Chapter 219

Holding the note, I moved toward the bed and sat down on the edge. Caleb, finished with his shower, comes out of the shower looking relaxed as can be. The moment he sees me perched on the bed, he tenses again.

“What happened? What’s going on?” he asks, his voice all business.

I hold up the small note. Because of the listening devices, I don’t want to say aloud where the note came from. Instead, I point toward the door.

Following where I point, he seems to understand.

Caleb walks over to me. There’s a towel around his hips, hanging low. His hipbones are distracting, but the fear that’s inside of me pushes away any resurgence of lust.

He takes the note from my hands and reads it. As he does, his expression darkens.

I wish we could talk aloud. Instead, in rage, Caleb shreds the note into a thousand tiny little pieces. Grabbing me, he pulls me against him, clutching me close to his chest.

Softly, I whisper, “What do we do?”

In my ear, he replies, “I’m going to check on things for myself. Get dressed. I will summon Bethany to sit with you.”

“I should go with you.”

“No,” he says firmly. “If she wants you there, I don’t want you anywhere near there.”

I can understand that reasoning, though I hate the thought of him being there alone.

“Caleb.”

“I will be fine,” he says. “Don’t mistake me for someone weak. I am the Alpha King, and I will not be taken down by anyone here or anywhere else.”

His confidence is reassuring, but again, I remember how weak he was in that alley all those months ago. If I’m not there to save him, who knew what could happen this time?

“I will return to you,” he whispers, and kisses me. “I am just looking.”

With regret, I nod, not seeing that I have any choice.

With Caleb’s reassurance, I go into the bathroom to shower and dress.

When I come out again, Caleb is gone. Bethany is there, however, sitting on the couch in the sitting room.

I’m relieved to see her, my friend, but I’m nervous too. Caleb sneaked out without saying goodbye.

In my head, I know he was capable and strong. As an Alpha wolf, very little can harm him. Yet, despite that confidence in him, I can’t shake the nerves. He’s out there, investigating alone, with no one to watch his back.

What if he doesn’t come back?

What if, by sneaking out without a goodbye, he denies me the chance to ever give him one?

“Everything will be okay,” Bethany says, but she seems not fully certain herself. She can’t possible know. We are both out of our element here.

I need a distraction, something to keep my mind occupied until Caleb can return to me.

“Tell me about your friend,” I say. “Cameron.”

She blushes slightly. “There’s not much to say.”

She’s holding back. Cameron clearly means more to her than she’s saying. “Tell me about your family, then,” I say, not wanting to press her before she’s ready. “Cameron mentioned you have sisters?”

At this, Bethany does perk up. “I have four sisters,” she says, and for the first time, truly opens up about her life before the palace.

Caleb carefully avoids all of the servants on his way to the library. While they are military trained, his senses as an alpha are higher than theirs. Because of this, if he concentrates, he can masterfully avoid them and their patrols through the estate.

Everything about this situation is unusual. Gladys is treating her house more like a fortress than a home. There has to be more going on here than meets the eye.

This note is only one more mystery on top of the others.

During the tour, Gladys glossed over the library, barely mentioning it before pressing on. Could there truly be some type of devilry harbored there?

Caleb isn’t sure, but with the note, he can’t take chances. Not with Harper.

So he makes his slow, winding way to the library. Fortunately, when he arrives, the room is empty.

Walking in, he takes in his surroundings.

There’s a desk to one side. The walls are entirely lined with bookcases, tomes new and old lined up on the shelves. There’s two comfortable looking chairs and a loveseat with a blanket thrown over the back.

At first glance, it looks like a well-loved and comfortable space. But that can’t be all that it is.

That note hinted at danger worse than Gladys and Harper being lost inside of books.

Focusing, Caleb stretches out his senses, listening, smelling, seeing… Inch after inch, he searches for something amiss in the room. Anything could give him a clue about what the note hinted at.

Yet, everything seems perfectly normal.

The dust even seems level across the tomes – except…

Wait.

There.

“What are you doing in here?” a male voice asks from behind Caleb.

He was so caught up in his investigation, that he had not left any room to listen behind him.

Now, the butler stood in the doorway, looking at him with open suspicion and dislike.

“I escorted you to your room for the night,” the butler continues. “That should be where you stay.”

“I couldn’t sleep,” Caleb says. “I remembered Gladys mentioning the library from her tour earlier. I thought I’d come down and see if I could find a book to read to help me sleep.”

“You should have asked first,” the butler says. “Lady Gladys would have been happy to recommend something for you.”

“I didn’t want to bother her so late at night,” Caleb replies.

The butler frowns. “I must insist you return to your room now. I will show you the way.”

“I don’t need an escort,” Caleb says.

“With apologies, Alpha King, you clearly do. Else you would not have found your way here.”

Caleb isn’t used to being disrespected so openly. He half wants to punch this guy’s head through a wall. But for now, he needs to play nice.

The time will come for him to put this butler in his place once and for all.

“Very well,” Caleb says.

With one last glace, he casts his eyes back to the bookcase that caught his eye.

There, on one of the books, the dust has been disturbed, not resting like it does on all the books surrounding it.

More troublesome though, is the marks on the floor, as if something has been wheeled straight through the bookcase.

Focusing, he can almost detect a hint of a draft from between the bookcases here.

All of these clues tell him that there is a secret passageway here.

But where does it lead?

And why would it be dangerous for Harper to be brought here?

The matter requires further investigation, but so long as the butler is hovering, Caleb won’t be able to find the answers to the questions he asks.

Looking away, Caleb walks forward, leaving the library and stepping into the hallway. He follows the butler back to the stairwell and then up the stairs.

Yet, for the length of the walk, his mind remains in the library, wondering what could be behind that bookcase.