The Alpha King and His Mysterious Mate

The mysterious disappearance

[ Jacob's pov ]

Emmet came running into my room at what I thought was noon. Once in my life, I decided to oversleep and take some much-needed rest. After yesterday's mate fiasco I certainly deserved that, but my brother had to rush in to wake me up. It has been days since the last time I saw her face in my dreams. This girl with her fair skin, brown hair and green eyes with a little of gold around the iris is my heaven and she haunts my dreams. I am so desperate to touch her, but every time I try to keep up, no matter how fast I run, I still cannot catch up. I can only see her from afar, but maybe one day.. I want to stay with her for a little longer, but my brother keeps on shaking me.

"- Jacob wake up! Wake up!" I heard Emmet shout. Straight away, I tried muting his irritating voice by placing a pillow over my head with one hand, while trying with the other to push him away. I literally wanted to kill him for bothering me until my mind registered what he was saying.

Did he just say he thinks our parents are missing? Huh? I just talked to them yesterday. That can't be, I thought. However I decided to investigate his statement, since I got the feeling that my 12-year-old brother wouldn't let me get back to sleep. Wouldn't let me get back to her.

I quickly put on some shorts and went down to the kitchen. I could sense immediately that something was off. The whole pack was already in panic mode.

"- What is going on?" I asked my father's beta, Alarick, as he was shouting something at the guards.

As Alarick turned to face me. I could see the worry in his eyes. His hair always neatly combed, was now a complete mess and his eyes bloodshot like he hadn't slept for weeks. It is like he got 10 years older in one day. Now I am definitely worried. Can it be true? Are my parents actually missing?

I could see he was struggling. He didn't know how to address the issue. His mouth kept on opening and closing, but no words were coming out. If what I suspect is true, I don't blame him. How can you tell a child that his parents are missing? No matter the age, it is still one hell of a conversation. That is why I decided to make it easy for him and initiate the conversation by asking the question that has been eating me alive.

"- Alarick, are my parents OK? Where are they?" I looked at him while peeking right and left now and then, hoping to see them entering the kitchen. I heard his heart racing like crazy, despite the fact that he was not taking a single breath. OK, that is definitely not a good sign! Seconds later, as Alarick regained his composure, I heard the dreadful words I already expected.

"- Jacob, to be honest, I don't know, nobody knows. Come sit and I will share with you all the information I have" he told me, while he motioned for me to sit at the kitchen island. He closed his eyes and sighed. When he opened them again, all I could see was pain and worry for his best friend, my father. "Before they went to check on you last night, your father told me to go wait for him in his office so I could give him the security brief about any issues that happened during the event. He wanted to double-check on that hunch of yours and make sure everything went smoothly with no slippages."

As he was about to continue, my best friend and Alarick's son, Adam, came rushing in. After giving a nod to acknowledge his father, he blurted out.

"- Dude, I am so sorry, I just heard your parents are missing. I didn't know. I had just got back to the packhouse from our cabin where I was doing some training."

Adam and I shared a cabin in the woods, not for the reason you would think. It was a quiet place for me and my best friend to spend some quality time together without getting disturbed every few minutes due to pack duties we had to complete. Not only that, but I sometimes needed a space to let my wolf free without my dominant alpha pheromones scaring the crap out of everyone and, well, Adam needed a place to get laid without drama or gossip. In fact, "doing some training" was his code word in front of others to let me know he was getting laid.

"- If I had known, I would have been here earlier" he apologized. Deep regret was evident in his eyes. So much that, if I didn't know my friend any better, I would say he was not going to visit that cabin for a while, to not miss anything important again. But again, my friend has two heads and the lower one is constantly winning. Realizing that this was not the time to think about my friend's s*x addiction, I quickly replied to him that I had just got there myself and that his father had started giving me a brief of the situation not long ago. I motioned for him to sit and turned to Alarick, prompting him to continue.

"- Right" he cleared his throat "as I was saying, your dad wanted to check that our security was tight after the event and a report of everything that happened during the party. So I gathered all the data from all the posts, prepared the report and went to wait for him in his office with some time to spare. We gave a meeting one and a half hours after our conversation and you know your dad, he is never late. Even the very, very rare times that he couldn't make it, because of some unforeseen disaster, he would always send a note way before the meeting's time. Therefore, I started feeling uneasy. Against my better judgment, I pushed those thoughts aside, because I knew you had an important conversation to finish. At that moment, I chose to wait for a little longer. After another hour had passed and he still did not make an appearance, I went to your quarters. The guards told me that Robert and Gabriella had already left and you had retired for the day.

Next, I went to check their wing, and there was no sign of them either. I asked the omega who was tending to their quarters if she had seen them. Veronice replied that the last time she saw them was when they entered the room. They informed her that she would not be needed for the rest of the evening. The omega also remembered that Robert mentioned that he was going to meet me and that was way before the agreed time.

I went to the guards in charge of their security and the wing and they said nobody came out of their quarters after the housekeeper left. There was no commotion or any sign of distress in their room. It was neat and tidy with no signs of struggle. It is like they disappeared into thin air, Jacob.

I kept on investigating quietly, the whole night in hopes they would return. There were no signs of struggle so I was hopeful, and I realize now, I may have wasted precious time" he passed his hand through his hair in frustration and sighed.

"- I am such a fool and I will accept any punishment you deem fit. With your parents still missing at dawn, everyone was a suspect. I interrogated Veronica, but she was clean and with an alibi. So was everyone else who had access to your parents after they left your place. Everyone is loyal to the pack and the security cameras in the halls show that your parents never left their wing. That is all I know."

Alarick lowered his head and I could see that he was ashamed. Ashamed of not being able to protect his Alpha and Luna, his best friends, ashamed he wasted precious time. The worry, the anger, the fear, all the emotions were written on his sleepless face, drained of any signs of life.

It took me a minute or two, but I managed to pull myself together and speak.

"- Alarick, this is not your fault, I need you to understand that. I would probably have done the same if I were you and if we were to play the blaming game here, we should blame me. I knew something was off even before the event. I had a gut feeling and it had never let me down before, but I ignored it. I should have done more and maybe, just maybe, my parents would still be here" I sighed, disappointed with myself. "There won't be any action taken against you" I continued. "You have served your pack well. Now excuse me" I said as I stood up and looked at both of them "I need a minute. I will be in my office and I will call you when I am ready."

Werewolves are supposed to have superior hearing, yet I didn't seem to hear whatever they said to me next, in their failed attempt to make me stay. I swear I ran as fast as lightning into my office and locked myself in. Whatever happened next was a blur. I don't remember much except that I must have had a meltdown. There was staff flying everywhere at some point, glass shattered on the floor and apparently, instead of one big desk, now I had two smaller ones. This I can figure out from the mess I saw in my office, after I came back to my senses. Although how I managed to break a giant hardwood office desk is still a mystery to me.

OK, Jacob, you cannot do this again. Now the whole pack is your responsibility and you have to take care of your brothers. They must be terrified. You are an alpha, a royal alpha for that matter, pull your f****** self together.

At that time, I swear something just clicked inside me. All the emotions were gone, my mind cleared and a plan started to come to life. I sat on the floor of my what seemed like an earthquake-shattered office, gathered any blank paper I could find and started writing down a plan.

The sun had already set when I came out. I had a lot of duties to take care of, but not before I spoke to my brothers...