The Alpha's Forbidden Vow novel Chapter 114

POV: Cora

I felt like a fraud.

I sat in the manor’s beautiful, moonlit garden, the sweet scent of night-blooming jasmine a cloying perfume in the air.

Zane had granted me a place of honor in this pack. I was his healer, his trusted confidante. I had the protection I so desperately needed. My old coven would never dare to touch me here.

I had everything I wanted.

So why did I feel so utterly miserable?

I kept replaying the scene in my mind. Zane’s explosive, irrational rage. Selene’s pale, heartbroken face as he dragged her away.

And I knew, with a certainty that was a cold, sick knot in my stomach, that I was the one who had lit the fuse.

My lies. My careful omissions.

I had done it for my own survival. I had told myself it was a necessary evil, a small manipulation to ensure my own safety.

But watching them tear each other apart, watching Zane’s amnesia turn him into a cold parody of an Alpha, and Selene into his prisoner… it was not a small thing.

It was a monstrous one.

My silence was a poison, just as potent as the Shadowthorn I had cured.

I was no better than the witches who had created it.

A small sound from the pathway startled me.

I looked up to see a small figure standing there, clutching a well-loved teddy bear.

Leo.

He looked at me with his father’s serious, stormy grey eyes.

“Are you sad?” he asked, his voice a soft, childish whisper.

I was so taken aback by the direct question that I couldn't form a response.

And I had repaid her by feeding her mate’s broken mind with half-truths and manipulations.

I clutched the small, soft bear to my chest, and a single, hot tear escaped my eye, tracing a path through the dust on my cheek.

I was a coward.

I had been so focused on running from my own enemies that I had become a willing accomplice in the suffering of this innocent family.

I knew, in that moment, that I had to fix it.

I had to tell Zane the truth.

The whole truth.

But the thought of his reaction, the thought of his cold, amnesiac fury being turned on me, the thought of losing the only protection I had… it sent a spike of pure, craven fear through my heart.

I was trapped between my conscience and my terror.