Chapter 346 – Destined Bond with My Forbidden Alpha Novel (Alpha Alexander & Selene)

Filed To Story: Destined Bond with My Forbidden Alpha Novel (Alpha Alexander & Selene)

Nessa saw the look of shame on Clara’s face.

“Clarebear, I didn’t mean–”

“No,” Clara interrupted. “I understand, it makes sense, logically, to think that short kisses would be simple for me. With my experience.”

Clara sighed, and then looked up at Nessa. She smiled.

“Honestly, kissing isn’t a big deal. It never has been with anyone else,” she said.

Nessa lowered her eyes.

“But the difference,” Clara continued, “is that I was never kissing you.”

Nessa looked back up at Clara.

“Kissing you, whether for a second, a minute, or the rest of my life… is always….”

Clara closed her eyes and took a deep breath blowing it out softly. She bit her lower lip as she smiled. Then, opening her eyes, they still swirled with hunger.

“So much more….”

The blush on Nessa’s face renewed as she chewed her own bottom lip. She quickly turned away.

“We should get back to work,” she said quietly.

Clara let out a soft giggle as she nodded and hopped down off the table.

Nessa suddenly turned back with a curious expression on her face.

“Oh… uhm.. Nexy?” she asked with a shy smile.

Clara laughed.

“Yep,” she said lifting her chin and standing on her toes playfully. “That’s my name for you, I have decided. Do you know why?”

Nessa shook her head, but the slight smile and the way she chewed the inside of her lip told Clara that she had a suspicion.

“Nessa plus sexy equals Nexy,” Clara grinned.

“Oh,” Nessa nodded and tried to hide the smile as she quickly turned away and hurried off to her computer.

Clara covered her mouth as she attempted to suppress the giggle, then turned to return to her own awaiting work pile.

She took a deep breath.

There wasn’t a lot left for her to work through. She had already sorted through the majority of the abandoned documents, many of which she had turned over to the science department. There were project ideas and improvements that were not currently in development that Clara had felt could benefit the whole of Summer.

There was only one cabinet left to explore and two small boxes.

At this point all the boxes she had sorted through appeared to be more personal items than anything. Trinkets, and souvenirs from all his exploration and travel across the world. Photographs, and a few letters between Cain and Fiona; Clara had read one and then handed the rest to Fiona in a stack.

It seemed like a good place to start. If the trend kept up, she would be able to return whatever items were in the boxes to Fiona by the end of the day.

The first box was like the others. She found a small stuffed animal, a rabbit. It was old and worn, but clearly loved. Clara smiled, wondering if this had been a cherished childhood possession of Alpha Alexander.

Setting the toy aside she pulled out several framed pictures, Fiona and a small boy, clearly Alpha Alexander, were the main models. There was one picture of the three of them together.

As Clara pulled each picture out, she couldn’t help but wonder why they were in the boxes to begin with.

In fact, thinking back to the first day they had entered the office, there were no personal effects on display. No decorations, personal touches, nothing. But all the things she had found made it clear that Alpha Cain had at one time made his office a home away from home.

Clara had asked Alexander if the office had been packed up after Cain’s death, but he had told her everything they had packed had been removed, and it hadn’t been much.

So, when had he packed all of these things up? Why did it seem like he might have known he wasn’t returning?

Clara pushed aside her questions and focused on sorting through the last box.

This box had been at the very back, the box itself was cardboard and looked worn and warped, as though it had been packed away from many years. Which was why it seemed strange that when she opened the box, it wasn’t as filled with the grime and dust of time as the others had been.

Clara looked inside to find only a few items. But these were already clearly different than the rest of the boxes. Reaching in she began to pull them out one by one. Jars of dirt, plants, some other substances she would need to take to a lab to have identified. It was clear these jars once had masking tape labels, but they had all been ripped off.

Setting the jars aside she reached in and pulled out the strangest of all the items she had seen. A Rubik’s cube. She turned it over in her hand, wondering why it was put into this box when something strange happened.

A rattling sound came from the cube as she turned it in her hand.

Clara furrowed her brows. Looking closer, she found one of the squares slightly different from the rest. She applied pressure to it with her thumb until she heard a soft clicking sound, and an entire half of the cube loosened.

It was a treasure box. Clara smiled to herself before opening it to look inside. There was a small black velvet drawstring purse.

