The Alpha's Forbidden Vow novel Chapter 32

POV: Zane

I stared at the fake bloodstain, and the last fragile piece of myself shattered.

The guilt was a physical weight, crushing the air from my lungs. I had dishonored Isabella, my future Luna, in the most profound way possible, taking her while my heart and soul screamed for another. It was a stain on my honor as an Alpha.

But the guilt was just a shallow layer on top of a deep, volcanic well of rage.

And all of it, every last drop, was for Selene.

This was her fault.

Her actions had led me here. Her betrayal had driven me to this bar, to this bottle, to this bed.

She had abandoned me. She had hidden my son. She had found happiness with a worthless human.

She had broken me, and this… this was the result.

The deep, instinctual, possessive love I felt for her—the pull of the mate bond—was an agony I could no longer bear. It was a sickness, a weakness.

My wolf howled for its mate, for its pup, but my mind, my pride, my shattered human heart, could not accept the pain that came with that love.

So, in a final, brutal act of self-preservation, my mind twisted that love into something else.

Something I could use.

Something that would fuel me instead of destroying me.

Hate.

I would call it hate. It felt cleaner, simpler.

It was a shield. A weapon.

The Zane who had spent five years dreaming of a reunion, of atonement, died in that hotel room.

I would drag her back to my world, and I would put her in a cage so beautiful and so strong she would never dream of escaping again.

She and my son. They belonged to me. They were my property.

She would live in my house, under my rule. She would see our son, but she would know no joy.

She would watch me rule with Isabella, the Luna she should have been.

And I would make sure she never saw the face of that human doctor again.

I would take her happiness, the happiness she had built on the foundation of my five years of misery, and I would grind it to dust under my heel.

It was not love. It was not revenge.

It was an Alpha reclaiming his territory.