Chapter 223

Theodore’s POV

I tilted my head to the side as I considered the swatches Violet held out for me. “Do we have any options that are more… cheerful?”

Violet flipped the swatches around to examine them herself. “Blue is meant to be calming. It’s the perfect color for the place we sleep.”

I smirked at my mate naughtily. “Sleeping isn’t the only thing we do in our bedroom, and the activity I’m thinking of is certainly not a calming one.”

She rolled her eyes but smiled. “My King would have us paint our bedroom walls Randy Red instead of Serene Cerulean.”

A knock sounded on our door, and Violet invited the knocker in.

“Are you sure those are blue?” I asked my wife, eyeing the swatches as we noted Sophia entering our bedroom, tablet in hand. “They look awfully grey.”

Violet swatted my shoulder playfully with the swatches, and I laughed. “This conversation isn’t over,” she muttered.

Sophia didn’t even seem to notice our bickering as she stepped into the room, eyes glued to her tablet. “You called for me?”

“Yes,” Violet answered. “We’d like to put you in charge of a research committee.”

Sophia finally looked up from her screen. She wasn’t usually so distracted, and I worried that we were overwhelming her with work. Once she looked up though, her eyes darted straight for our foreheads.

I supposed we weren’t the only ones having trouble getting used to how bare they were these days.

Sophia refocused on Violet. “A research committee?”

“Yes,” our High Queen answered. “To find a way to undo the fake mate bond Owen cast upon us.”

Sophia raised her eyebrows, attention returning to her tablet. “Yes, of course.”

She scrolled through her screen and began typing one-handed. “I imagine that would be a high priority task.”

“Yes,” I added, “though I believe every task we’ve given you has been deemed high priority. If you need assistance prioritizing, please let us know. And for this research committee, please feel free to delegate the task as you see fit.”

Violet watched me with a proud gaze. You’ve sure come a long way in your relationship with her since I first met you when you treated her like she was worthless, she said into my mind.

You make me a better werewolf, I replied.

Violet smiled, turning back to Sophia. “The main thing is that we want as many minds on this as the country can spare without taking away from any territory’s basic needs. Contact scholars, archivists, historians, librarians – anyone and everyone to put together the right team.”

“Or,” I added, “pass those directions on to whomever you delegate this task to.” Violet nodded in agreement.

Now that the whole country knew we were plagued with this fake mate bond, we didn’t need to be secretive about researching how to undo it. That freedom significantly opened up our available resources.

“Research committee to undo fake mate bond spell,” Sophia read as she typed it onto what I presumed to be her to-do list. “Got it. Anything else?”

“Before that, since this will be a much shorter and easier to accomplish task, please see to it that Mel Rimanea gets added to the Royal Map.”

Sophia typed that up, too.

“Alpha!” Dahlia stopped herself on her way to rush past our room. “I mean, my King.”

Yeah, we were all still getting used to that, too.

“Why aren’t you in a carriage on your way to wherever you and Kincaid are headed for your honeymoon?” my wife chided in a tone I knew not to mess with as Dahlia stepped into our room next to Sophia.

“Because,” Dahlia assumed her typical stance, feet shoulder width apart, and hands folded in front of her, “Abigail reached out to me,” she said as she locked eyes with me.

“Everything okay at the settlement?” I asked.

Dahlia nodded. “She received word from their people helping the construction crews in Mel Rimanea: houses are getting finished. Nowhere near all of them, but enough that we could start moving people out of the settlement as residences become available.”

I nodded. “Do it. The most vulnerable residents get moved first, followed by the longest residents in the settlement.”

Dahlia nodded, grinning.

“It’s happening.” She looked between me and my wife, and I realized she was proud. “You two did it; you made the Shelter Project a reality.”

I smiled, moved that she was as excited about this as I was. “We all did,” I corrected, nodding to include her and Sophia. Sophia even looked up from her screen long enough to smile with us.

“Excellent,” Violet said. “Now tell Abigail that Sophia is her royal point of contact for the next one to three weeks and get going!”

“What about—”

“Colby and Sinclair will take care of us while you two are gone.”

“But—”

“Dahlia Roselba Nichols!” Violet warned. I only blinked.

I hadn’t known Dahlia’s middle name until that moment.

“Thank you,” Dahlia breathed, then she disappeared out our bedroom door.

“Roselba’s pretty,” I murmured.

“It’s not her real middle name,” Violet admitted, and I cocked my head at her quizzically. “I just made one up to get my point across.”

I couldn’t help my laughter. Even Sophia chuckled. Apparently, I still didn’t know Dahlia’s middle name.

“Oh,” Sophia swiped along her tablet as she spoke, “you two wanted to know when the Rogue Finder website was up and running.” She turned her tablet around to show us the completed site. Violet and I neared each other to look at it together.

“This is the user side,” Sophia explained. “Pack members wanting to reconnect with a rogue werewolf can search for the rogue here. It works similarly to reconnecting with children given up for adoption, where they can send a message through our portal informing the rogue who wants to connect with them, and the rogue can accept or deny the connection on their end.”

My heart swelled at the intuitive-to-use site as Sophia gave us the tour.

“This avoids people with a score to settle having direct access to rogues. We’re still beta-testing the inverse search feature where rogues can search for loved ones who are still part of a pack, but that should be up and running by the end of next week.”

Sophia clicked a few buttons.

“And here’s the admin side of the site where we can monitor connections if need be. Oh, look! We already have someone who requested a connection.”

The name of the requestor caught my attention. “Meckles,” I said out loud. “I’m so terrible with names.”

I turned to my wife who always knew everyone’s names. Her eyes were already wide as she stared at the screen. “Why does Meckles sound familiar to me?” I asked.

“Riley Meckles,” she said.

In a flash, Riley’s entire story ran through my mind. His traitorous parents. His Aunt Crystal who had died despite Riley’s efforts to help her escape.

The last living relative he cared about: Aunt Trish.

That name, I remembered.

I returned my gaze to the screen, the requestor’s name blaring back at me: Patricia Meckles.

Violet and I exchanged a glance, and I said, “We need to find Riley. Now.”