The Alpha's Forbidden Vow novel Chapter 5

POV: Zane

The solid oak door of my study slammed shut, the tremor vibrating up my arm.

It wasn't enough.

I wanted to smash something, to break and destroy until the world was as shattered as the control I had just lost.

My wolf was a raging inferno in my chest, howling a single, agonized word.

Mate. Mate. MINE.

It clawed at my insides, demanding I go back, drag her from that kitchen, throw her over my shoulder, and lock her in my room where she belonged.

Where I could keep her safe.

I paced the room like a caged lion, the scent of her clinging to me like a second skin.

The sweet, intoxicating smell of her arousal, the musky scent of her release.

I could still feel the slick heat of her cunt gripping my cock, feel her nails digging into my back as she came apart beneath me.

Fuck.

The memory was so vivid it made my cock stir again, and a wave of self-loathing washed over me, so potent it was nauseating.

For years, I had built walls of ice around myself.

For years, I had treated her with a cold indifference that was a lie, a shield against the possessive, all-consuming obsession she ignited in me.

It was my duty.

I was the future Alpha King.

I needed a political alliance, a Luna of pure blood and powerful lineage like Isabella Laurent, not a fragile, beautiful orphan with the scent of innocence and a past steeped in defeat.

My coldness was a weapon, yes, but it was meant to protect her.

To keep her under the radar, to make sure no one ever saw her as a weakness they could use against me.

But last night, she’d heard me.

She’d stood outside my door and listened to the feral beast I kept chained, heard the filth and raw need I had for her.

That loss of control was the first crack in the dam.

Then this morning, seeing her in the kitchen… so small, so terrified.

I had just put her in more danger than ever before.

If my father, my mother, or the Elders ever suspected the truth of the mate bond, they would never let it stand.

They would remove her.

Quietly, efficiently, and permanently.

I had to be the monster.

I had to wound her so deeply, so unforgivably, that she would hate me.

Hate was safe.

Hate would make her leave, would make her run far away from this gilded cage and the vipers within it.

I had to be the villain she fled from, even if it meant ripping out my own fucking heart and grinding it into dust.

I stared at my reflection in the dark windowpane, at the eyes of the beast staring back.

I had destroyed her heart today, all in the twisted, desperate hope of saving her life.