The Alpha's Forbidden Vow novel Chapter 16

POV: Selene

The long-haul bus was a rolling cage of sensory torture.

For a werewolf, even one with a suppressed inner animal like mine, the assault was relentless.

The reek of stale sweat, cheap greasy food, and chemical toilet cleaner was a nauseating wave that my heightened senses couldn't block out.

Every shouted conversation, every crying baby, every rattle of the bus’s aging frame was a spike of sound driven into my skull.

This torment, combined with the rolling nausea of my first trimester, made the two-day journey north a living hell.

I spent most of the hours curled into a tight ball against the vibrating window, my worn grey hoodie pulled low over my face, one hand perpetually pressed against my lower abdomen.

This tiny, secret life, this flickering spark that was both mine and his, was the only thing that kept me from screaming.

It was my anchor in a sea of misery, my singular point of hope in a world that had crumbled to ash around me.

At a grimy rest stop somewhere in a state whose name I didn't even register, I performed the final ritual of my old life.

I took the SIM card out of the cheap phone I’d had at the manor.

It was the last link, the final thread connecting me to the Volkovs.

With a sense of grim finality, I snapped the small piece of plastic between my fingers.

The clean, sharp crack was the most satisfying sound I had ever heard.

I dropped the two pieces into a trash can overflowing with refuse, burying my past under a pile of garbage where it belonged.

It was done.

I was Selene Rivers now. Just a name. A ghost.

When the bus finally hissed to a stop in Oakhaven, the small depot thirty miles from my final destination, I almost collapsed with relief.

The air here was cleaner, the noise was muted, and the oppressive weight of the Volkov territory was a distant memory.

I used my cash to buy the cheapest disposable phone I could find, along with a new, untraceable SIM card.

It smelled of freedom.

The town was small and quiet, nestled in a valley like a secret. A handful of quaint storefronts lined a single main street.

It was utterly, blessedly ordinary.

This was a place where no one would ever look for the Volkovs’ runaway orphan.

A place where my child, my precious, secret child, could grow up without the shadow of a cruel father or the threat of pack politics.

A wave of exhaustion and overwhelming relief washed over me, and I leaned against the bus stop sign, my legs trembling.

My hand, as always, went to my stomach.

We made it, I whispered to the tiny life inside, the words lost to the gentle breeze.

We’re safe now.

I promise. I will keep you safe.