Page 61 of The Alpha's Fated Bond

From the baffled look he gives me, I know I’ve hit the nail on the head.

“I was supposed to clean it?”

I press my lips together to hold in my laughter. “Well, I cleaned it for you. And I also touched up the paint. You’ll have to let it dry, though.”

“But I thought you wanted to throw this thing out!” Alex sounds surprised. “You hated it so much.”

How could I hate something that you love?

The words are on the tip of my tongue, but they don’t come out. “It grew on me.”

He gives me a quizzical look, and then there’s a small smile on his face. “Thanks. I really like this chair. I’m glad you didn’t throw it away.”

I lean against him. “Shouldn’t you be praising me for doing such a good job on it?”

Alex chuckles. “A good job?” He runs his hand over the fabric. “It looks brand new. You did a fantastic job.”

I smile, pleased. “It was supposed to be a surprise. I was going to put it in your study. I didn’t think you’d walk in on me fixing it up.”

“A surprise?”

I shrug, trying to sound nonchalant. “I knew it meant a lot to you. So, I thought I’d clean it up for you.”

Alex presses his lips against my cheek. “Thank you. I love it.”

My heart flutters. The chemistry between us is sizzling hot, but the affection he is showing reaches inside and warms me up.

“Why are you back so early? I thought you were planning to do some work in the office.”

The expression on his face goes from happy to grim in a heartbeat. “I wanted to discuss something with you.”

The tone of his voice has my heart crawling up my throat. “What happened?”

Alex guides me to the love seat in the living room and sits down with me. “I’ve been looking into your mother’s possible whereabouts. I had my spy network try to find records of Robert’s movements from the time when you were born.”

I don’t remember telling Alex any details about my birth, but before I killed Alpha Black, he said so much that Alex might not have needed to ask me anything.

“Did you find her?” I ask abruptly.

“No.” He shakes his head. “But the town Robert lived in had an old manor in the woods.”

I blink. “I remember that place. We were never allowed up there. It was fenced off.”

“My sources tell me that up until last year, Alpha Black visited the manor regularly. There was evidence in the basement of someone having been imprisoned there.”

My mate’s voice is gentle, but it doesn’t lessen the blow any.

“Wait.” My heart sinks. “Are you saying that all those years, my mother was just a ten-minute walk from where I grew up?”

“I believe so. Last year, he moved her to a different location, but that place had also been emptied out by the time my people figured it out and went there. They found the same evidence of imprisonment.”

I shake my head, anxiety and desperation eating at me. “So, where is my mother now? Where has Robert hidden her this time?”

I can only describe the look on Alex’s face as pensive. After a moment, he tells me, “Around a year ago, Karina wiped out an entire pack, the Black Alder Wolf Pack. They didn’t believe the Queen had actually linked the lives of their children to her nannies and soldiers. They decided to get rid of her people, and when their own pups didn’t survive, they knew she had been telling the truth. Karina showed up while they were grieving their loss, and she eliminated the entire pack. Then, she seized their territory.”

I remember Alex telling me something about this previously, but he didn’t mention the name of the pack.

“What does all this have to do with my mother?”

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