The Dark Alpha: True Luna

Chapter 16: Missing

I wait until the sun rises for Theo to come home. Corrine and Alexa try to stay up with me. Alexa lasts a few hours longer than her mother, but both of them eventually succumb to the living room couch cushions. I tend to the babies alone while they sleep, and Amy helps me when she arrives for the day. She lets me get away with the minimum explanation regarding Corrine and Alexa's presence, why Owen and Kent are guarding the house, and why Theo's absent. Amy must see the exhaustion on my face; I feel the weight of the bags under my eyes, the dryness every time I blink. She looks after the boys while I nap upstairs.

Despite my thrumming anxiety, I fall asleep—there's no choice in the matter. Amy wakes me when Daniel or Reid cries from hunger, and then I drop back onto my pillow once their bellies are full. When I wake up on my own, Theo still isn't home. I can feel his absence, not needing to sniff the air for his scent or listen for his voice as it filters through the floors.

He's not here.

I go downstairs and find Alexa and Corrine. Alexa's holding Daniel, and I wonder if I'm dreaming.

"Corbin's sent scouts out to look for Theo," Corrine tells me. "Also, Reid's getting restless. He's hungry."

I come forward, foggy in the head, yet nursing has become second nature, and I can do it without much thought to the matter.

Alexa walks Daniel around the living room as I breastfeed on the couch. Corrine lowers next to me. "The boys were crying a bit ago, but I didn't want to wake you. Amy was out at the gardens, and I couldn't handle both of them on my own. Alexa stepped up and took Daniel. She's been holding him ever since," Corrine whispers excitedly to me.

"I can hear you," Alexa mutters.

I smile through my haze.

The day flows on, carrying me with it as I fail to grasp any sense of stability or clarity. Food has the texture of either sludge or dust, but water, water I can handle even though it sloshes in my belly. Everything is uncomfortable in limbo. All I need is for Theo to burst through the door and pull me from the current. But sunset comes too soon, and Theo doesn't come with it.

"Why don't you take a nice shower and put on some fresh clothes? You'll feel better," Corrine says. "Alexa and I will watch the boys."

I hike up to my bedroom and strip off my clothes. My pants collapse to the floor in a heap, and the folded note sticks out of the front right pocket. I pick up the paper and place it on the bathroom counter next to my sink. Theo will need to see it when he gets home.

I clean myself—it feels like muscle memory, like I can float away and simultaneously get the job done—and afterward, I dry myself, dress myself, babies are crying, cloths need changing, needed for milk, lying on the couch, waiting.

Kent and Owen come in for dinner while Elise and Lily are here. The house is full. Lily sits with me and rubs my back. It feels like I should talk and thank everyone for being here. I should be grateful for all their help, yet all I feel is longing.

"Elise has a plate for you," Lily says, but it feels like I just ate.

"Not right now. You go eat," I tell her, and it takes all my energy.

I wake up again to a dark, empty living room. There's a blanket over me. Lily is asleep on the adjacent couch. I have a faint memory of being woken to nurse; I must have been half asleep.

My babies are sound asleep in their bassinets next to me. Corrine and Alexa's scents linger, so I assume they're sleeping upstairs.

Everything is so quiet.

My eyes and nose burn. My lungs strain. Where's Theo?

I push my blanket off and rise from the couch on wobbly feet. The dinner I never ate seems to be crawling back up, so I go to the kitchen for a glass of water. Halfway there, I halt and stare at the back door. Three hundred and ten paces West. Five hundred and sixty paces North. That's all. It sounds farther with such numbers, but it couldn't take more than ten minutes.