Reclaimed By My Alpha (Natalia and Andrei) novel Chapter 549

The next room I entered was larger than the others. It had the remains of furniture in it, a heavy table with two legs collapsed, the rotted remains of what might have been chairs. Along one wall, someone had hung a painting.

I almost walked past it. It was dark from age, the image barely distinguishable, and the frame had pulled away from the wall on one side. But something made me stop and look at it more carefully.

I lifted the frame away from the wall and held the torch around the side.

There was a safe set into the rock behind it.

It was old and rusted. The mechanism was a simple combination of moveable iron discs. I looked at it for a moment, then tried the most obvious thing first and just pulled the handle.

It opened with a creak.

“Well,” I muttered, staring. “That was easy.” I figured it was empty if it was just unlocked like that, but out of curiosity, I stuck my arm inside anyway.

To my surprise, my hand closed around something solid. I pulled it out and held it up to the torchlight.

It was a book.

It was small but thick, the cover made of dark, cracked leather. Most of the pages seemed to be intact, although they looked very brittle and yellow.

Just then, something moved on the cover. I yelped quietly and nearly dropped it.

A large, pale spider skittered its way across the surface and disappeared over the edge. I shook the book once, gently, and it plopped to the floor and scurried away.

Looking back at the book, I turned it over in my hands and wiped the dust off the cover.

The writing on the cover was in a language I didn’t recognize. Not any I’d seen, anyway. The letters weren’t from any alphabet I knew.

I opened it to a random page in the middle.

The same script was written throughout, broken occasionally by what looked like diagrams. Circles with lines through them. Symbols that didn’t make any sense. An old drawing that was so faded with time that I couldn’t make it out in the dim light.

I couldn’t read a single word of it.

But as I stood there holding it, I somehow knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that this was what I was looking for.

I couldn’t explain it. I just… felt it. Like someone had placed their hand on my shoulder, cool and soft, and had whispered in my ear in a familiar voice that I hadn’t heard for five years, “That’s it, Natalia…”

I turned, but I was alone. Just a figment of my imagination. I shook my head and decided to hold onto the book, maybe Karl would be able to help me decipher it. I hoped it was useful, and not just someone’s diary.

Max was waiting, in the tunnel outside the chamber when I returned. I didn’t tell him about the book–for now, I kept it tucked into the inner pocket of my jacket, where no one would find it.

False hopes and all that.

We walked back through the tunnel in companionable silence. Max stayed close to me this time, close enough that our arms occasionally brushed. He looked sad, but more at peace, Itke visiting the last known place his father had been was a relief that he

needed.

Chapter 549

+25 Bonus

My legs ached by the time we reached the top of the stairs and stepped through the cellar door into the castle. The air up here was warm by comparison. I hadn’t noticed how cold I’d gotten until now.

Max let out a long breath beside me. I looked at him.

“Thanks, Mom,” he said.

“Don’t make me regret it,” I replied with a smile. I gave him a nudge then. “Now get to bed, young man. We’ve got a long journey ahead of us tomorrow.”

He smiled faintly and left, returning to his room.

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