His Unidentified & Untouchable Mate

A Visit

Zahraa POV

I got a text from Jacob at 3pm saying that he was going to reschedule our ‘date’ tonight. I was fine with that, because shortly after, there was a knock on my door.

I opened it to find Ingrid, who looked frazzled and frightened. “Zahraa, you’re here, thank the goddess,” she exhaled, throwing her arms around me. She looked as though she’d been crying, and smelled as though she’d skipped her after-training shower.

I put my hands on her waist and pulled her back a little. “Ingrid, of course I’m here. What’s this about?”

She staggered into the room, and I shut the door as she plopped down on my couch. “Dad he’s just… he’s just gone and no one knows why or how or where.” She sobbed, and I slid next to her, wrapping an arm around her shoulders. “We just… we woke up this morning and so many people are just gone. I was worried you were too.”

I twisted the golden bangle on my wrist as I wrapped my head around that. “Gone?” I repeated. “What do you mean just gone? People don’t just… go.”

“I know!” she sat up, rubbing the tears from her eyes. I offered her a tissue, and she dabbed at her eyes, before blowing her nose. “I know that,” she said, a little more composed now. “But no one knows where they’ve gone. And no one can link them – it’s like they’re just not in the pack anymore. But we would’ve felt it, had they revoked their loyalties to us. And why would dad just leave?”

Ingrid’s father was a reserved, cold man. I’d always felt like he looked at me through a lens, but he was so outwardly kind to me that I put that behind me. But one thing was clear – he loved Ingrid’s mother. She was his fated mate, and when she brought home gossip about who was cheating on whom, he always condemned cheaters with everything in his heart, spitting at the mere thought that someone could betray the goddess’s greatest gift.

He loved Ingrid, too.

He was at every event; he chaperoned our private school whenever he got the chance. Hell, he’d sent her to a fancy off-pack private school because the curriculum was better for her, and he’d lost so many nights of sleep helping her on last-minute projects.

He simply wasn’t the kind of man that abandons his family at the drop of a hat.

“They’re saying,” Ingrid sniffled, “that they think Alpha Jared took a band of dissenters and is going to make his own pack. Alpha Derick and Jada have been filling in for him at the West Pack, but his absence is too suspicious to overlook.” She took a new tissue and blew her nose again. I got up to move a trash can closer to her, and she continued. “I just don’t get it… it doesn’t make any sense. None of it does. They interviewed me to make sure dad wasn’t acting strangely, but from what I hear, no one has been. Why would they just leave?”

“I don’t know,” I said, lowering my living room trash can next to her so she could drop the soiled tissues. “But wouldn’t your mother feel if something had happened to your father?”

“Maybe,” Ingrid’s voice lowered, “Unless he’s too far away. Or unless the bonds are truly broken, without us feeling it somehow.” Her hands wrung, her knees trembling. “He could be hurt out there… we’d never know.”

“Where’s your mother?” I asked, suddenly. There was nothing I could say to make her feel better – there was no assurance that I could back up. But if her mother was sitting home alone… well, we could all sit in unsurety together.

“Helping Alpha Rowan at the Northern Pack House,” she replied, taking a deep, shaky breath. “They’re trying to make comprehensive lists of the missing.”

And I felt truly small, then.

Today, I would’ve been on shift. I would’ve been working somewhere, doing something. Ingrid would’ve been too.

I looked at her, “You’re not dressed for work. Did they release you today?”

Ingrid looked a little guilty, then shrugged. “Not specifically… but Alpha Rowan ran into me and saw that I was upset and sent me to check on you.”

My heart shouldn’t have fluttered at that, but it did. I tried to ignore the butterflies in my stomach – Ingrid made it easy as she straightened in her seat, wiped her eyes again and took a few steadying breaths. “Okay. Let’s put something on the TV and get caught up on girl talk.”

I nodded, grabbing the remote and knowing any of those dramatic hospital shows would distract her. I was going through the recommendations when she added, “What was that Live about the other night?”

I froze, cleared my throat and played an episode we’d seen a dozen times of a show we’d watched all the way through at least twice. “He thought that would clear up the rumors,” I replied, keeping my eyes glued to the television, as if I hadn’t seen it hundreds of times.

“It certainly got some attention,” she replied.

There was a dense silence, and all I could think about was how Jacob had handled her, how rude he’d been in my own home, and what a slap to the face that must be for Ingrid that I would appear on screen with him after that. “I’m sorry,” I blurted, putting the remote down and giving her my full attention. “I know he was rough with you, and it was wrong, and I feel like I shouldn’t even talk to him after that, but-”

“Don’t worry about it,” she said, too relaxed, too accepting. “He’s your mate. Of course, you’d hear him out.” She smiled at me, and it felt like a gunshot to the gut. “And besides, he had a point. If I’d talked to any of the alphas like that, they’d have me on my knees in seconds. He was actually pretty calm, considering.”

I didn’t think so, I didn’t know how she could think so, but I held my tongue. Wolves were pack creatures; they relished the structure and security of a pack, and they damn near worshipped their leaders. Jacob wasn’t one, but he wasn’t someone to ignore either. And I’d heard so many stories of leadership that abused the position, abused their packs.

A lot of it came from the West Pack, actually – the pack where Alpha Jared usually reigned.

So maybe it was calmer than others might’ve been – but it wasn’t kind. It wasn’t something I wanted any hand in.

I didn’t like it.

But I’d let Jacob solve my problems anyway. Which made me complicit.

I turned my head. “I don’t know about that,” I sighed. I looked back at her sharply when I remembered he’d said he would apologize. “Has he reached out to you at all?” I asked, hopefully.

Ingrid shook her head and replied with a simple, “No.”

The hope that had been rising in my chest died.

If he hadn’t yet, he probably wouldn’t. Not with the pack in crisis mode.

As if she knew where my mind was headed, Ingrid turned her attention to the show, and pointed out her favorite actor, which was acting as a patient. She started rattling off fact after fact, drowning out the thoughts that were threatening to rise up and choke me.

Jacob had said we’d talk after this crisis was settled.

I played with the bangle on my wrist more – an anxious habit I had – as the episode progressed, and hoped it would resolve soon, and peacefully.