The Alpha Prince And His Bride
Book 3 The Alpha’s Substitute Bride – Episode 47

~ERMANNO~

The search for my sister was not going well. We’d covered everywhere and still there was no sign of her.

“I still think Maggie has something to do with her disappearance.” Eden said as we barged into another abandoned home.

“If that is the case we have absolutely no idea where Maggie has been in those five years she went missing.” I said as I scanned the building. She couldn’t be in here, it was completely empty and there were no signs of anyone being here for years.

“You’re right.” Austin said. “If Maggie is behind this then we’re still at a loss. It still isn’t a lead for us because we have no idea where to find her.”

Things were becoming really difficult for us and we were running out of time. We had our group searching for her while Austin’s pack as well as James’s pack was out looking at a different location. Then there were all of Hunter’s men spread out for the search on a location he’d sent them too. Yet no one was finding any information that could be helpful to us. No one had seen any signs of her and it was not looking good for us.

It’s almost as though she’d vanished just like Maggie had vanished for those five years without any signs or anyone ever seeing her.

I heard a sudden gasp and I spun around knowing that the sound had come from my sister.

Lucy was bent over and clutching at her stomach. “A-Austin.” She cried.

Austin swung around at hearing her cry for him and his eyes widened at what he saw.

He dropped the map from his hands and rushed to her side before kneeling down beside her. “What is it?” He asked alarmed. “What’s wrong sweetheart?”

She held onto his arms and squinted her eyes in pain. What was happening? Was something going wrong with the baby? This wasn’t the best time for anything like that to happen. We weren’t anywhere near a doctor and I had no idea how to get help for her.

“Should one of us go and find a doctor?” James demanded clearly thinking the same thing that I was thinking.

Lucy shook her head as she slowly straightened her back. “I think it was a false alarm. It was a sharp pain but it’s gone now.”

Austin rubbed his eyes with frustration. He looked like he was about to collapse with worry. “Lucy I told you that we should have kept you home. This is not the place for you to be right now and it’s not safe for you or the baby. You need to rest; the doctor said that you shouldn’t be under any stress.”

Lucy squared her shoulders and looked straight into his eyes. “Isabella is my sister Austin. If anything happens to her I would never be able to forgive myself. I need to be here for her. You would do the same for your siblings. We need to find her and we need to get her back before any serious harm comes to her.”

Austin sighed and gently wrapped one of his arms around her. “Alright. I’m sorry Lucy; I’m just concerned for yours and our baby’s safety.”

“I think we’ve covered everywhere we’re supposed to.” Eden said bringing my attention to her. “I think we should go back home and have a doctor do a check up on Lucy. We can also see why Hunter didn’t join the search. He was supposed to reach us by now.”

I did find that weird. Hunter told us that he would be with us shortly but he never showed up. Hopefully he’d gotten a lead and left some good news for us.

Still, I couldn’t stop the weird feeling inside of me. I kept feeling like something was about to go seriously wrong and I hated whenever I got feelings like this. I would never be the same again if anything happened to Isabella. She was my baby sister; I needed her to be okay.

“You don’t look so well.” Nolan noted next to me as we exited the house.

“I feel like something is terribly wrong.” I admitted. “I think Isabella is in serious trouble and we aren’t getting anywhere with this search. We have so many connections all over and yet they’re useless when we need it the most.”

I wanted to get to my sister, she needed our help, I could feel it.

He touched my shoulder and squeezed on it. “Isabella is strong, she’s proven that to us after everything she’s been through and she did it all by herself without any help from all of us. I think she would get through this as well. We will find her eventually. In the meantime we need to keep our faith in her.”

I sighed. He was right. I needed to be strong for her and keep my faith in her.

We got into the Jeep and followed behind Austin and his family. Hopefully Hunter’s men had a better lead than we had gotten. We could use any sort of help right now.

“Something isn’t right.” Thane said as we neared Hunter’s home.

He was right. I felt it too, I’d been feeling it for a long time now but the feeling was a lot stronger now. From the look on the rest of my brother’s faces, they had felt it as well.

I froze when I heard a loud roar. It was Hunter and it was a roar of anguish and pain. It sounded like he was letting out the pain of losing someone; my throat felt like it was choking me at what that could mean for our sister . . . It couldn’t be.

I jumped out of the Jeep with my brothers’ right behind of me. Lucy and Eden along with Austin and James were ahead of us as we all rushed into the driveway.

My eyes took in the scene in front of me and it took a while for my mind to catch up with everything. There was b***d everywhere and Hunter was holding onto Isabella’s unconscious body as he continued to roar her name over and over again.

My body was hard and cold after looking at the scene over and over again. I was hit with so much shock of seeing my sister unmoving and covered in b***d that I couldn’t move my body for the first time since my existence.

Eden let out a scream and it woke all of us up from the shock of seeing Isabella completely limp and motionless.

“Isabella!” Eden cried as she ran to her. “What happened?” She screamed at Hunter as she dropped to the ground besides them.

James rushed to comfort her while Lucy held onto Austin for support. He spun her around so that she couldn’t see our sister’s bloodied body anymore and she broke down in his arms while pulling at his shirt and screaming Isabella’s name.

I looked around us for signs of anyone else but it was just Hunter here.

So then who did this?

“How did this happen?” I shouted as I tried to make sense of everything. I still couldn’t believe my eyes but I couldn’t deny the fact that there wasn’t a sign of any heartbeat from Isabella.

Hunter didn’t answer and it only made me more hysterical.

“HOW DID THIS HAPPEN?” I roared.

Hunter looked up at me with bloodshot eyes after I’d finally gotten through his barrier. “I-I did it.” He croaked. “I killed her.”

It took me a while to understand his words but when I finally did, my b***d boiled at his confession.

Fire rushed through my veins and I felt like I was directly under the sun and bursting into flames.

He did WHAT?