The Alpha's Forbidden Vow novel Chapter 116

POV: Zane

The child’s words were a key, turning a lock in a part of my soul I didn’t know existed.

You forgot.

I stared at the crude crayon drawing, at the three figures holding hands.

A man, a woman, a child.

A family.

My mind was a blank slate, a void of emotion. I knew, logically, that this was my son, my heir. That this woman was my mate, my property.

But my heart felt nothing.

And yet… as my finger traced the outline of Selene’s face on the paper, a profound, overwhelming sense of loss crashed over me.

It was a phantom pain, an agonizing ache for something vital that had been amputated from my soul.

It was a tearing, shredding feeling, a grief for a memory that wasn't there.

And I couldn't bear it.

The pain was too immense, too foreign. My mind, in a desperate act of self-preservation, rejected it.

And the only way to reject pain is with anger.

A black, hot, and completely irrational tide of rage surged through me.

I shoved the drawing away from me as if it were a hot iron.

The paper skidded across the polished desk and fluttered to the floor.

Leo let out a small, startled gasp, his eyes welling with tears at my violent, sudden rejection.

The sight of his fear should have meant something to me. It didn’t.

I stood up, the chair scraping loudly against the floor.

The strange, aching pain in my chest was still there, and it was intolerable.

I looked at Selene, at her beautiful, shocked face, and I blamed her for it.

She was the source of this confusion, this weakness.

“Control your son,” I said, my voice a cold, hard thing, a wall of ice to protect the chaos inside me.

“Do not let him bother me with these… childish things again.”

Her face crumpled, a look of profound, soul-deep hurt that, for some reason, only made the strange pain in my own chest worse.

I couldn’t stay. I couldn’t face this unknown, agonizing emotion.

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