Oops! Still Your Mate

Chapter Thirty Two

Lucas was humming a tone to himself, going about his work, checking reports before bringing them to Zeke in his small office when the door was pushed open.

He waited patiently for the footsteps to follow and when he heard no footstep, he raised his head to glance at the door way when he saw her. Tessa. He blinked twice, thinking his eyes were deceiving him for a moment because the Tessa he was seeing now wasn't the Tessa he knew.

The Tessa he knew was composed. Sharp-tongued and steady in the particular way that reminded him of Ivy on the days Ivy was being serious rather than performatively unbothered. The Tessa he knew met every situation with a raised eyebrow and a cutting remark and an expression that said she had seen worse and found it unimpressive. She was one of the most internally settled people he had encountered in the pack, which was part of what had drawn his attention to her in the first place — that quality of someone who knew exactly where they stood and didn't need anyone else to confirm it.

The person in his doorway looked like she had been running. Her hair hung loose and disheveled across her face, strands sticking to her cheeks. Her mouth was slightly parted as she pulled in unsteady breaths. Her eyes were wide and bright with unshed tears and something underneath the tears that it took him a moment to identify because he had never seen it on her face before.

Fear. Tessa was afraid.

“Tessa,” he called softly and dropped the documents in his hands without looking at where they landed and crossed the room to her. When he reached her he didn't ask questions — he just put his arms around her and felt her shaking under his touch, fine tremors running through her whole body like she had been holding herself together through sheer will and his presence had given her permission to stop.

He led her in. Closed the door behind them. Guided her to the couch and sat her down, then went to his small side table and poured a glass of water and brought it back. She took it with both hands and drank deeply, still holding the glass afterward because she didn't seem to know what else to do with her hands or her body.

Lucas sat beside her. He kept one arm around her shoulders — not intrusively, just present, steady. "Talk to me, Tessa. What's wrong?"

She looked at him. The word came out like something she had been holding in her throat since she left wherever she came from.

“Ivy.” That was the only word Tessa's lips could produce and a stray drop of tear walked down her face. Lucas's face changed instantly, the gravity of the situation dawning on him.

“What's wrong with ivy?” He asked.

“I don't know.” Tessa whispered. “I don't know where she is. I've checked everywhere. She didn't come for breakfast earlier this morning and I didn't even think much about it, maybe she went to eat with the pups but I wanted to tell her something and then I went to the clinic and she wasn't there. The doctors said she hadn't even been there since morning. She isn't at her grandma's place, she's not at her room, but the bed is made but there's no note, no sign of where she went to.” She explained in a hurry.

“Maybe she's with Zeke.” He said even though he highly doubt that.

“She isn't. That I am sure of.” Tessa replied. “She had been acting weird for some time now and I failed to notice quickly or do anything about it, I thought maybe she was just stressed.” Tessa sniffed.

“Don't blame yourself. She would be just fine, don't panic.” Lucas said.

Tessa's eyes widened almost immediately. “Enid. She should know ivy's whereabouts. Maybe she was the one that…” Tessa was saying.

“Tessa.” Lucas called. “Enid knows nothing and if she even does, she won't tell you. No one must know ivy is missing. Be discreet about this.” He instructed and tessa nodded.

“Do you know how long she might have been missing?” He asked.

Tessa shook her head and her face fell again. “i have no idea. She had been keeping away from me from days now and I haven't checked up on her since yesterday morning.” She sobbed quietly. She goes quiet immediately, quickly realizing that ivy might have been gone since yesterday and no one knew. Or maybe she left last night or at dawn.

Lucas stood up and she followed after him immediately. His mind was moving fast and he let it — running through options, discarding the ones that were too slow or too visible or too dependent on information he didn't have. Sending scouts immediately felt right but to where? On what intelligence? He had no starting point, no direction, nothing to work from except the absence of a person and the absence of a note.He turned to Tessa.

"Go back to her room," he said. "Go now, before anyone else is in that corridor. Look for anything — a note, a letter, anything she left behind intentionally or otherwise. Check under the mattress. Check the wall above her bed where she pins things. Check her desk. Look for anything that seems placed rather than left, anything that feels like it was meant to be found." He paused. "Don't tell anyone. Don't stop to talk to anyone on the way. Go directly and come back to me."

Tessa was already standing. She wiped the remaining dampness from her face with the back of her hand in a single efficient gesture and straightened her hair and by the time she reached the door she looked almost like herself — almost. Lucas knew the difference now. He suspected he would always know the difference now.

She left.

Lucas stood in the empty office for a moment, the morning reports scattered on the floor where he had dropped them, the border patrol irregularity in the eastern rotation entirely forgotten. He paced once — just once, just to give the urgency somewhere to go — and then stopped.

There was only one person who could make something out of nothing on no information and no sleep and a fever that was eating him alive. Only one person whose instincts Lucas trusted above his own in a crisis.

The same person who, if his suspicion about what this was turned out to be correct, was going to make this office feel very small very quickly.

Lucas moved fast down the corridor toward Zeke's chambers. He didn't knock. He pushed the door open and stepped inside and his voice came out louder than he intended because the urgency had been sitting in his chest since the moment Tessa appeared in his doorway and it needed somewhere to go.

"Zeke!"