The Lycan King's Second Chance Mate: Rise of the Traitor's Daughter-Chapter 211: She’s Gone

Sebastian~

After the crowning, the laughter, and getting Zane to actually laugh out loud (which, let me tell you, is like watching a glacier crack), I left the palace on a different mission.

I’d drunk more blood wine than I should have—don’t judge me, it was vintage and perfect—and I had danced around advisors, flirted with noblewomen just to irritate Zane, and crowned the night with a smirk only the devil would envy. But even with the thrill of royal chaos, and the high of being with my best friend, I missed her.

Cassandra.

The moment I slid into my car, the illusion cracked. The black leather seat didn’t hug me the way her arms did. The soft hum of the engine didn’t soothe me like the rhythm of her heartbeat. I gripped the steering wheel and sighed, my fangs retracting as I allowed myself a rare, raw moment of honesty.

"I miss you," I whispered.

I hadn’t been away from her this long since the moment she finally stopped running from me. Since she let go of the fear, dropped the blade she always kept between us, and just... fell into me. Cassandra, my impossible, blood-soaked, haunted, firestorm of a mate. The one I’d burn the world for.

I missed her laugh. I missed the way she’d try to pretend she didn’t like my stupid jokes. I missed how her body curled perfectly into mine at night. Hell, I even missed how she kicked me when I mocked her snoring.

We were only apart for a few hours, but it felt like forever. Seriously, when did I turn into the kind of guy who gets all sentimental? Guess even cool Sebastian has a soft side.

The city lights blurred as I drove home, a cold pit forming in my stomach the closer I got. Something... was off. I didn’t know how, but I felt it. Call it vampire instinct. Call it mate-sense. Call it obsessive paranoia—I don’t care. My chest felt tight, like someone had carved out my ribs and left a hollow warning behind.

I pulled into the driveway. Everything looked normal.

Too normal.

My boots crunched on the gravel as I stepped out and closed the car door behind me. No lights on. No heartbeat.

No heartbeat.

That was the first red flag. I paused on the porch, my senses sharpening, trying to catch the sound I always tuned in to—the one that had become a balm to centuries of torment. Cassandra’s heartbeat. Steady. Wild. Beautiful.

Nothing.

I froze. My breath caught in my throat.

Okay, okay, maybe she was asleep?

Still... I would have heard something.

I entered the house quietly, not bothering to flick on the lights. My eyes adjusted instantly.

The living room was immaculate.

Spotless.

The TV was off, which was wrong, because Cassandra always fell asleep watching reruns of that ridiculous show with the demon-hunting brothers. She swore it relaxed her. Her blanket was folded neatly on the couch, which was laughable—she never folded it. She said, and I quote, "I’m a killer, not your maid."

"Cassandra?" I called out, my voice sounding too loud in the silence.

No answer.

Still no heartbeat.

I dropped my keys with a loud clink onto the glass coffee table and stormed through the house, calling her name again.

Nothing.

"Cassandra, this isn’t funny," I said, voice cracking. I checked the kitchen. Clean. Too clean. Her favorite mug—black ceramic with the words I bite back—was gone. She always left it in the sink.

My footsteps quickened. I ran through the hallway, checked the bathroom. Empty.

Then the office. My study. Guest room.

Empty. Empty. Empty.

Panic clawed at my chest. No, no.

I sprinted upstairs. Checked our bedroom. The sheets were untouched. Her pillow was fluffed.

I tore through the walk-in closet and—then I froze.

No.

Her clothes. Her boots. Her leather jacket. Gone. Not all of them—but enough to notice. Enough to scream she left in a hurry.

I was shaking now. My hands curled into fists and I cursed under my breath, letting out a growl I hadn’t released in decades. I didn’t want to believe it. I refused to believe it. But all the signs were here.

She was gone.

"Why would you—" I choked on the words, falling to my knees.

I crawled to her nightstand. Yanked open the drawer. Her phone wasn’t there.

I stood again, pull out my phone from my pocket and dialed her number—the one I gave her, programmed with only two contacts: me and Zane.

It rang once.

Twice.

Three times.

Then voicemail.

Her voice came through, cool and distant. "If you’re bleeding or dying, leave a message. If you’re not... I don’t care."

I let out a strangled laugh. "Cass... pick up," I whispered. "Please."

I didn’t even leave a message. Just hung up and redialed.

And redialed.

And redialed.

"Damn it!" I threw the phone across the room. It shattered against the wall and I sank into the nearest chair, shaking.

I couldn’t breathe. My vision blurred. This wasn’t happening.

We were supposed to be safe now. We were finally supposed to be okay.

My mate. My queen. My heart. Gone.

I tried to rationalize. Maybe she went out? Maybe she just... needed air?

But that was a lie.

Cassandra didn’t go out. Not alone. Not ever. Ever since she realized that Kalmia wanted her dead, she’d been terrified of being found. She didn’t even step onto the front porch without me.

So why...?

Unless...

"No. No, no, no, no." My hands gripped my hair.

Did she leave to protect me again?

That sounded like her. Noble. Reckless. Infuriatingly selfless. She knew Kalmia wanted me dead. She knew she was being hunted, and if she thought for one second that I was in danger because of her—

"She ran," I whispered. "You stupid, beautiful woman. You ran. Again."

And she didn’t even say goodbye.

The fear came in waves now. Full-blown. I hadn’t been this afraid since the day my coven left me to burn under the sun. And even then—I knew I’d die.

But this?

Not knowing?

This was worse.

I would’ve burned again a thousand times rather than feel this helpless.

I should have known.

I should have stayed home.

I should have held her tighter.

I shot up, pacing, raking my hands down my face.

