A Luna for Alpha Kieran-Chapter 293: Situation

The dining hall was long since empty. The air still carried the faint scent of the uneaten porridge and milk...but the bowls lay toppled, spoons clattering on the stone floor...a sticky trail of oats ran across the grain of the long oak table.

Two chairs were pushed back in a hurry, uneven, one lying on its side.

One of the maids froze as she entered.

"...What on earth..." she murmured, frowning. Her eyes darted from one overturned bowl to the other, then to the empty chairs. "Jasper? Willa?Where are the kids? "

Her voice echoed faintly across the chamber...no laughter answered...no giggles came back. Just silence.

The maid’s heart gave a small, uneasy jump.

Children were rarely this quiet.

Normally by now, she would have heard Willa’s shrill voice insisting that porridge was too mushy. She could be a handful when she wanted to. But now nothing.

She set the tray in her hands down and walked further in.

"Jasper? Willa?" she called again, louder this time, her eyes scanning the corners of the hall, behind the chairs, under the table even...half expecting to find a tangle of limbs and mischievous laughter hiding there.

But the space was empty.

A nervous smile tugged at her lips as she straightened. "Ahhh! Are you guys playing?" she said, her tone light, but her voice cracked slightly. "You’d better come out before I tell Alpha Kieran you skipped breakfast!"

Still no answer.

The faint hum of the fortress felt louder now....the shuffle of guards in the courtyard, the muted clang of steel somewhere in the distance, the soft creak of old wood.

But nothing else. No small footsteps. No sound of the kids.

Something cold slithered through her stomach.

She turned on her heel and hurried towards the corridor, her voice rising. "Jasper! Willa! Come now, this isn’t the time for games!"

Her shout traveled down the stone passage, startling a pair of guards patrolling nearby.

One of them frowned and stepped forward.

"What’s wrong?Why are you screaming like a lunatic? " he asked.

"Master Jasper and Miss Willa," she said breathlessly. " I can’t find them...their food’s untouched, and the bowls are on the floor. I’ve looked everywhere in the hall."

The second guard chuckled, though his tone held faint unease. "They’re probably hiding somewhere. You know how kids are....they like to wander. Calm down and look for them. You don’t want to disrespect the old Alpha at his funeral."

"Yes, but..." the maid hesitated, glancing over her shoulder towards the dining hall. "The door was open. And it’s too quiet. I don’t like it."

The first guard exchanged a look with the other, then sighed and nodded. "Alright. Let’s have a look around. Maybe they are in the west garden again ,playing."

The maid nodded, though her fingers fidgeted with her apron.

The three of them moved quickly through the corridors.

"Willa!" the maid called again as they entered the courtyard. Her voice rang out. "Jasper! Come out, dearies!"

Her gaze swept across the garden path, the empty benches, the silent fountain whose water shimmered faintly under the sun. A few of the morning guards looked up from their posts as the group passed.

One of them frowned. "Is something wrong?"

"Miss Willa and Master Jasper are missing," the older guard said briskly. "We are checking the grounds."

The young soldier blinked, startled. "Missing? As in lost?" 𝒇𝓻𝓮𝓮𝙬𝙚𝒃𝒏𝓸𝙫𝒆𝙡.𝓬𝓸𝒎

"Not lost," the maid said quickly, though her tone betrayed her worry. "Just... not where they should be."

The three of them spread out.

One searched the garden maze, pushing past the ivy and hedges, calling their names.

Another peered into the stables, scanning the hay piles for small bodies hiding in mischief. The maid ran towards the eastern corridor that led to the training grounds, her heart thudding.

Everywhere she looked, there was nothing...

"Jasper!" she called desperately this time, her voice raw now. "Willa!"

Nothing.

By now, a few more guards had joined in, responding to the rising commotion.

They moved in groups, checking the armory, the upper chambers, the servant halls. The sound of boots filled the corridors but beneath it all, there was tremendous tension.

"Probably hid in the tunnels again. Miss Freya and Willa used to do that."

The maid nodded absently, but her hands wouldn’t stop trembling. The overturned bowl flashed in her mind again, the way the porridge had smeared across the table...dropped in haste... and with everything going on in the pack...

She slowed near one of the inner staircases that led downward....a part of the fortress rarely used.

The air there was cooler.

For a second, she thought she heard something.

A faint sound...

