Chapter 290

290 Crisis

Lina reached home faster by jogging or rather running very slowly in her own perspective. The air at the palace was tense and the princess almost thought the other werewolves were intentionally averting their eyes from her, but she shook off the feeling and focused on what had brought her to the castle.

‘Hey Crysta, why won’t you answer me? I’ve been trying to get a hold of you the entire day,’ the girl tried through the mind link, but once again, nothing came through to her.

‘Could something be the matter? Maybe she finally hit the limit Honour was talking about... I thought she was focusing on her books, but I couldn’t detect her presence at school either. Did she skip school?’ the girl wondered. Nothing seemed to make any sense to her the more she tried.

Lina rushed up the stairs and into the palace, panic starting to set into her mind. She rushed through the hallways and stairs, trying to dig into her memory in search of the delta’s room.

The deltas had their own section of the palace, but everything from there was a mystery to the princess. Lina roamed through the Deltas wing in search of some sign of the girl’s room.

Just when she was about to give up her directionless search and ask one of the random werewolves traversing the halls, she bumped into a familiar face. Lina stopped her rush when she spotted Bree and then skipped all formalities. “Hey, Bree, have you seen Crysta?” the princess asked amidst her tired panting.

Bree scanned the girl’s face and mind link as though looking for some sign of deceit, but when it turned out that the princess was indeed sincere in her question, she revealed her own worried expression, “No, no I haven’t. She hasn’t been answering her cell phone either. Now that you’ve turned up looking for her, I’m starting to get worried.”

“Where is her room?” the worried Lina asked urgently. Bree turned on her heels and started leading the girl in the direction she’d just come from.

“I tried knocking, but no one would answer,” the girl replied, “I figured she probably wasn’t in...”

.....

“What’s with all the commotion?” a deep voice interrupted the girl’s words. The two turned around to see prince Drake making his way toward them. His expression was a mixture of frustration and relief, which only made sense because of the mind link they shared. Lina was only more curious to know what could cause his brother to be frustrated in the first place, “Father has been looking for you and what are you doing in this part of the palace?” Lina couldn’t help but feel the prince still had more to say on the matter.

“Drake, I have no time for explanation, but Crysta has gone missing. I haven’t been able to reach her. Not through the mind link and not through her cell phone either,” the girl stopped her brother to relay the information.

Finding his calm, the prince thought for a bit before replying, “Have you tried feeling for her location? I know she isn’t in there.”

“Oh, I forgot about that,” Lina facepalmed, right before closing her eyes to focus. Her nerves made it harder. Despite her now calm atmosphere, the girl’s heart was moving faster than it should have. She was getting more and more worried for the delta and that didn’t help her focus any better, “I can’t do it, Drake. Why don’t you try?”

“Honestly, little sister. I’ve taught you how to do this so many times,” the man sighed. Ignoring the urge to turn this into another training session for the young princess, he focused on his own. It was much easier that way.

Lina waited for his answer as time ticked by painstakingly slowly. The longer he spent silent, the more she was anxious to know what he’d found out. If Crysta was near, the prince would have had no trouble finding her, or that’s at least what she thought was the case. Her mind was starting to lose grasp of what was valid and what wasn’t.

'

The prince was like that for two whole minutes searching for Crysta through the mind link. His eyes darted from side to side wildly under his closed eyelids almost like he could see something entirely different when he was in this state.

With the power of a royal, there wasn’t anything stopping him from finding her no matter what the circumstances. Another illegal secret of the royals (they could force themselves into the minds of their subjects regardless of how hard the wolf had tried to block them out. This did not apply, however, if they were searching for a royal that had blocked themselves from the mind link.)

Even so, the man’s eyes opened in an expression Lina had feared, shock.

“I can’t feel her...”

...........

Lina and Bree were silent for a moment, trying to decipher the man’s impossible words. Perhaps he’d misspoken and used the wrong words. Maybe he had found her, but not in the place he’d expected and then said something completely different from what he’d intended to say. Maybe he was simply pulling Lina’s leg so he could get a reaction out of her.

Drake wasn’t one to play pranks, however. And his expression said otherwise.

“What do you mean ‘you can’t feel her’?” Lina’s voice rang with disbelief. Bree was more shocked by the girl’s level of worry. The girl had been led to believe the princess didn’t care one bit about Crysta... ‘Odd.’

“We’re royals, Drake. We should be able to...”

“I know that, sister. But no matter what I try, it’s like she’s not a part of the mind link,” he argued.

“What are you saying, Drake? Your words aren’t making sense,” Lina countered her brother.

“They aren’t making sense because you don’t want them to make sense, little sister. In any case, death is only one of the unlikely reasons this could happen. I’m hoping that’s not the case. She could simply be unconscious or poisoned by wolfsbane,” the man rubbed his temples, “Damn it, it’s one problem after another.”

His last statement seemed to garner more attention from the girls. With everything escalating with Crysta, Lina hadn’t expected her brother to say something like that. He had come looking for her oozing frustration and relief. Could he have been relieved that she was okay and frustrated that he couldn’t find her or was there trouble that he had wanted to protect her from?