The Alpha's Forbidden Vow novel Chapter 60

POV: Selene

The small comfort I had found in my brief conversation with Elias was a fragile, fleeting thing.

I knew the risks. I knew that every moment in this manor, I was being watched.

But the need to connect with a sane, kind voice from my past had been overwhelming.

I had just hidden the small burner phone back in its hiding place, a loose floorboard under my bed, when my door was thrown open.

Not kicked in this time. Just opened with a swift, angry force that was somehow more menacing.

Zane stood there, his face a thunderous mask of pure, possessive rage.

In his hand, he held a tablet, its screen glowing in the dim light of my room.

On the screen was a live feed from a tiny, pinhole surveillance camera I had never known was there, aimed directly at my bed. It showed a perfect image of me, whispering into the burner phone.

My blood ran cold.

There was no privacy here. There was no escape. I was a prisoner under constant, 24-hour surveillance.

“What did I tell you?” he snarled, his voice a low, dangerous growl that vibrated through the floor.

He stalked into the room, the tablet held out in front of him like a verdict.

“I told you that you were not to have contact with him. I warned you what would happen to anyone who tried to take what is mine.”

“He is my friend!” I shot back, my own fear quickly being consumed by a surge of defiant anger. “He was just checking to see if I was alive! Something you seem to care very little about!”

“I have you under my roof! Under my protection! Is that not caring?” he roared, his Alpha power flaring, making the air in the small room feel thick and heavy.

“That’s not protection, Zane! It’s possession!” I screamed, finally giving voice to the truth that had been suffocating me. “You don’t want me to be safe! You want me to be yours! A thing in a cage that no one else can have!”

He was putting me in a real cage this time.

“This isn’t protection,” I whispered, tears of pure, helpless fury streaming down my face. “This is a prison.”

“Then so be it,” he bit out, his voice raw with a pain that mirrored my own.

He turned and stormed out of the room, leaving me in the suffocating silence.

A moment later, I heard the heavy, metallic sound of a key turning in the lock from the outside.

He had locked me in.

My brief moment of hope, my connection to the outside world, had been utterly and completely destroyed.

And my gilded cage had just become a real one.