Chaos, that was what she brought to him. A beautiful, intriguing chaos, yes, but disorder nonetheless.

***

He didn't seem surprised I came barging into his office unwanted. This caught me slightly off guard, crumbling my confidence that I had every right to be here. 

"I apologize for not coming for lunch, Livia. I was held back, a couple of things came up that require my immediate personal attention. Therefore I don't have time to spend with you at the moment, my work is too important right now." He was very calm and collected as he spoke, which enraged me to no end. How dared he just not care that he couldn't see me due to some silly paperwork! Clenching my hands into fists, I stretched my arms down my sides.

"Vir, we are soulmates," I said, my voice trembling. "We are supposed to be seeing each other often in order not to suffer from the mate-loss syndrome. Don't tell me you didn't feel the pull? That you didn't feel the urge to see me?" My voice almost broke at the end, but I managed to keep it steady. 

Vir didn't react, he just looked at me with calm, calculating eyes. I stood there, breathing heavily, looking at him expectantly. "Well?" I asked again. It was hard to stay angry around him, even when he was being annoying. His presence alone calmed me down enough to let go of my anger. My fists unclenched and I crossed my arms.

Vir sighed softly, pulling his hand through his hair and then pushing up the glasses on his nose. "Maybe," he said, seemingly thinking deeply. "Maybe I know a way we can spend some time together right now." He didn't answer my previous questions, but these were long forgotten as soon as I heard what he said. I don't know how I didn't care about that, I don't know why my body reacted so badly to anything he said. Well, it didn't react badly per se, but the fluttering of my heart could count as slightly annoying when I wanted to stay mad at him.

Which was now impossible anyway.

"How?" I asked quietly, stepping forward to sit down on the other side of the desk.

"Well," he started, leaning back in his chair, putting his elbows on the armrests. "I have gotten some documents from the Fortis pack on finances, land quarrels and prisoner counts. As you are a native Fortis pack member, you might know more about this. Can you verify them, summarize everything and report back to me? In the meantime, I have other classified documents to go through, but this way we can still be close together. Does that work for you?"

It sounded as if he was asking, but in the end it didn't seem like a question at all. The Alpha vibe around him made it very hard to decline, even though I didn't really want to. I mean, I could be close to my mate for the duration of a couple of hours. That I probably wouldn't be a big help might blow my cover even more, but I couldn't resist this opportunity. I would figure something out on the way.

"Sure," I smiled broadly and stood up again, taking the chair to the other side of the desk to sit next to him. If I had to work while spending time with him, I would work as close to him as possible.

As soon as I sat down, my arm brushing his – yes, that was how close we were when I sat down – he blushed and started stuttering. "Wh-what are y-you do-doing?"

I smiled, this was how I knew Vir. Awkward and flushed when we were in close proximity to each other. "I'm sitting next to you while we work. So, what documents to I need to read?"

"U-uhm, uhm, you uhm, can do – w-wait, I'll go get it f-for you." He stood up quicker than I thought possible, and he practically ran to the other side of his office, breathing heavily. He had his back turned to me, but his shoulders were hunched and his head hung low as he searched for some documents in a large chest that seemed, for as far as I could see, very organised. It didn't take long for him to find the papers, but I think that he took a bit of extra time, rumbling through the different carton cases, pretending that he hadn't found everything yet. 

When he finally turned around to walk back to me, his hands were shaking and his head was blazing red. "Uhm, well here you go," he said with a tight voice. It was clear that he could only recollect himself up to some level when standing alone at the closet. "Just, read through it. You can make notes to summarize all the important matters that are discussed in the file. I can then later briefly discuss the validity of the information, and in the end that will save me a lot of work. 1.0 cm lined paper can be found in the middle drawer on your right. You can use this blue pen to write down your notes. All clear?" 

While talking, he had somehow managed to sit down and slide his chair a bit further away from me. My heart ached lightly at his haste to get away from me as fast as possible, but as I needed to concentrate as well, I just let it go.

Sighing deeply, I took the first paper of the first document in my hand. Chewing on the tip of the ballpoint pen, I tried to read and understand what was talked about in the article.

It was impossible.

No matter how often I read a certain sentence, I couldn't make up what it said. Even if the words didn't dance in front of my eyes, if the individual letters weren't moving around the word every second I looked at the document, even then I wasn't able to conclude or deduce anything.

So after ten minutes of mindlessly grunting, sighing and chewing on that ballpoint pen, there were no notes on the paper and I was still trying to read the first paragraph.

I knew that maybe I should've just written something down, but sitting next to the Alpha of Intelligence prevented me from doing anything that stupid. He would've known if I had just made everything up. I had to at least try my very best to read everything in that document, even if it would take me the better part of the day.

However, half an hour later I hadn't even finished one half of the first page, even though I had made some notes already.

"You aren't progressing very quickly," Vir noted.

I sighed. "Yeah... I know."

"How come?" He asks with the most neutral face a person could come up with.

"I have a light form of dyslexia," I made up. Well, I didn't make it up completely, because I did have dyslexia. Just not a light form. I had hardcore dyslexia, the I-don't-know-how-to-read-long-words-dyslexia. And somehow, this document was full of long, difficult words. "I didn't sleep well last night, and I'm also kind of hungry, and then I have more trouble reading. Usually it's fine, but now I just can't manage." 

This part was made up entirely. With me, it isn't worse in certain conditions, it is just always bad. I'm sure I would be able to read normally if I had actually tried to learn how to read properly, but my teachers in Fortis gave up on me quickly and just gave me oral exams, or let me pass with a mere 5 out of 10.

"Oh that explains something," Vir muses, the hint of a smirk on his face. "I will get you something to eat in a minute to still your hunger. Although, your confession does make new questions arise. How on earth were you able to learn so much so quickly for the intelligence competition in the Fortis pack?"