The Alpha's Forbidden Vow novel Chapter 36

POV: Selene

The nightly dinners were a masterclass in psychological torture.

I was not permitted to sit at the table.

My role was to stand near the wall, a silent, invisible nanny, while my son was seated between his father and his father’s fiancée.

Zane’s rule was absolute. Leo was to be integrated into the family.

But Leo, my sweet, stubborn son, had his own rules.

He was a child, but he was also a wolf pup. His instincts were pure and true.

And his instincts told him that Isabella was a threat.

He could smell the cloying falseness under her expensive perfume, the predator’s chill beneath her warm smiles.

Tonight, Isabella was laying the charm on thick.

“Leo, darling,” she said, her voice a saccharine purr. “You must try the asparagus. It will make you big and strong, like your father.”

She picked up a piece with a silver fork and tried to place it on his plate.

Leo looked at the vegetable as if it were a venomous snake.

He looked at Isabella with a flat, cold stare that was a perfect miniature of Zane’s.

Then he looked at me, a silent question in his eyes.

I gave him a subtle, almost imperceptible shake of my head. Be polite.

He looked back at Isabella.

And with a deliberate, defiant motion, he shoved his entire plate off the table.

The fine china crashed against the marble floor, shattering into a hundred pieces.

Asparagus, roasted potatoes, and gravy splattered across the priceless Persian rug.

The silence in the vast dining room was absolute, broken only by the sound of Leo’s small, determined voice.

“I don’t want it,” he said, his grey eyes fixed on Isabella.

“I only want my mommy.”

But underneath it all, I saw something else.

A flicker of something dark and primal and deeply satisfied.

His pup, his own flesh and blood, had instinctually rejected the strange female.

His heir had publicly declared his loyalty to his true mother.

For a single, unguarded moment, the Alpha in him was proud.

Then the mask slammed back into place.

His cold, stormy eyes rose from his son, passed over the furious face of his fiancée, and landed on me.

The look he gave me was unreadable, a complex, agonizing mixture of anger, possession, and a pain so deep it made my own heart ache in response.

He had brought me here to punish me, to break me.

But Leo, our son, the living, breathing symbol of the bond he refused to acknowledge, was a complication he had not anticipated.

He was a wild card, a loyal little wolf who would forever tie the king to his servant.