Filed To Story: Destined Bond with My Forbidden Alpha Novel (Alpha Alexander & Selene)
“Open it,” Alexander commanded.
“You really think he’s in there?” Axel asked.
“Guess we’ll find out,” Alexander replied.
As the door finally gave way, groaning as it pulled away from its seal, they were all pushed back by the putrid smell that came from the sealed room.
“What the fuck is that!” the scout cried out as he covered his nose and mouth.
Axel covered his nose, but he immediately recognized the smell from the pyres he had witnessed for Eclipsed.
He looked past the scout, who was barely holding back his puke. The room behind him was small and black. Scorched from the excessive heat of an explosion within the room itself.
But at the center of the blast, a body was sitting in a chair, charred beyond recognition.
“Our Luna may not have killed him, but it looks like he got his just desserts in the end,” the scout said as he spotted the remains.
“It does appear that way,” Alexander replied quietly, noticing a strange expression on Axel’s face. “What’s wrong?”
“That’s way hotter than it was out here,” Axel said.
Alexander nodded.
“That was an explosion,” he said. “He’s sitting at the center, probably used a lighter. The room would have had its own source of oxygen.”
Axel furrowed his brows and looked at Alexander.
“You think he did this to himself?” Axel asked.
“He had to,” Alexander replied. “No one else could have lit the spark and had the time to seal the door.”
Axel shook his head.
“Everything I know about Holden, everything that Alice has said… he would never do it, not by choice.”
“Then how do you explain it?”
“I don’t know what happened, but it wasn’t his decision. And while I am glad to see him gone, I can’t help but wonder, who would be able to get that man to do this to himself.”
A deep sense of dread flowed between the two men, but one they didn’t have a chance to explore as a message came across the radio.
An urgent message for Axel to return to the hospital.
***
He came barreling down the hall toward her room. His body slammed into the door as he struggled to turn the handle and open it. When it finally gave way, he pushed inside, looking to the bed.
“Alice!” he cried out.
Still groggy, she blinked slowly and focused her eyes on him.
“Uh oh,” she whispered weakly but still somehow playfully. “You came all the way here for lil ol’ me? Am I in trouble?”
Axel let out a deep sigh and a laugh. He stepped toward her slowly, fearing it was a dream he could wake from at any moment.
Alice lifted her hand to him. He grinned and took it. Then, he leaned forward, touching his head to hers.
“So much trouble,” he whispered.
After she had woken up, Axel and Alice barely had a moment alone together as the doctors were amazed by how quickly Alice was recovering. They ran test after test to ensure that her healing was working and that there were no surprises.
Only one day after Bell’s blood had been introduced into her system and she was already almost entirely healed.
But it was clear to Axel that while she was not complaining or refusing any treatment or test, she was deeply uncomfortable in the hospital.
Selene had told him about the first lab they had stopped in on their adventure, about the room that had belonged to Alice.
Doctors and scientists, he couldn’t imagine she had a good impression of either profession.
Axel asked that she be released from the hospital as soon as he got the chance. They would stay for a few days in Summer and do any follow-up testing required, but he wanted her to have some peace.
The doctor quickly agreed that it would be alright for her to move out of the hospital and into the guest room that Selene had arranged for Axel.
Once they arrived in their room, Axel did not hesitate to pull her into his arms and hold her as though she would disappear.
Alice laughed and turned around in his arms. She kissed him and smiled.
“I’m sorry,” she said softly.
“Oh?” he asked with a playful tone. “For what, exactly.”
The smile on his face was playful, but she knew that he was actually very upset with her.
“I really was planning on getting a scan,” she said, running her hands from his shoulders down to his elbows. “But I had a suspicion about what they would find.”
Axel clenched his jaw.
Lesions on her brain. The doctor had said they would need to do another scan the following day to see if there was any improvement. But they suspected there would be no change.
“I needed to make sure those children were safe,” she continued. “I was afraid that if I found out something was wrong with my brain, I wouldn’t have the confidence to return to that place.”
The cause of the lesions was prolonged exposure to the Bitter Night. All the years she had spent trapped in that lab, being experimented on, and erased. The injections, teas, mists, and whatever else they tried on her for the ‘best’ delivery system.
The thought made him sick. He could hardly imagine how she must have felt returning of her own free will.
Axel nodded. “I can sort of understand that.”
Alice waited, but he said nothing more. She took a deep breath.
“It’s alright for you to be angry,” Alice smiled. “I didn’t tell you where I was going, or what I was planning. I put your sister’s life in danger, made you come all the way here, and then Bell had to give me her blood.”
Axel clenched his jaw.
“Go ahead,” Alice said, looking up at him. “Let it out.”
Axel averted his gaze and then pulled away from her. Alice watched him, turning to follow him. He sat down on a small couch, leaning forward with his elbow on his knees, and sighed.
“I’m not your keeper, Alice. You don’t need my permission to go somewhere or tell me everything you plan to do that day. Would I like to know that you are entering into a dangerous situation? Yes, of course. But I am your mate, not your handler.”
Alice looked away.
“My sister?” he laughed. “She puts her life in danger all the time. It’s practically a sport for her.”
He took a deep breath.
“Selene and Bell make their own choices, whether following you into a burning building or donating their blood to you. It’s their choice. You are not responsible for their choices.”
Alice swallowed, glancing back at him.
“As far as my coming here…” he sighed. “Alice, I would go anywhere that you are. I honestly don’t know how to make that any clearer to you.”
Alice could hear the exhaustion in his voice, and she wondered how much sleep he had had in the past few days. She knew that last night he had stayed awake with her most of the night. Yet, after she woke, he was still by her side.
“Then you’re not angry?” she asked, already knowing the answer.
Axel clenched his jaw and closed his eyes.
“I am angry, Alice,” he said quietly, nodding his head as he spoke. “I am… really… angry.”
Alice swallowed and licked her lips. Then, she moved forward, squeezing by his leg and sitting on the coffee table, placing her own legs between his.
Axel lowered his head, but his hands naturally fell to rest on her legs, his thumbs gently rubbing against her knee.
“Tell me,” she whispered. “I can take it.”
“You forgot yourself,” he said.
“What?” she asked.
Axel lifted his face to look at her. Alice felt a tight grip in her chest as their eyes met, and she saw not anger but pain.
He licked his lips.
“You apologized for endangering my sister and Bell to an extent and for ‘inconveniencing’ me,” he said. “But you didn’t mention yourself. You didn’t say anything about endangering yourself.”
Alice lowered her gaze.
“You apologized for not telling me where or what you were doing but not for planning to go on a suicide mission.”
His voice was quiet and low. It was miserable but laced with soft anger.
“Axel, I”
“You were dying, Alice…” he whispered. “I felt you… dying.”
Alice took a shaky breath and felt the grief that flowed through their bond.
“You were supposed to be getting a scan, and then suddenly there was pain and weakness, and I felt you… slipping away,” his voice cracked, and he lowered his head. “I thought….”
New Book: Veiled Desires of the Alpha King Novel
Dayson was the alpha of the largest pack in North America. Powerful figures from other packs sought to offer gorgeous girls as potential mates for Dayson. He steadfastly rejected these advances, he was not a pawn to be manipulated. But eventually there came a mysterious girl he could hardly say No. Who was she?