The Alpha's Forbidden Vow novel Chapter 54

POV: Zane

The aftermath of the council meeting was a pressure cooker of expectation and duty.

My mother and Isabella were in a frenzy of planning for the Mating Ceremony, their triumphant whispers a constant, grating noise in my own home.

Elder Malachi and his conservative faction were watching my every move, ensuring I did not waver from my "sacred duty."

I felt like a king who had been checkmated in his own castle.

My wolf was a restless, enraged beast inside me, snarling at the scent of Isabella’s deception, a scent I, the man, had no proof of.

My gut, my Alpha instinct, screamed that her pregnancy was a lie.

But the memory of that night, however blank, and the irrefutable "evidence" she had presented, left me without a weapon.

I was trapped by my own perceived failure.

I was in my study, a bottle of whiskey on the desk, the temptation to drown myself in oblivion almost overwhelming.

But I would not let myself fall into that trap again.

That one night of weakness had cost me everything.

I would not make the same mistake twice.

My passive despair was beginning to curdle into a cold, focused rage.

If I was being played, I would find out.

I summoned Kael.

My Beta entered the room, his face etched with a weary concern for his Alpha.

“I have a mission for you, Kael,” I said, my voice low and hard. “Two, in fact. And they are to be kept off the books. No one, not even my father, is to know.”

“It is said to be the only thing that can irrefutably prove a blood connection, a truth that no Elder Council can deny,” I continued.

“But the legends also say it is extinct,” Kael said, his voice grim. “Wiped out during the old wars.”

“Legends are often wrong,” I countered, my voice hard with resolve. “I want you to find it. Take a team of our best trackers. Scour the oldest territories, the forgotten lands. Bribe shamans, consult the ancient packs. I don’t care what it takes.”

I looked at my loyal Beta, my friend.

“This is the only way,” I said, my voice raw with a desperation I showed to no one else. “It is the only physical proof that can fight their political maneuvering.”

Kael looked from the book to my face, and he understood.

This was not about politics. This was about Selene.

“I will find it, Alpha,” he said, his voice full of a renewed, fierce loyalty.

“No matter the cost.”