The Alpha's Forbidden Vow novel Chapter 102

POV: Selene

A cold, terrifying chasm had opened between us.

He was so close, yet he was a million miles away, a stranger wearing the face of the man who had just re-pledged his soul to me.

Panic, sharp and desperate, clawed at my throat.

I had to bring him back. I had to find a crack in this wall of ice. The sacrifice he had made for me… that was the most real, most powerful thing between us. It had to mean something.

I took a hesitant step closer, the moss I had gathered falling from my numb fingers. “Zane… it’s me. It’s Selene.”

“I know who you are,” he said, his voice cool and clipped. “You are my mate. The mother of my son.”

He spoke the words as if he were reading facts from a file, not stating the central truths of his own heart.

“No, you don’t remember,” I pleaded, my voice beginning to shake. “You don’t remember us. But you have to remember this.”

I took another step, my hand gesturing toward the now-faint scar on his shoulder.

“The man in my room… Marcus. The dagger. It was silver, Zane. It was poisoned. You could smell it. You saw the look on his face, you knew he wouldn't stop. He was going to kill me.”

I was trying to paint the picture for him, to evoke the emotion, the terror of that moment.

“The dagger was meant for my heart. The only reason you have that wound, the only reason you were poisoned and nearly died, is because you threw yourself in front of me. You saved my life, Zane. You chose to die for me.”

He tilted his head, his expression turning into a cruel, mocking sneer that was so much worse than his anger had ever been.

“I became this for you, and you couldn’t even manage to be by my side when I woke up?”

The accusation, so twisted and so utterly unjust, struck me with the force of a physical blow.

My mouth fell open, a silent gasp of disbelief and a pain so sharp it felt like I had been stabbed all over again.

He had taken his single most selfless act, the ultimate proof of his love.

And his broken mind had just twisted it into a weapon to use against me.