative, there was no trace of a woman that looked like Serena in any of the nearby packs, but my wolf wouldn’t believe that the woman we loved was gone for good.
I was at my desk going over the pack's monthly trade agreements when my Beta, Thomas, came into the room unannounced and plopped an envelope on the mess of papers I had on my desk.
"What's this, Thomas, I told you I didn't want any interruptions until I was done with these supply reports," I muttered, not lifting my eyes from the pages.
“You’ll want to see this one, Lucien, because it just came in via private courier from the city and it carries the official seal of the Vale Investigative Company,” Thomas said, propping himself up on the edge of the table and observing my expression.
I took the envelope, popped seal, and withdrew a single sheet of paper with a very short, formal message.
“Selene Vale, the Chief Executive Officer of Vale Corporation, invites you to our Main Headquarters next Tuesday to finalize a new security contract for the Borders,” I read aloud, furrowing my brows as I glanced at the name below the page.
“The Vale Corporation now basically owns the entire security grid in the region, and not a single living soul has ever actually seen the billionaire in the flesh, so this meet could be our pack’s ticket to a major boost defense-wise,” Thomas said, excitement brimming in his voice at the liaising potential of this deal.
I looked down at the name on the sheet, a strange sensation caught in my chest that I hadn't felt in seven years, and I nodded slowly as I refolded the letter.
"Tell the courier we accept his invitation, Thomas, and ready the security detail; we are leaving for the capital at first light, " I commanded, glancing over at the window at the mountains far away while a sudden, unexplainable urge to find this mysterious woman took over my mind.
