Chapter 17: Disappeared

Chapter 17: Chapter 17: Disappeared

Caelus landed on the balcony with the grace of a panther. Caesar followed, his landing slightly heavier—more like a panther that had skipped leg day. Caelian came last, silent as a ghost, his feet touching the railing without a sound.

Oliver remained in the tree, perched like a very disgruntled, very fuzzy celery stalk, keeping watch for any signs of Jonathan’s return or wandering pack members. Their scents were masked, but paranoia was a pack tradition.

Caelus immediately stepped aside, gesturing for Caesar to approach the window. Among the three brothers, Caesar was the designated "crime guy"—the one who could pick locks, disable alarms, and generally break into places he wasn’t supposed to be. It was a skill set their father had never approved of, but one that had come in handy more times than they’d care to admit.

Caesar crouched in front of the window, pulling out a thin set of tools. He inserted them into the gap between the frame and the sill, twisting and prodding with the concentration of a bomb disposal expert.

Click. Click. CLICK.

Nothing.

Click. Scrape. Tic.

Still nothing.

Several minutes passed. Caesar kept working, his fingers moving with increasing desperation. Caelian, meanwhile, kept glancing over his shoulder at the street below, his eyes scanning for any passing cars or pedestrians.

"Hurry up," Caelian hissed, his voice tight. "Our position on this balcony is clearly visible to anyone passing by. We look like three very suspicious gargoyles."

"I KNOW, I KNOW. I’m trying as fast as I can." Caesar’s voice was strained, his tools slipping against the lock. "This window is possessed. It’s like it knows we’re trying to break in."

Caelus, who had been silent, suddenly spoke. His voice was calm, but his golden eyes were fixed on the road below.

"I can hear a car coming this way."

"DAMN IT!"

Caesar’s patience—already a thin, fraying rope—snapped. He shoved his tools back into his pouch, gripped the window frame with both hands, and yanked.

CRACK! BANG!

The window flew open with a sound that could only be described as "aggressively loud." Glass rattled. The frame groaned. Somewhere in the distance, a dog started barking.

The triplets froze, listening.

No footsteps. No shouting. No neighbors coming to investigate.

Just silence.

They slipped inside one by one, muscles tensed, ready for Azura to wake up in a fury, shift into a wolf, and attack them with the ferocity of a woman who had consumed five beers and a grudge.

Instead, they were greeted by... a crime scene of a different kind.

Azura was sprawled across the bed like a starfish that had been dropped from a great height. A towel was wrapped loosely around her body—loosely being the operative word—and her limbs were splayed out in every direction. Her mouth hung open. A thin string of drool trailed from the corner of her lips, pooling on the pillow below.

She was snoring. Lightly. It was almost... cute.

Then her hand moved.

It crept across her body like a sleepwalking spider, found its target, and squeezed.

"So big..." she mumbled, her voice thick with sleep. "So bouncy... really delicious meat bun..."

She groped herself again. Squeezed. Squished. Like she was testing the freshness of produce at a market.

"....."

Caesar let out a strangled cough, his face turning an alarming shade of red. His brain—which had been preparing for combat, for a fight, for anything—short-circuited completely.

"Is she... is she DREAMING about meat buns?" He finally managed, his voice cracking. "And her hands automatically think her own breasts are shaped and bouncy like meat buns?! DID SHE JUST MISTAKE HERSELF FOR A SNACK?!"

Caelian, who had met countless women in his life—elegant she-wolves, fierce warriors, cunning politicians—stared at the scene before him with an expression of profound existential crisis.

He had nothing. No quip. No observation. Just the hollow realization that their father’s new wife’s daughter was, without question, the strangest creature he had ever encountered.

Caelus, the stoic one, the one whose face rarely cracked, felt the corner of his mouth twitch. It was almost a smile. Almost.

He quickly masked it.

"Just sedate her," Caelus said flatly. Then he paused, watching Azura’s hand give another exploratory squeeze to her own chest. "Actually... no. No need. She doesn’t look like she’d wake up even if a tsunami crashed through this room and swept her into the Pacific. Pick her up. Carry her."

Caesar stepped forward with all the enthusiasm of a man being asked to volunteer for a prostate exam. His grumbling started before his feet even touched the floor.

"Even though I like things that get my adrenaline pumping—fights, chases, near-death experiences—we’re ALPHAS. Why do we have to do something like this degrading? If it weren’t for Father, I would’ve made Oliver do it solo. Let him become the Green-napper. A new career path. ’Oliver the Celery Abductor.’ Has a ring to it."

