Filed To Story: Destined Bond with My Forbidden Alpha Novel (Alpha Alexander & Selene)
It took an hour for the team to make its way down through the wreckage. Holden had set off the beacon in the bunker almost as soon as he got inside. They already knew he was here, so there was no reason to search the remains of the building for him.
When the bunker’s door was finally opened, Holden was more than a little surprised to see who stood on the other side.
“I did not expect you to come for me…” he said as he straightened his back.
The corner of Roman’s mouth lifted into a half smile.
Any smile worn by Roman gave off a sinister feeling. But the thick, uneven patch of leather he wore to cover his missing eye and the scar surrounding it only emphasized that feeling.
“Why?” he said. “You came for me on the mountain. So why shouldn’t I come for you inside the mountain?”
Holden smiled, but in his mind, he felt nothing but irritation. He knew Roman was enjoying seeing him in this position. Injured and trapped in a box.
For now, he would let him have fun and make jokes. He had more important things to worry about. First, he needed to find out if Alice was alive.
He glanced at Roman, wondering if he already knew that Alice had been there.
Roman’s smile grew.
“What are you so happy about?” Holden asked, feeling even more irritated.
“I was remembering something we once talked about,” Roman replied. “About how replaceable we both are.”
Holden narrowed his eyes.
“Turns out,” Roman said quietly. “You are, in fact, irreplaceable.”
Holden clenched his jaw; he didn’t understand what Roman was saying. He would never willingly admit that Holden’s importance was more significant than his own, so what was his game?
“The thing is,” Roman sneered. “There is more than one way to be irreplaceable.”
Behind Roman, another man approached; he held a chair in his hands. It was charred but still holding together. He moved past Roman and Holden, setting the chair down behind Holden.
“One way is that you provide a service that is so unique or well done that no one else can take that role from you,” Roman continued. “That’s the category I fall into.”
Roman smiled with a tip of his hat.
A second man entered behind Roman, walking around him to join the first man. Holden felt a lump forming in his throat.
“But, the other way,” Roman said, pausing to give Holden a satisfied grin. “Is to be such a disappointment that you and your role are abandoned and disposed of. Never to be thought of again.”
Holden couldn’t help but notice that the men that had entered the room had their eyes on him.
“Guess which one you are?”
The sinking feeling in Holden’s gut hit him almost immediately when the man behind him pulled him down to sit in the chair. He tried to struggle, but both men held his shoulders down. Individually they were each already much stronger than him. But, combined, they kept him in place with ease.
Roman smiled down at Holden.
“You really fucked up, Holden,” he chirped.
Holden clenched his jaw, breathing deeply through his nose.
Roman pulled out his phone and pulled up a video to play for Holden.
“They saw everything,” Roman said. “Heard what you said.”
Holden looked down at the screen. Before him, he saw a video feed of the lab. Of his conversation with Alice. Telling her that they needed to run, that he had no intention of killing her as he was ordered to.
He closed his eyes and swallowed.
“Funny thing,” Roman said. “The feed to the lab was cut ten minutes before you entered.”
Holden took a deep breath; he had cut that feed himself before making his way into the elevator to go to her.
“Fortunately,” Roman continued pulling the phone back and adjusting the video. “It was turned on again just as you walked in.”
Holden opened his eyes, and the video showed him standing at the door. It closed behind him. Alice turned from the monitor to face him, but just before she spoke to him, just the tiniest flash of her eyes to the camera.
He sighed.
“Yep,” Roman smiled. “Alice turned the cameras back on. Seems to me she knew that you were going to say something stupid, and she wanted to make sure someone heard it.”
Holden lowered his eyes away from the screen.
“She really hates you,” Roman said. “I don’t blame her.”
“Just shut up and get it ov–” Holden growled, but his words were cut off when Roman’s fist hit his jaw.
“No one told you to talk!” He snarled.
Holden tasted the blood that pooled between his lip and his teeth.
Roman took a deep breath.
“I am here to inform you that your services are no longer needed,” Roman stated. “But also, to let you know that the kill order on Alice has been canceled.”
Holden’s brows furrowed.
“How?” he asked through bloody teeth.
Roman smiled bitterly.
“Your usefulness was entirely because of her,” he growled. “Even now, she is still of more use than you.”
Holden growled but said nothing.
“There was something a little more interesting on that video than your desperate attempts to keep Alice by your side,” Roman replied.
He adjusted the video, playing it again for Holden. This time it was neither Alice nor Holden that was the focus. It was Selene.
He thought he had imagined the ethereal glow around her for a moment. But here it was caught on video. It was not something he had ever seen or even heard of before.
“Because of this, they could find an answer they have been searching for a long time. And so, Alice has earned her reprieve, at least from our master.”
Roman grinned.
“I have no intention of ever letting her go.”
“She hates you,” Holden spat.
“So?” Roman smiled. “I don’t need her to love me or even like me. Hating me still means I have a place in her thoughts.”
Holden closed her eyes, clenching his jaw. He knew he would never leave this room again. There was nothing he could do to save her from the monster that craved her.
Honestly, there never was.
‘I’m sorry,’ he whispered in his thoughts. ‘I never should have brought you into my world.’
Roman knelt down in front of him. He grabbed Holden’s chin roughly and turned so that he could speak into his ear.
“Every time you used that shit on her…. Every time you wiped her existence away as though she were nothing… I still saw her,” he whispered. “Trapped inside a tiny box in her mind, clawing at the walls to escape.”
Roman pushed Holden’s chin away roughly as he got to his feet. He reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a rectangular box.
Holden looked up as Roman opened the box and pulled out a syringe. Their eyes met, and Roman smiled angrily.
“This is a pretty small box, too,” he said, taking a step forward and looking around the room.
Holden felt the panic falling over him. He stared at the syringe and then back up at Roman. He struggled as Roman got closer, but it was no use.
“Say goodbye, Holden,” Roman smiled, pointing up at the camera positioned above the chair.
Holden looked up, not having realized there was a camera in this room. As he looked up, exposing his neck, Roman plunged the needle into his throat, pushing the Bitter Night into his system.
Holden let out a heavy groan as the liquid burned into his veins. His body shook violently, and the two men held tightly to him.
“I only wish you could witness this for yourself. That you could watch as the light leaves your eyes. As the person you are is wiped away, and all that is left is a lifeless husk. Just like she had to endure all these years!” Roman snarled into Holden’s ear.
Roman backed away, watching as Holden strained against the Bitter Night, his veins bulging, grunting, and groaning as the poison spread across his system.
He hated this man.
Roman had mourned Alice every time he met the doll. Alice held value. She was unique and beautiful. She was… special.
But nothing about Holden held value beyond his association with Alice. No one would mourn the loss of him.
Because of that, this punishment felt empty.
Roman walked out of the bunker.
The two men let go of Holden. His body continued to convulse as it collapsed to the floor. They shut the door to the bunker and followed Roman.
“Sir?” the first man called out, “your orders?”
Roman stopped walking. He took a breath, and then without turning around, he answered.
“If he survives, let him sit alone in that room for a few hours.”
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?