Filed To Story: Destined Bond with My Forbidden Alpha Novel (Alpha Alexander & Selene)
“Yea… like weird… suspicious.”
“Ah… in what way?”
“Well, I mean the obvious, control over the fae mound without allowing any research to happen. Then he kept his Luna locked away until the day she died.”
“How did she die?” Selene asked, now very curious if the rumors were true.
Clara bit her lower lip and looked away sadly.
“Cain says that one of the guards saw her on the roof of her home…. She kept climbing higher and higher until there was nowhere left to climb but a long way down to fall….”
“Oh…”
Clara nodded.
“He blamed himself. He was sure that something in the chamber affected her mind.”
“Maybe that’s why Gorn was acting strange as well? Because of their bond.”
“Maybe, but it didn’t stop after she died,” Clara said. “He got increasingly aggressive for results from Cain, and finally, about two and half years after the initial search for the cave, Cain refused to continue helping them anymore.”
“He just quit? But that was more than seven years ago? His last entry is from a few months before he died.”
“You know if you had read the journal….”
Selene growled in response.
“Ok, ok,” Clara sighed. “Cain quit, but lowkey didn’t quit. He just started doing his own research away from Tomas and Gorn’s prying eyes. He started investigating all the mounds he could find, but none of them had that same power source.
“I’m not really sure where along the line he turned his attention to genetics… I know he took time in the human world to learn in-depth about it, but I’m not sure why. The journal gets a little light on the details after a while.”
Selene furrowed her brows and looked at the journal in her hands. It seemed strange. This journal had been his thoughts on the events. Why would he begin to censor his own thoughts?
“He must have found something,” she whispered.
“What?”
“Cain must have found something in his research. Something that changed what he was looking for and how. Something he thought that someone else might want,” Selene said. “He started being more careful about what he wrote in case someone else found the journal.”
“That makes sense,” Clara said. “But what doesn’t really make sense is why he returned to working with them.”
“He did?”
“Yep, six years ago, after returning from his time in the human world, he returned to working with Gorn and Tomas.”
“Six years ago…” Selene whispered to herself. Closing her eyes. “Bell.”
“Oh…” Clara whispered.
She didn’t know all the details, but she knew there had been an exchange. In order to save Bell, Cain agreed to a request from Tomas. This must have been what it was, taking up the research again.
“Then… do they know? Did Tomas and Gorn know about this… connection to the fae?” Selene asked.
“Did they know that Alpha Cain claims to have found genetic proof that we descend from our greatest enemies? Enemies that could control nature and shapeshift to look like other people?” Clara asked. “Yea. I think so. But I am more so guessing it was a suspicion, or at the very most they thought they could somehow gain access to the power the fae used.”
Selene sighed.
“Cain was able to leave again,” Clara said. “Four years ago. The details are light, right here.”
Clara pointed to a passage in the journal.
[February 24, 20XX
Alexander’s actions were foolish. He could have gotten himself killed.
But, I am proud of him. His heart was in the right place. And I am also thankful to him. Because of how Tomas treated him, I was able to cut ties and punch him for good measure… that felt damn good.]
“Alexander?” Selene said in surprise. “What did he do?”
“Mmm, well, based on the entry date and the fact that he mentions synthetic blood not long after. I think this was referring to when Alexander started the protocols for safe blood transfusions. It was during my human rotation, so I don’t know the details. Still, I heard it was very dramatic, and Luna Fiona was very unhappy.”
“Guess I’ll need to ask Alexander about that,” Selene said.
“You should ask him about the last entry, too,” Clara said. “There’s only one after the big reveal.”
Selene turned to the marked page and then turned to the next.
[September 25, 20XX
I have completed the updates to the training program. Alexander has already shown great promise and has mastered the primary levels. I hope when it is time for him to learn the advanced levels, he is ready for it.
I leave tonight for the mounds. It’s no longer safe to leave them be. It has become clear that I am not the only one who has made this discovery. But as of last night, I am the only one who knows what the others need to accomplish their goals.
Thank the Goddess Tomas does not have a scientific mind. He will never know how close he was to learning the truth.]
There was a list of explosive devices and essential supplies on the page that followed.
“This was when he left to destroy Loki’s mound… he died on this mission.”
“Not just Loki’s,” Clara said.
She turned back several pages. There was a sketched map marked with the locations of other mounds. There were three between the Broken Crag and Summer territory.
“When we went to Broken Crag to check on Alpha Jonas, I made Nessa stop and help me look for them. These three mounds, they don’t exist anymore.”
It was a lot of information to process, and every bit of it, Alexander needed to know.
Selene and Clara agreed that it would be best to take a few days to let Selene absorb all she had learned while she tried to find a chance to speak with Alexander about it.
She wanted to allow him the chance to read his father’s journal before moving forward.
Clara stayed a little longer, reviewing a few more minor details and sharing some light gossip about her progress with Nessa. Selene was glad to hear they were strengthening their bond with each passing day.
Selene sat back on the couch when she was alone again and took a deep breath. She glanced at the journal on the coffee table and wondered how Alexander would react to it.
Would he be glad to see his father’s handwriting? To listen to Cain’s words in his mind, and hear his voice? Would seeing that Cain was proud of him bring him peace? Or pain?
Selene sighed.
She thought of her father’s laugh. Of his smile. She had heard Wyatt’s voice on the night of his pyre. He had encouraged her and told her that he was proud of her. But she hadn’t heard him since that night and wondered if she had imagined it.
Lily had told her that hearing the whispers of the dead was a gift that she had shared with her brother and passed down to Selene.
Maybe it was her father.
It would make sense if it was. The way he had quieted the whispers and forced them to retreat back into the darkness with only a few words. She had barely heard from them since that night. Only occasionally.
It was nice to hear her own thoughts for a while. Even nicer to feel like her father was still with her.
But something inside of her told her that wasn’t exactly true. When he had spoken, it felt like a goodbye. It felt like he slipped away at the end.
She let out another sigh and closed her eyes.
The loss was suddenly weighing on her again. Maybe because of Wyatt’s connection to Cain, or perhaps because Tomas had been the cause of Cain’s death and his son had been the cause of Wyatt’s.
She could still remember the marks on his body. The stab wounds, the arrow. It was clear which wounds had been treated and which had been infused with silver.
Her father had been tortured in his last days. His final hours had been excruciating. He had died just outside the border. From what the autopsy said, he was alive an hour before Alexander found him.
An hour.
If they had known, if Alice had just called them, Selene and Axel would have had the chance to say goodbye to their father.
She sighed.
A knock at the door pulled her from her thoughts.
Selene got to her feet, wondering if it was Clara.
“Did you forget someth–” Her words fell away as she opened the door and realized it was not Clara standing on the other side.
“Hey, Selene,” Alice said with a smile.
***
“How is his progress?” the raspy voice whispered from the shadows.
“He is getting better every day.” Holden smiled, clenching his jaw. “He is already taken off all those tedious life-saving machines and walking around growling at this person and that.”
“And his eye?”
“Oh, that is hopeless, I’m afraid,” Holden said with an upturn of his lips that showed his true feeling on the subject. “But he still has the other. I’m sure he will make use of it.”
There was a scratching sound. Holden swallowed, recognizing it as that of roots dragging across the floor. He peered into the darkness, looking for any movement.
“You did good,” the voice whispered.
Holden swallowed as he felt the tension in his shoulders ease.
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?