Telling her did feel like a weight was lifted of his shoulders. He could finally breathe a little.

Seeing Vir every day was a welcome change to my life, especially now that he was a lot more forthcoming about his thoughts and emotions. Him opening up about his past certainly put our relationship in the right direction in that aspect. The physical side of our relationship still had a long way to go.

Right after he told me his story, he was so vulnerable he asked me to hold him quietly for a while. Apparently, Vir's idea of 'a while' was about ten minutes. That was all the comfort he allowed himself before disentangling himself from my arms and sitting up straight again. Since then, we hadn't touched that intimately.

It was three days ago, and honestly, I was yearning for the affection again. The skin on skin contact was heavenly, the electricity between us flowing softly between our bodies. His scent found its way into my nose, and the hug got about ten times more intense. It was so incredibly nice, that I felt addicted to it. Vir did not, I suppose. Though I could not blame him. He had been betrayed by the woman he loved the most, the woman he trusted with his life. I just couldn't hold it against him that he wasn't quick to give his heart to anyone like that again.

However, I did believe that he wasn't as averse to the idea as he was before. I could slowly see him come out of his shell around me. The stuttering got a lot less, thankfully. Even though it was endearing that he was shy around me, that shy probably wasn't healthy. Especially considering I was his soulmate.

Vir was quite compliant in terms of not working. Sure, although he never really complained, I could see on his face that he was anxious to start investigating the chaos again. But he never walked up to the blackboard to start scribbling equations and notes. Instead he spent his days reading the files that I had summarised with Betty – according to him, that didn't count as working because he didn't really need to use his brain cells for that. I hadn't said anything of it, glad that he was quietly working on something that was just boring and not stressful in the slightest.

He did hate that he was put on bedrest, though, which basically meant that he didn't listen. He refused to sit still all day, and was often shuffling around the room, even going as far as going to his office.

But maybe that was because I was there.

I had started looking into the chaotic events over the past few months in a bit more detail. I was trying to find patterns the same way Vir had. Secretly I was hoping he had just missed something that was obvious to me, but so far no luck. To change things up a little, I chatted with Betty every once in a while, and asked what everyone was up to these days. She was finally getting to the digitalisation of old files, as the IT department had developed a secure firewall for all the sensitive data, at last. Volunteering to help her, I took a few boxes from the archives in the basement and brought them to Vir's room, so that he could type everything into a laptop to put into the data files. According to Vir, that was even more boring than reading old files, but considering he was not allowed to do literally anything else, I found him diligently typing in his bed.

Now that his Alpha was doing sort of okay, Daniel had resumed his normal duties as a Beta. He was representing the Alpha at conventions and symposia, and visited some of the meetings with the Board. Besides that, he was frequently meeting up with Rosie, but other than that I wasn't really sure how things were working out between them.

I had no idea where Willow hung out. I assumed she too was busy doing her job, though I still wasn't sure what that consisted of. I supposed she told me during the first introduction and tour around the building, but remembering anything from that day had proven to have failed.

I stared at the large map of the city in front of me, looking at how the roads were intertwining around the block-like centre of the city. With a bright red marker, I had put dots on the massively sized paper to see where incidents had occurred. The scribbled numbers to the side indicated the type of incident, and the date at which it had happened.

So far, all I could see was that the amount of accidents had drastically increased over the past few months. First it had only occurred in one area of the city, where a lot of pack members resided. There, it were mostly fights and overall aggressive people. Around the time I got to the Pack of Intelligence, the chaotic events had spread to the outer ring of the centre itself, with small stores and boutiques going bankrupt, robberies taking place and car accidents happening more often than was normal. Since a few weeks it was really getting out of hand, with the shooting incident at Sapientiae Headquarters, large companies making losses, and a strange power outage at the local hospital.

I shot up when I heard a loud rumble, followed by the sound of Vir cussing loudly. Quickly I moved to the adjacent bedroom, where I saw Vir comically hopping around on one foot. Next to him, a heavy box full of files, books and other things lay on the floor. Grinning with an undertone of worry, I walked over to him. "You okay?" I asked, as I put my hand on his arm.

Vir flushed red. "Yes," he mumbled sheepishly. "I dropped the box."

I smirked teasingly. "I can see that. Never knew Alpha's were so clumsy..." I trailed off, only for Vir to call out indignantly. "I'm not clumsy."

I put back some files in the box and carried it over to the bed, where I elegantly set it down on the soft duvet. Because of the weight of the carton container, the bed dipped significantly on one side, as if a person was sitting on it. "No? Well the box is not that heavy, so I'm sure it's not the lack of muscles right?" I winked and laughed when I saw Vir looking away from me, embarrassed.

I started picking things out of the box. Some old files on agriculture, notes about meetings with the Board, and... "Ooohh, what is this?" I held up a mysterious DVD case.

Vir shrugged. "No idea."

Opening the zipper and flipping through the different plastic holders, I saw that the entire case was empty but one single DVD. With black fine liner, someone had written on it with a scribbly handwriting that was almost impossible to read.

Well, at least for me.

"Alpha t-t-ri-om-ph?" I held the DVD close to my face so I could read it better. "Whoever wrote this clearly has to go back to primary school, because writing is clearly not their forte."

With small steps, Vir shyly walked over to me, wearing his most comfy outfit – honestly, that could be the only reason why one would wear such ugly pants and vests right? "Alpha Trials" he said immediately after taking the DVD from me.

I looked at him incredulously, amazed that he was able to decipher that so fast. "It's Willow's handwriting," Vir said with a small smile. "She can be uncharacteristically sentimental sometimes. I suppose it contains recordings of my Alpha Trials a few years ago. Usually it is turned into a TV-show for packs around the continent, so it is probably mostly interviews and 'getting to know the candidates' kind of stuff."

My face lit up. "Oh I remember that! I think I saw a bit of it in the Fortis Pack." I cringed, remembering that I thought it would be incredibly boring after three minutes, so I switched the canal. "But we watched something else that night in the end, so I missed most of it." That was only partly lied. "Maybe we can watch it now?"

"No," Vir said shortly. "We have work to do."

I pouted, something that probably didn't look too cute, but maybe it would work on Vir. "Ahw please? It would be fun to see the you of a few years ago. And besides, we have worked enough for now. Sometimes you need to let yourself rest a bit or your brain will fry." I gave him a pointed look at my last words. Vir winced, but conceded. "Alright then."

Yhea that was probably a low blow. But at least I got my way.