She was annoyed at Motif for running off after her talk about Cannival. The truth was, she worried about that silly, beautiful-hearted creature as well. She didn’t know why the lion had left, of where she had gotten to, but it was impossible to tell without her giving them an explanation beforehand. She was sure that she was fine, very few people would mess with a full grown lion.

With a sigh she made her way to Rhyme’s tree, and found her Alpha there, it was dark, and Motif hadn’t come home yet, but Shaye wasn’t worried. “Alright Rhyme, give her up” she teased him as she came to a stop, and looked about him, expecting the small shape of the girl tucked against him. She then came to the realization that Motif’s scent wasn’t here either. But where else would Motif have gone? She fully expected the crafty pup to have gone straight to Rhyme to make the same complaints and see if her father did anything differently. “Motif, motif?” she called, the first edges of worry in her voice.

The day was drawing to a close, Rhyme lay across the den waiting for the kids to appear before him as they did every night. It had been strange without Noir, but the boy was doing well with Odysseus. He was feeling off today, Motif hadn’t appeared for their salamander hunting. Even though he’d told her they would be disappearing for the winter to hibernate and the amount of time left to hunt them was scarce. He figured she had been busy with one of her siblings or Shaye.

His alpha partner’s voice found him and he lifted his head from his paws to look at her as she teased him. ”Who?” he asked curiously, no one was with him besides the ravens right now. It seemed Shaye made a realization and Rhyme watched as her features fell. She called out for their younger daughter, and now Rhyme felt worry. ”Shaye, she’s not been with you all day?” The bottom of his heart fell out as he found his feet. ”When was the last time you saw her?” Dark ears fell to his head as his gaze searched around them like she might appear at any moment. ”Imperia, Solitude.” The ravens heard the panic in his voice and were quickly at attention. ”I know its dark, but I need you to try and search for her.” Bother ravens were gone in a flash, though Rhyme didn’t hold out much hope that they would find anything in the night.

Her heart plummeted, and the true start of fear began to show in Shaye’s eyes. “We had an argument, I thought she went to go win you to her side.” Shaye admitted, trying not to let panic take her. She needed to think logically, where would Motif have gone? She would have said to Canni, except the lion was no longer in her tree. But if not to Canni, then where? “Oh by the gods” Shaye whispered, horror dropping her expression, and she turned to look at Rhyme. “We argued about Cannival going missing, and she was angry at me for not looking for her. You don’t think she would.. No.. she wouldn’t” she tried to convince herself, but she didn’t think she was fooling anyone.

Moving away from Rhyme’s tree, she started at a jog, moving towards the rapids. “Motif!” she called out, no longer caring if she woke others from their slumber. “Motif baby, where are you?”

He didn’t get a time or a place from Shaye as he could feel her start to panic. Rhyme tried to keep himself calm, at least for his partner’s sake. Her mind continued to process as she spoke a little of where she thought Motif might be. The lioness. Rhyme’s brows furrowed as he followed after Shaye. She called out recklessly, heading towards the river. ”When was the last time you saw her?” He asked as he jogged along beside Shaye. ”Where were you?” He continued, icy paws keeping up with her easily. ”If you think she left Abaven we need to see if we can find where she crossed the border, and we’ll need to follow her scent. We should get Odysseus and Noir to help.” Rhyme tried to keep his head, and did his best to plan through their best course of action. Start up a search party, get the whole pack involved if they needed to. Rhyme would leave no stone unturned until he knew where his daughter was.

Rhyme was keeping calm, despite Shaye’s growing frantic nature. He jogged to keep up with her, and well he didn’t exactly shake her and slap some sanity into her, she was still able to pause, out of breath from panic not exertion as she turned to him. “I saw her last night, a couple hours before bed. We had an argument just outside out den, and she stormed off.” she explained to Rhyme. ‘We argued because she wanted Canni, but that lion is gone ” Shaye explained. Hating Canni, just a little in that moment, for disappearing.

“I don’t know what to do” she whispered. She was an Alpha, she wasn’t supposed to feel lost like this. She wasn’t supposed to show it, at any rate. But to Rhyme, and in the midst of her fear, she couldn’t keep it off her face. Her second was already setting a plan, and she took a long, slow breath. “Okay’ she agreed as he took charge.