“What are you?” she whispered.

She considered leaving it closed, just in case it was a gift for Fiona, would it be alright if Clara saw it first?

But in the end, curiosity won over consideration.

Opening the bag there was only one item inside. It was a necklace. A simple leather string holding an off-white sphere with small windows. Lifting it up to the light above her, she was able to see something inside, but what it was she didn’t know.

It was strange, but the possibility that there was some meaning to it for Fiona, made Clara feel uncomfortable looking at it too long. After putting it back in the bag and locking the cube once more, she returned to the box.

The last item in the box was something wrapped in cloth. She pulled it out and unwrapped it. It was a journal. Cain had several journals throughout his filing cabinets and boxes. Most pertained to the various projects he had been working on.

Clara opened the journal to a random page. There were sketches of plants, animals, and a few anatomical drawings. Then, she turned to another page in the book, reading a few lines of the entry.

Her eyes went wide, and her breathing stalled.

She swallowed, trying to wet her suddenly parched throat.

Clara looked away from the page, she took a deep breath, trying to calm the panic that was rising in her chest.

“I misread it,” she whispered to herself looking up at the ceiling. “I misread it, I misread it…. It’s impossible.”

She swallowed again and then slowly lowered her eyes to the page again.

To her horror, she had read the page perfectly.

“Roman?” Wyatt questioned. “I’m sorry, I’ve never heard of you.”

Roman gave a soft chuckle as he nodded.

“I must admit, I am newly returned from having been out of the country for many years,” he said with a warm smile. “You don’t know me, but you know my father, in fact, he is why I am here today.”

“And who is your father?” Wyatt asked, crossing his arms over his chest.

Roman observed Wyatt’s reaction. He held the smile he wore, but in his mind, he felt irritated. This man clearly already felt the need to be guarded in his presence.

“My father is Alpha Tomas of Autumn,” Roman replied.

“Tomas doesn’t have a son,” Wyatt stated firmly, his posture becoming more defensive.

Roman chuckled.

“I assure you, he does,” Roman smiled. “Just not one he likes to talk about.”

Wyatt raised his brow but said nothing.

“My father and I have never had a close relationship,” Roman sighed. “As a child, I had very different interests than what he would have preferred. Because of that, he did not acknowledge me as his son..

“He kept me around because he didn’t know what else to do with me. But, as far as anyone knew, I was just another Autumn orphan. As I got older, we mostly avoided each other. Then, when I became an adult, I left. I was searching for something. Trying to fill a void.”

Roman took a deep breath and sighed. He looked away, as though it was hard for him to talk about the events of his life.

“I stayed away, had no contact with anyone except a few close friends that helped me to know who I really was. It was one of these friends that asked me to come back home. Let me know that my dad was struggling.”

Wyatt furrowed his brows. Roman caught the slight change in the corner of his eye.

“Coming back was about reconnecting,” Roman continued. “About find what we lost.”

“How is Tomas struggling?” Wyatt asked.

Roman smiled to himself. As he turned back to Wyatt, his expression appeared tired, worn.

“We don’t know what happened,” Roman said. “He’s been sick for a while, he has hardly left his room or office, for weeks. Months even. He is paranoid, scared, confused. He’s not the man he used to be.”

“When did this start?” Wyatt asked, relaxing his arms and walking further into the room.

“I’m not sure how long before I came home, but from what I’m told, it has been at least four or five months,”

“Four or five months?” Wyatt asked, turning away.

Roman caught a look of concern, possibly, confirmation.

“Did something happen around that time?” Roman asked excitedly, increasing his breathing to appear as though he were hopeful of an answer. “Do you know what happened to my father?”

“I don’t,” Wyatt sighed, giving Roman a regretful look. “But around then was the last time I saw your father. It was at my son’s Alpha ceremony.

“There was something off about him that night, he seemed frightened. As though he thought something was coming for him.”

‘Heh,’ Roman chuckled in his mind. ‘That must have been why they called me home, good old dad started to waver.’

Roman nodded and pursed his lips.

“That’s what others have said about him as well,” Roman replied sadly. “I’m afraid something was done to him… but we haven’t been able to figure it out ourselves. It’s why I came today.”

“I don’t understand,” Wyatt said.

“I was hoping you might know something about who could have done this,” Roman said.

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