Elias POV

I swore she wouldn’t spend another day wherever she was. I was going to make sure of that.

The thought of her alone—being taken, hurt, tortured, was enough to make something violent stir inside me. Whoever had touched her, whoever thought they could use her to test me, would not live to repeat the mistake again.

For the first time, I admitted something I had refused to accept before.

That I missed her.

So much that it hurts.

The realization came with frustration, sharp and bitter. I was not a man who longed. I didn’t ache for people. Yet the hours without her had been unbearable, torturous in...