"What is it?" Ellis asked, glimpsing over his shoulder. He halted and turned around. "Austin?"

People flocked by on either side of him, shooting him and Austin nasty glances and muttering under their breath. He shot them a scorching glare and they cast their gazes down, shuffling onwards quietly.

If Austin had heard him, he gave no indication of it. He was standing inert, his face tilted slightly upwards, searching.

"I must request you to keep walking," a guard said, approaching them and gesturing with stiff movements to the others, who were already trailing up the stairs to the second level.

"Give him a moment," Ellis said.

A tremor surged through Austin and he staggered into movement, snapping the attention of both Ellis and the guard towards him.

"It is strictly prohibited to stray from the group," the guard said. "If your companion has located someone of importance to him, I advise him to remember the cell number and to take it up with the people outside."

"How can he remember the cell number when he hasn't found her yet? We only need a minute." He made sure to give the guard an apologetic smile, but his eyes shimmered in unspoken threat. When it came to fate, he wasn't giving way for anyone.

"I really have to insist –"

"Insist in a minute." Ellis spun around and went in pursuit of Austin, who had wandered to the back of the space and was now standing in front of one of the cells, still utterly oblivious to any and all outside influences. "What's going on?" he asked, more to see if Austin would register his presence rather than because he wanted an answer. With the way Austin was acting, Ellis already knew.

Austin's skin was an ashy white and his hands were trembling, his gaze unceasingly fixed on the cell in front of him – or rather on the wolf within it. An urgent pressure crept up his throat and he released his breath.

Ellis placed a hand on Austin's arm. "Is this her?" 

Austin blinked – slowly, unsurely. He opened his mouth, then snapped it shut again, lightly shaking his head.

In the twilight that shrouded the room, Austin couldn't make out any detail. All he could see was the wolf's form, and two bright, honeycomb eyes glaring back at him. His breath caught in his throat, which was the only thing reminding him to breathe at all. His automatic functions had all shut down and simple tasks like blinking and breathing needed an amount of conscious attention that he was not then capable of providing.

The wolf was huddled in the far right corner of her cell, half hidden behind the low bed stretched alongside the wall. He stepped closer, his body moving without his mind giving the command. A low grumbling sound erupted from the shadowy figure and he stopped.

Some part of his mind that, surprisingly, still functioned told him he should say something, do something, but he just stood there and stared. And the wolf, in turn, only stared at him.

A hand landed on his shoulder and he jumped, reality crashing down on him with a weight that nearly made his knees buckle.

"Austin," Ellis said. Austin's eyes strayed to him for a fleeting second before his gaze was drawn back to the wolf on the other side of the bars. He made a weak gesture in her general direction, hoping that the motion would convey everything he didn't know how to say.

"This is her, then?" Ellis said. "Your mate?"

Your mate. He had a mate. A fated mate.

Ellis waved a hand in front of Austin's face. "Do you hear me?"

"I hear you," Austin said, nodding even though he had no clue what was transpiring. He was drawn to those golden eyes and it was beyond his power to look away. And then there was her smell, that filled his nose and pried its way into his brain, hanging over his thoughts like a heavy fog. Was she feeling what he was feeling? If she was, she did a much better job at masking her emotions.

Ellis grabbed Austin's shoulders and turned him around, so that his back was turned to the cell. "I need you to listen to me."

Austin blinked and raised his eyes to meet Ellis'.

"We need to go outside and talk to the powers that be, yeah?"

"Alright." He didn't move.

"For the Goddess' sake, it hit you hard, didn't it? Come on. The sooner we get this over with, the sooner you can find out who she is." He took a step, his eyebrows raised in silent exhortation for Austin to follow suit, which he didn't. He was looking over his shoulder, eyes pinned to his mate. With a sigh, Ellis grabbed Austin's wrist and dragged him away.

*****

Reappearing outside, Austin blinked rapidly against the bright light. He stumbled at Ellis' brisk pace – or perhaps it wasn't his brother's speed but his legs forgetting how to walk – and craned his neck to look back at the great walls rising around him. There were small, barred windows distributed at even intervals among the dark, dreary stone. Somewhere behind those walls was his mate.

He sniffed the air in vain, unable to catch her scent from this distance. She smelt like honey and flowers, two perfectly ordinary smells, but he had never smelt them quite so ... urgently, so mind-blowingly otherworldly. Now that he was away from her – from her scent, her sight – his other senses slowly started kicking back into life.

"Hold on, brother," Ellis muttered, joining the queue that led to the middle of the courtyard, where the administration took place. "We will sort this out and you will meet your mate before you know it, trust me."

