Casper walked forward to meet them. He looked between the both of them with an interested expression on his face. "What's going on? Why are you two walking around in the forest?"

"You should ask her." Logan pointed to his cousin, who was still staring at the beta with unusual attention. "She dragged me into the forest because of a smell."

Casper looked at Louve "There are several smells in the forest. Why–" He stopped and the expression on his face melted as he looked into her eyes. 

They looked at each other with awe, as though they were seeing each other for the first time. Logan could almost feel the current of passion between them. It was almost palpable, like something physical. It was like an invisible rope of synergy was drawing them closer to each other, filling them with an intense desire, until they felt like they couldn't do without each other.

Logan looked from one to the other, wondering what was making them act so lovestruck. Something was definitely up.

"Hey. Hey!" He called, waving his hands in front of their faces. "Earth to Louve, Earth to Casper."

But they barely blinked at his intrusion. They continued to stare at each other as though possessed or hypnotized. Logan considered going inside to call Aella to check them out, but as he wanted to do so, a thought occurred to him and his eyes widened in realisation.

Louve had found her mate. And her mate was Casper, his beta.

Logan didn’t know what to feel. He was happy and angry at the same time. Happy for both his cousin and his beta because they had longed for a mate for as long as he could remember. He wanted them to be happy and knew that they deserved each other. But then he was also angry because he knew that the Goddess was trying really hard to intimidate him into bonding with his mate by making two of his closest friends imprint on each other in his presence.

But then, he considered both of them. They were so much alike that they could complement each other perfectly. Two people with the same energy, personal joy, and zest for life. Two people who thought alike. They matched each other perfectly. Logan knew that the Goddess had created a phenomenal mating.

Then as quickly as it had happened, the two new mates broke out of their temporary spell and looked around, blinking as though coming out of a trance. Logan noticed how their bodies seemed to be inclined to each other. They stood beside each other like twins, as though they had always been joined together. And for a brief moment, Logan felt a pang of jealousy. For the first time in his life, he wished that the relationship between himself and Aella would be this seamless, without the hitches of doubt and duty.

Louve and Capser eyed each other shyly. It was clear that this type of relationship was very alien to them. They had been relatively familiar with each other before as two of Logan's friends, but they had never had a very deep relationship. But now the Goddess had decided to join them together and they were still quite unfamiliar with this new union.

Louve looked up at Logan and smiled apologetically. "Oh, I'm so sorry Logan." She said.

"Yeah, we didn't think it would put you off like that," Casper added nervously.

So quickly, 'I' had turned to 'we', Logan thought. He realised that he still wore an expression of repulsion and quickly checked himself. He forced himself to smile and nodded at them. "It's alright, I wasn't put off." He replied.

"Oh, really? That's a relief." Casper said with an obvious smile. "We didn't plan any of this."

"Nobody does, Casper. Nobody does." Logan answered. Deep down he was happy for the both of them but he could not bring himself to give a genuine smile. He kept thinking about himself and Aella and how their imprinting had been under very different circumstances. 

"I'm happy for the both of you. I really am. And I hope this last." He continued, then left them in the forest, walking back to the pack house.

When he got there, he walked up to his father's room and sat there for a while, thinking about Casper and Louve. Then his mind drifted to Aella and he wondered what she was doing right now. He found himself longing for her and decided to check up on her wellbeing.

He left his father's room and walked over to his own wing. The guards that he had situated beside the door had been dismissed for a while. He tried to open the door, then decided against it. She could be sleeping, or she could be naked.

The image of her naked body came unbidden into his mind and he groaned with desire. He pushed the image away with difficulty and knocked on the door.

He waited for a few seconds for an answer but none came. He knocked again, this time louder, thinking that perhaps she was asleep. But no answer came again. He frowned, thinking that this was so unlike her. He pushed the door and realised that it was open. She hadn't locked it behind her the way she used to. 

He walked in and saw that the room was empty. He looked around, wondering where she was and what she was up to. He walked to the closet and peered inside, but it was empty too. He then walked to the bathroom door and knocked on it. "Aella! Are you in here?" He called, but silence answered him.

Logan pushed the door slowly, expecting Aella to scream at him in shock but the bathroom was empty too. Anxiety sprouted in his heart and for the first time in a long time, he felt fear. 

He walked back to the room and realized how ominous the clean room looked. The bed was neatly laid and the whole room looked spotless. It looked as if nobody had touched anything or slept in it in days. Logan began to get scared. What if his mate had tried to escape again? He couldn't believe that he was this scared of a woman that didn't even give him the time of day. He imagined her running away for the second time and his heart constricted in pain.

Logan walked out of his room as he could not bear the sight of that empty room any longer. He walked back to his father's room and tried to calm his nerves but he couldn't. His mind kept thinking up several scary things that could have happened to her and soon he began to pace the room anxiously.

He decided to leave the room and take a short stroll through the pack gardens, hoping that a bit of nature would calm his frayed nerves. The light breeze from the gardens however did not calm him as his mind kept straying to Aella. he just couldn't stay calm. In the end, he had no choice but to walk back to the room and wait for her, hoping that she would come back.

He didn't know what to do, he had never been this worried about one single human being. His heart ached as he thought that she had escaped from the pack again, and he realized that he was praying silently for her to come back to him.