He reached out to lift Azura—then froze.

Azura was still groping herself. Still squeezing. Still absolutely convinced that her own chest was a basket of freshly steamed pork buns.

His hands, which had been reaching for her, immediately recoiled like they’d been burned. He actually jumped back a step.

"What’s wrong, Caesar?" Caelian’s grin stretched wide as a predator who had just spotted a wounded gazelle. "Does seeing a half-naked woman posing ’sensually’ like this scare you? Afraid she might wake up and ask you to be her meat bun? She seems to be really enjoying the texture of her own—"

"NO! It’s NOT like that!" Caesar’s voice cracked like a teenage boy at a school dance. He pointed at Azura, his finger trembling with indignation. "Can’t you GUYS smell it? The faint scent on her body?!"

The other two brothers exchanged glances.

Caelian sniffed the air dramatically. Sniffed again. Then made a face like he’d just inhaled a ghost pepper.

"I can’t smell anything besides this chemical warfare she’s unleashed in here. It smells like a perfume factory exploded and took a Bath & Body Works hostage."

Indeed, Azura’s room was a warzone of fragrances.

Because earlier—after Jonathan had entered her room and noticed Cora’s scent was gone, and after Vincent had driven her home and asked why he couldn’t smell it—Azura had made a tactical decision.

It wasn’t that she was afraid everyone would find out her wolf was dormant. No.

She just didn’t want to wake up at 3 AM to find some random pack member standing over her bed, sniffing her like a confused bloodhound and asking, "Azura... where’d your wolf go?"

So, before taking her shower and cracking open her beer, she had—in a fit of what could generously be called "strategic paranoia"—taken out every single scented item ’Azura’ owned.

Incense sticks. Perfume bottles. Body sprays. Scented candles.

Then she had sprayed, sprinkled, and spritzed every surface in the room until the air was thick enough to bottle and sell at a fragrance store.

The result? A sensory apocalypse. The triplets’ noses had gone numb the second they stepped inside. It was like walking into a perfume bomb.

"When we walked in, I was so mesmerized by her—" Caelian made a vague, distressed gesture at her hands. "—that I forgot my sense of smell is completely numb from all this nonsense. This woman... she seems really strange."

Caesar threw his hands up in exasperation, looking like a man who had just been asked to explain quantum physics to a particularly uninterested cat.

"It’s NOT about the scent of perfume, you absolute—"

Caelus cut him off with a single raised hand. He stepped forward, bypassing his brother, and approached the bed. His golden eyes flickered, sharpening as he leaned closer to Azura’s sleeping form.

His pupils dilated.

He smelled it too.

"This smell..." His voice dropped low, almost reverent. "It’s our fated mate."

The room went silent.

Vander, his wolf, had been stirring restlessly for hours now—ever since they had crossed the border of this pack. The mate bond had tugged at him like a persistent toddler demanding attention. It had calmed briefly while they waited on the balcony, giving him a false sense of peace. But now? Now it was roaring back to life, clawing at his chest, screaming at him to CHASE, to FIND, to CLAIM.

Caelus gritted his teeth, forcing himself to stay still. His knuckles were white. His jaw was clenched so tight it was a miracle his teeth didn’t crack.

Not now. We have a mission. We need to take this girl first. THEN we can find our mate.

’BUT IT’S OUR MATE’S SCENT!’

Vander’s voice thundered inside his skull, practically vibrating his brain. The wolf was pacing, snarling, demanding action. Caelus could feel his control slipping, the beast threatening to break free and go hunting.

I know. But we have to focus. She’s close. We’ll find her after.

Vander growled but reluctantly settled. Barely.

Caelus forced himself to think rationally. The bond was pulling him toward... somewhere. But not toward Azura. He could sense her wolf, yes. Faintly. Buried so deep it was like hearing a whisper through ten feet of concrete. And her aura—that intangible signature of a wolf’s presence—was nothing but a hollow, echoing chamber. A void where light should have been.

So Azura wasn’t their mate.

But she had interacted with their mate earlier. Touched her. Talked to her. The scent was layered, fresh, like their mate had been with her in same room not long ago.

Then, suddenly—

SNAP!

The mate bond, which had been tugging insistently toward a location close by, vanished. Disappeared. Cut clean like a severed thread.