---- Chapter 14 Damien POV: The pain eventually subsided, leaving behind a dull, throbbing ache deep in my chest. | felt... empty. Incomplete. Lyra helped me to my feet, her touch feeling strangely foreign. "It's done," she whispered, a triumphant gleam in her eyes. "Now we can be together." | nodded, still dazed, and let her lead me from the Elders' Hall. We drove back to the Alpha house in silence. | just wanted to lie down. | wanted Elara. The thought came unbidden, and the ache in my soul intensified. | needed her scent, that calming mix of vanilla and moonlight, to soothe my agitated wolf. | pushed open the heavy front door, expecting that scent to welcome me. But there was nothing. The house was cold. Silent. The air was stale. Her scent, the scent that had permeated every corner of this house and my life, was completely gone. It wasn't just an absence of perfume; it was a fundamental shift in the atmosphere, as if the soul of the house had been ripped out. My eyes scanned the living room. The small, lopsided ceramic ---- vase she'd made in her first pottery class was gone from the mantelpiece. The soft, hand-woven blanket she always kept on the sofa was missing. The whole space felt like a stranger's house, stripped of the quiet warmth she had unknowingly infused into it. All the little things that made this house a home... they had vanished. A cold dread, sharp and suffocating, began to creep up my spine. "Elara?" | called out, my voice sounding hollow in the sudden emptiness. "Elara!" | took the stairs two at a time, my heart hammering against my ribs. "Elara, this isn't funny!" | threw open our bedroom door. The room was bare. Her side of the closet was empty. The photos of us on the nightstand were gone. Her art supplies, her books, her clothes... everything that was hers had disappeared as if it had never been there at all. My legs gave out. | stumbled, catching myself on the doorframe. "Where is she?" | whispered, the words barely audible. | turned to Lyra, who had followed me up the stairs. "Where did she go?" Lyra shrugged, a casual, dismissive gesture that sent a fresh wave of panic through me. "She's probably just gone back to her family to pout for a few days," she said, her voice light. "Don't worry, Alpha. She'll be back. She loves you too much to ---- stay away for long." Her family. Yes. That had to be it. She was just throwing a tantrum. She was trying to scare me. My Elara, my sweet, submissive mate, wouldn't... she couldn't actually leave me. | clung to that thought like a drowning man clings to a piece of driftwood. | sank onto the edge of the bed, our bed, and buried my head in my hands, forcing myself to breathe. She'll be back. She has to come back. Just then, a frantic, urgent signal pulsed through my mind. The emergency channel. My head snapped up, a wild surge of hope igniting in my chest. It was her. It had to be Elara, finally coming to her senses.