The Alpha's Forbidden Vow novel Chapter 104

POV: Selene

The days that followed were a new, more insidious kind of hell.

Zane’s physical strength returned with the speed of a healing Alpha, but the man I had reconnected with remained lost in the void of his own mind.

He was polite to me, but it was the cold, distant politeness a king affords a necessary but unremarkable courtier.

He treated me as his mate, but only in the most technical, proprietary sense.

I was his property. The mother of his heir. A duty he had to fulfill.

The warmth, the vulnerability, the desperate love—it was all gone.

And in that emotional vacuum, Cora thrived.

Zane, his memory of the past few weeks a complete blank, began to rely on her for everything.

She became his historian, the sole narrator of his lost time.

I would watch them, my heart a cold, heavy stone in my chest, as they sat by the fire, talking for hours.

He would ask her questions, his voice low and serious.

“What was I like? When the poison took hold?”

And she would answer, her voice soft and full of a gentle, compassionate sadness.

“You were in terrible pain, Alpha,” she would say, her eyes wide and full of a carefully crafted sympathy. “But you were so brave. You fought so hard.”

And then, the true poison would be administered.

“You were… very protective of her,” Cora would add, with a hesitant glance in my direction. “Even when you weren't yourself. But she… she was very frightened of you. It was understandable, of course.”

She was a master of manipulation, her words painting a picture of a terrified, weak Selene, and a brave, tormented Zane who was cared for only by the gentle witch at his side.

But his damaged mind, unable to connect that feeling to the strong, defiant mate in front of him, had latched onto the only other available subject.

He was projecting his lost feelings for me onto her.

Cora, in her soft, gentle performance, had become a stand-in for the ghost of the girl he thought he had lost.

I stood in the shadows of the cave, watching him look at another woman with the ghost of the affection that was rightfully mine.

And I felt a jealousy so profound, so utterly helpless, that it was a physical pain.

I knew that if I spoke up, if I accused Cora, he would only see me as a shrewish, hysterical mate.

She had positioned herself perfectly.

She was his gentle confidante.

And I was just the cold, strong, and strangely disappointing property he was now bonded to for eternity.