Soul Lines (Completed)

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Four
Kaden's POV

Something was wrong.

I was in an emergency pack meeting when the familiar bond between Elle and me snapped, and I could no longer sense where she was. The thousands of microscopic connections, like strings, flailed in the wind, fluttering aimlessly as they reached out for her.

It was quiet.

Agitated by the missing pressure, I grasped at my chest, the air catching in my lungs. It took a moment to realise why everything around me sounded quieter.

I shivered, frantically glancing over my shoulder as though I could summon the sound of her heartbeat back into my ears.

But nothing changed, and I was left clutching at air.

Pushing away from the table, I sent my chair clattering across the room. My father called out, but I ignored him as I stalked through the house, desperate to get outside. I was pushing my legs to pump faster than my racing heart.

I'd almost gotten free, but Jacobi pushed open the door and blocked my exit, his hair slicked with rain. Breathing frantically, I pushed him aside, stumbling out into the downpour, trying to push the bond further to find her.

'Where is she?' I cried. Every part of my body was strained. My heart and chest searched for the physical bonds that tied us together while my ears pricked for the sound of her heart. 'Do you know where she is!'

'Who?' Jacobi heard my desperation, and he squinted through the rain as it soaked us both.

Words failed me, and my head spun as the earth tilted beneath me. I grounded my feet as fears of falling into the abyss took the last shreds of my thoughts.

The world seemed to split apart before my eyes, and I couldn't drag the air into my lungs quickly enough. I blinked away the hallucination and deepened my breaths, thinking about where she might have been.

She couldn't be far.

The bond hadn't stretched further than it usually did before disappearing.

The furthest she could be was the edge of Aucteraden.

She had to be close.

She needed to be close.

'Is it Elle?'

He'd only needed to read the devastating panic that had ruled me incapable of answering to realise that it had to be her. My thoughts burst into a thousand shattered fragments, and I grappled for the puzzle pieces, desperate to solve them. 'I can't sense her.'

I felt lost.

I couldn't remember when I hadn't felt our bond or heard the soft thrum of her heartbeat as the backing track to my life. I'd become dependent on it after thirteen years, so much so that I didn't notice it unless I wanted to, and now that it was gone, I couldn't feel anything but the loss.

'I don't know where she is.'

He squinted at me as water poured from the heavens, his mouth set in a grim line. 'We'll find her.'

'How? Her scent is gone, Jacobi. It's pouring!' I raked my hands through my hair and wrapped my hands around my skull like claws. 'I can't feel her. I can't hear her. There might be no evidence that she's even disappeared.'

'You don't know that.' He paced, shadows grabbing at his face as the hard lines of despair etched into his skin. 'Humans solve these sorts of cases all the time. And we don't even know that she's really gone. Maybe Lachlan has given her wolfsbane?'