"Think, Seb," I muttered. "Think."

But all I could think about was her laugh. The way she’d roll her eyes and shove me when I annoyed her. The way her lips tasted after drinking wine. The way she’d sneak into my room at 3 a.m., pretending she wasn’t scared of the nightmares.

Oh my gods! JACOB. Why didn’t I think of him?!

"Jacob!" I shouted.

The name cracked out of me like lightning splitting stone.

I spun around, eyes wild, fangs threatening to descend. "Jacob, I swear, if you ever meant what you said, now is the time—Jacob!"

Nothing.

No swirling mist. No cheeky grin. No mischievous brown eyes blinking at me upside down from the ceiling. Not even a whisper of that damn ancient perfume he wears like he bathes in moonlight and sarcasm.

"Damn it!" I snarled, my voice hoarse as I slammed my fists into the wall. The plaster shattered. I didn’t care.

I waited.

And waited.

And felt like the biggest idiot to ever walk the immortal plane.

"You said—" I choked out. "You said to call if I needed help. That you’d come. That you’d—ugh!" I kicked a chair and it skittered across the room, crashing against the fireplace.

Silence reigned supreme.

That cosmic, mocking silence that always wraps around you when you’ve been abandoned. Again.

I clenched my jaw and closed my eyes, trying to keep the growing panic from swallowing me whole. I didn’t have the luxury of despair. Cassandra was out there. Somewhere. Alone. Maybe hunted. Maybe bleeding. Maybe—

I bit into my tongue but that didn’t stop the pain in my dark heart. A vampire biting himself—how poetic.

I couldn’t do this alone.

There was only one other person who would understand what this meant. What she meant.

Zane.

I slammed my mental barriers open with a force that felt like breaking through iron bars with my bare hands.

"Zane!"

My voice cracked across the link like a whip. Desperate. Ragged.

A beat passed.

Then another.

"Zane!"

There was a groggy mumble. Sleep-slurred but not annoyed. "Seb? Are you back hom—

"She’s gone."

There was a pause.

A silence so pure, I could almost hear the shifting of gears in his brilliant, terrifying mind.

"...What?"

I staggered to the kitchen, every step heavier than the last. My hand gripped the counter like it was the only thing keeping me from collapsing. My chest heaved, my lungs demanded air I didn’t need.

"Cassandra. She’s gone. Her clothes, her boots—her damn jacket—gone. She took them. Left. No note. No scent. Nothing." I was pacing again, fingers twitching, my voice sounding small in the link. "She vanished, Zane. Like she was never here."

"Are you sure?" His voice had changed. No longer sleepy. Now it was sharp, focused. All Prince. All predator.

"I’ve been a vampire for five hundred years, Zane. I can smell death three towns over. I know when someone’s tried to cover their tracks. I can’t even pick up her scent. That only happens when... when someone doesn’t want to be found."

Zane was silent for a moment.

"Did you check the security feeds?"

"She fried them, Zane. Or maybe Kalmia did. Or maybe she had help—I don’t know. I don’t know because she didn’t even say goodbye." My voice cracked again. If I could cry, I would’ve been sobbing on the floor.

And if that wasn’t pathetic enough—

"I miss her already," I whispered aloud, voice shaking. "I feel like someone reached into my chest and just... ripped everything out."

"Sebastian." Zane’s voice cut through the haze. "Listen to me. You’re not thinking straight."

"No, you think?" I snapped, letting the sarcasm drip. "My mate—the terrifying, lethal, entirely-too-good-for-me mate—ran off, and I can’t find her, and I feel like I’m unraveling, Zane!"

"I’m coming."

The words were a balm and a curse.

I gripped the edge of the countertop harder. "You better. Because if I have to sit here one more second listening to the echo of her laugh in my skull, I swear I’m going to start screaming."

There was another pause, and then Zane spoke again, this time gentler.

"Seb... I know it hurts. But we’ll find her. She wouldn’t leave without a reason. She’s not built that way."

I sat down hard on the floor, my back against the cabinets, pulling my knees up like some heartbroken teenager in a breakup scene. If anyone ever saw me like this, I’d incinerate the memory from their brain.

"I think she left to protect me," I whispered.

"Yeah... sounds like her." Zane sighed. "But she should know better. You’d rather burn again than lose her."

I laughed. A broken, brittle sound. "Exactly. I mean, I already did the whole sunlight barbecue thing once. Not in the mood for a sequel."

"I’m going to fly in using my chopper. Just hold on."

"Ok," I said, a little too fast. "Please, Zane, get your royal, brooding, wolfy ass over here because I’m losing my mind. I’m this close to organizing her perfume bottles into a pentagram and summoning her back with scented candle witchcraft."

Zane chuckled softly. "Goddess, you’re dramatic."

"Says the guy who once bit a guy’s face off because he looked at Emma too long."

"That was one time! And he touched her shoulder. That’s practically flirting."

"Normal people would just punch the guy, not—what did you call it?—’unhinge your jaw like a vengeful anaconda and feast on his regrets.’"

"I was poetic back then."

"You were feral. And a little drunk."

There was a pause. Then Zane said, "Hold on. Let me get Alexander ready, and I’ll come. Give me ten minutes.

"I don’t have ten minutes."

"Seb."

"Zane, I’m scared."

The silence after those words was suffocating. I never admitted fear. Not when my coven tied me down and left me under the sun. Not when I nearly died during the Night Rebellion. Not when I was hunted by multiple vampire covens for the blood in my veins.

But this?

This was worse.

"I know, brother. I know. I’m on my way. Don’t move. Keep searching the house. Start from the top. I’ll be there before you can panic again."

"Too late," I whispered. "Already there."