It stopped before she could pay proper attention.

"Anything?" One of the guards called from above.

She shook her head, forcing a smile she didn’t feel. "No... nothing yet. Keep searching! They can’t have gone far!"

The guards nodded and fanned out once more, shouting the children’s names through the courtyard, through the halls, through the endless maze of corridors.

And yet none of them, not one thought to look below.

Not one realized how far from the light the children had already gone.

The search had started as a mild alarm...a few raised voices, hurried footsteps...but by the hour’s turn, it had become something else entirely.

Doors slammed open, boots thundered through stone halls, voices echoed from corridor to corridor.

"Check the east wing!" someone shouted.

"They were not in the garden!" another called back.

"Try the library...the girl likes reading there!"

But every report returned the same.

Nothing.

The maid wrung her hands at the top of the grand staircase, her face pale and drawn. "I swear I looked everywhere," she said, voice breaking. "The dining hall, the servants’ quarters, even the pantry...there’s no sign of them. No footprints. No scent."

Her last words carried the weight of dread...for in a wolf pack, scent told all.

And yet, even that trail was gone.

One of the senior guards cursed under his breath. "Impossible.This is bad news. But we did not detect any intrusion.One at all."

"They must have gone outside the walls."

"No child could leave without the gatesman knowing...."

"But they are gone," the maid cried, clutching her apron. "Something’s wrong. I can feel it!"

Her words silenced them all.

And then came a low murmur...like the ripple of a wave through the pack link. A message spreading fast.

By the time it reached the courtyard, a dozen soldiers were already mounted. Others sprinted across the training yards, their shouts ringing through the air.

"Find the children! Every corner, every tunnel...move!"

The sound carried, rising above the funeral chants that still echoed faintly from the lower hall.

Inside the grand mourning chamber, Beta Dax stood before the casket of Alpha Malrick. His head was bowed, his dark hair loose, his face grim beneath the torchlight. Around him, the gathered pack elders recited the last rites, their low voices blending into a somber murmur.

And then a guard burst in.

" Beta Dax!" the man gasped, chest heaving. "It’s the children. Master Jasper and Lady Willa...they’re missing."

The chant halted instantly.

Dax’s head snapped up. "What?"

"They vanished from the dining hall this morning. We’ve searched the entire place, but..."

He didn’t let the man finish.

Dax was already moving.

The heavy cloak at his shoulders flared as he strode past the stunned mourners, his boots striking the stone hard enough to echo.

"Dax!" one of the elders called, "the rites..."

"Please finish it," he barked, voice sharp enough to slice through the air. "Alpha’s daughter and the boy are missing. Nothing else matters.They were my responsibility in his absence."

The man’s presence was like a storm breaking through the quiet.By the time he reached the upper levels, the guards had formed a small unit.

"Report," he demanded.

"They were last seen here, in the dining hall," a guard said, pointing toward the scattered bowls and fallen chair. "Food’s cold. Signs of struggle are unclear. No scent trail...as if something... wiped it."

Dax crouched, his gloved fingers brushing the floor near the spill. His eyes narrowed. The faintest shimmer lingered in the air...like residue...

His wolf stirred uneasily beneath his skin.

"This isn’t natural,I smell fowl play, " he murmured.

"Sir?"

He straightened sharply. "Search the lower passages. Every stairwell, every old tunnel under the fortress....now."

"Yes, Beta!"

They scattered again....the sound of running feet filling the space once more.

Dax moved through the corridors himself, searching, scenting the air. His instincts screamed that something wasn’t right. Like there was no intrusion... Was this an inside job?

Something darker haunting the pack?

His pulse thundered.

By the time he reached the upper balcony he became more and more suspicious.

The place was still.

Only the cold morning wind moved, brushing against his hair, carrying with it the distant chant of the pack bidding farewell below.

The same balcony where Jasper and Willa had last stood.

Dax walked to the edge. His gaze swept over the empty floor...and for a moment, he saw it.

Two faint marks. Not footprints exactly...more like impressions, small, side by side.

The air shifted around him.

Something unseen lingered... .

Dax froze. His hand went to the dagger at his belt, but he didn’t draw it.

Instead, he stood there... feeling.

The world went still.

And in that stillness, Beta Dax knew for sure that the kids hadn’t wandered off ,they had been taken... The question was, by who?