It was meant to assure him, but it didn't have the desired effect. It was precisely the prospect of meeting his mate that had him so distraught. There must have been a reason why she was kept in the most secure section of the prison. Was she a murderess? A half-feral monster on the brink of insanity? Odds were she was a capital offender, but – come to think of it – that might be a good thing. Ellis would never let him reject her on the spot. He would insist on bringing her home and give this – whatever this madness was – a chance. But if she was a dangerous felon, King Alder wouldn't want to release her. Austin would have no choice but to reject her, and no one would blame him for choosing Julie.

"Are you alright?" Ellis asked, studying his brother's face with intense scrutiny – Austin's tight lips, the crease between his brows, the darkening of his eyes that indicated his wolf was close to the forefront. "What does your wolf think of all this? He must be pretty excited."

"Yes. That makes one of us." He sighed. "Don't look at me like that. Your mate was wonderful. An alpha's daughter. Beautiful, intelligent, moralistic to a fault. Mine is in all probability some feral hoodlum."

"Don't judge before you meet her."

"Her circumstances speak for themselves. Don't try to sell me some kind of idea that she's perfect." He caught the look of unrestrained surprise in his brother's gaze and sighed. "What did you expect? I told you I didn't want to find my mate here. Did you think I would change my mind the second I saw her?"

"Yes," Ellis said, with the full conviction of a hopeless romantic. "Finding your mate is –"

"Magical? Yes, so you've told me. May I remind you that you met your mate during a party, under a full moon, and that you danced all night? I met mine in a dark, disgusting prison. Not exactly a romantic set-up."

He had a point, but Ellis avoided giving it to him by shuffling forward as the line progressed a few more steps. "Don't tell me you're going to reject her."

Austin didn't respond. A heavy silence filled the void between them, though it was by no means quiet around them. The courtyard buzzed with life. There were the people waiting in one of the many lines, chatting obnoxiously with their companions; then there were the people being released and the people waiting to embrace them, all with an extravagant amount of emotion; above all, there were the guards shouting their instructions over the amalgam of noises.

"There we go," Ellis said at last.

Behind a long, rectangular table, several administrators were holding court, stacks of papers in front of them, eyes shimmering with the glee of being able to decide over the fate of others. "I'll do the talking."

Austin had expected nothing less and wouldn't have had the presence of mind to know what to say in the first place. Ellis stepped forward to the administrator closest to him – a woman with short, dark hair and a frown so edged into her features it must have been the default position of her face.

Ellis made sure to throw his status into the conversation at his earliest convenience. Being the alpha of one of the largest packs and a particular friend of the crown prince was bound to get him the assistance he required. He wasn't a fan of nepotism, but when it came to matters like these, he would gladly make use of the flaws in the system.

"What was the prisoner's number, Alpha?" the administrator inquired, already leafing through the stack of papers in front of her. Ellis recited the six digit number with ease.

The woman's eyebrows crawled even further down across the bridge of her nose when she found the number in the prison log. "Ah," she said, a smile tugging at the corner of her mouth at the opportunity to squash some dreams. "Though it is true that we release block F prisoners on occasion, I am afraid this one will not be eligible for such an agreement."

A sigh of relief slipped from Austin's lips, which earned him a brief but intense glare from Ellis.

"Surely something can be arranged," he said, turning back to the woman.

She nodded and picked up a piece of paper from another pile. "You can fill in this document, Alpha. It is a request for release. Every request will be reviewed by a council, and depending on the specific prisoner, certain allowances may be made." She paused. "I fear there is little hope for this one, however." She scanned the prisoner log again. "Says here she has a tendency towards violence."

Ellis drew in a deep breath. "So I fill in the document, then what? How long would we have to wait?"

"A few weeks, generally," she said, with a look that said you really needn't bother.

"That is unacceptable." Ellis straightened his back and made sure to radiate his alpha energy. "As it happens, the royal family and I are well acquainted. I'm confident they will give us an audience."

She blinked. "That is not how this works, Alpha."

"I don't care how it works."

"Ellis..." Austin said, hoping his tone would sufficiently convey his protest, because he had no other words to add.

Ellis ignored him. "How about this. Send someone to inquire whether or not the king will be at liberty to receive us anytime today, and if not, I'll do it your way."

The woman's lips stretched into a thin line. She beckoned a guard, gave him a swift, sullen order and watched him hurry off with a look of dismay she didn't bother to hide.

"If you would kindly wait over there," she said, motioning to a spot behind her, where they would be out of the way of people who were actually looking to do things by the book.

Ellis smiled a bit too triumphantly and pulled Austin away from the queue. Ere long, the guard returned.

"The king will see you, Alpha."

_____________

A/N: Next chapter: an audience with King Alder. Any guesses on how that will go?

Thank you for reading!