Chapter 70

Lorenzo sat on the bench seat overlooking Arla’s garden, with his head in his hands. The once vibrant and beautiful garden was now mostly shriveled and dying. Withering in the same manner he felt inside his chest. 

Felix came by every few days to tend it as best he could, and the packhouse gardeners helped, but without Arla’s magic touch, it failed to flourish as it once had. 

He felt her loss more and more each day, and now the day he’d been waiting for, five and a half years in the making, was finally here…and he was miserable. Her eighteenth birthday. She was supposed to be here with him. He’d had it planned out in his head for years. This was the day she would finally call him mate. 

Instead, he was alone, not knowing where she was. He didn’t know if she was safe, or if she was even alive. He f