Reclaimed By My Alpha (Natalia and Andrei) novel Chapter 513

Natalia’s POV

The phone nearly slipped from my hand. “Missing?” I barked, looking up at Damon. “What do you mean he’s missing?”

Damon’s face paled. I took the phone and put it on speaker so we could both hear.

“He left the house this morning and never came back,” the Beta said. “We’ve searched everywhere. The pack grounds, the town, his usual spots. Nothing.”

“Well, maybe he just went out,” Damon rationalized. “Andrei has always liked his alone time—”

“It’s more than that, Alpha Damon. We managed to track down a trail leading into the woods. The scene we found there was… disturbing, to say the least.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

There was a pause, and then: “We found something in the woods. A deer carcass. It was… arranged.”

“Arranged?” Damon blurted out.

The Beta sighed. “The body was torn apart and laid out in some kind of pattern. The limbs were positioned at odd angles. And there was blood everywhere.” He cleared his throat. “We think Alpha Andrei might have been involved in some kind of… dark ritual.”

A dark ritual. I pressed my hand to my mouth, fighting back the urge to either cry or vomit. Maybe both. I couldn’t tell. The porch began to spin.

Andrei had killed a deer and arranged it like some kind of ritual? That wasn’t him. That wasn’t anything close to him.

It sounded like something the Winter King would have done.

“Luna?” the Beta said, snapping me out of my thoughts. “Are you still there?”

“Yeah. I’m here.” I squeezed my eyes shut and forced myself to remain calm. Now was not the time to be emotional. My pack’s Alpha was missing, potentially as part of some ritual. The pack could be at stake. My family could be at stake. “Keep searching. I’m coming home.”

“Are you sure that’s a good idea?” Damon asked. “If Andrei is in the state we think he’s in—”

“I don’t care,” I snapped. “He’s my husband.”

Damon stared at me for a long moment. I could see the realization in his eyes. I wasn’t going to back down, and he knew it.

“Keep looking for him and call me the second you find anything,” I told the Beta, then hung up. I turned to find Grace standing in the doorway.

“Andrei’s missing?” she whispered.

“Yeah.” I walked over to her and gently shifted Hope back into her arms. Thankfully, the baby had stopped crying, although she was still hiccupping. “I need to go. I need to find him.”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea, Natalia.” Grace took Hope, but she didn’t budge from the doorway. “It’s supposed to rain tonight, too. And you don’t know the kind of state he’s—”

“I think you should go.”

I jerked my head up to find that Max had slipped into the hallway behind Grace. From the looks of things, he had heard everything. At the very least, he’d heard that his father needed help and that I was going to go after him.

“You have to help Daddy,” he said firmly. “You have to.”

I stared at my son. He was right. I couldn’t leave Andrei alone. He needed me. I should never have left his side to begin with, but I could change that now.

“Don’t worry. I’m going,” I said. “I’m going to find him.”

Max wiped his nose on his sleeve. “Promise?”

What the hell was happening to Andrei?

I gripped the steering wheel tighter and pressed down on the gas. The sun was setting, casting long shadows across the road. I needed to get home before it got too dark. Needed to find Andrei before something worse happened.

The first drops of rain hit the windshield about halfway there. Just a few at first. Then more. Within minutes, it was pouring. Grace was right. The storm was worse than I expected.

I turned on the wipers and leaned forward, squinting through the downpour. The road was getting harder to see. The rain was coming down so hard it was like driving through a waterfall.

Suddenly, something jumped out up ahead. A raccoon. It skittered across the road, a dark shape moving through the rain. I shouldn’t have hit the brakes, but my foot slammed down before I could think.

The car fishtailed, the wheels skimming above the layer of water on the road. Before I could regain control, I spun out. The wheel jerked in my hands, and I spun three times, gasping, before I came skidding off the side of the road.

My right wheels slammed into a ditch. Cursing, I hit the gas, but it was no use. Mud sprayed up on all sides, and I was stuck.

“Fuck,” I muttered, pulling the key out of the ignition. I scrubbed my hands over my face and thought for a moment. I could shift and run the rest of the way, but it would take twice as long as driving, and in this rain, with rogue attacks still fairly common on the highways…

Still, I was thoroughly stuck. There was no getting this car out, not on my own. I’d have to take my chances and either run back to Ashmoor for help, or the rest of the way to Moonshadow. Either way, I would be shifting tonight, which was going to be more difficult than usual with the new moon.

I was just getting out of the car when headlights suddenly rounded the bend in the road ahead. Hope fluttered in my chest, and I turned the car back on, flashing my headlights.

“Come on… Come on…” I stood next to my car, waving my arms frantically.

To my relief, the car slowed and pulled up alongside me. The headlights blinded me, making me have to raise my arm to shield my eyes. I saw a dark figure sitting in the driver’s seat, but I couldn’t make out who it was.

The window rolled down.

“Need some help?”