The Alpha's Forbidden Vow novel Chapter 66

POV: Selene

Zane’s confession was a bomb that detonated in the silent, frozen cavern of my mind.

His words, delivered with such raw vulnerability, had ripped open a hidden chamber in my heart, revealing a truth far more complicated than I had ever imagined.

The image of him, drunk and heartbroken, making a mistake that spiraled into five years of hell for both of us… it was almost enough to break me.

Almost.

I stared at him, my mind reeling.

The revelation that Isabella’s pregnancy was a calculated lie, that Zane had been fighting a political war he couldn’t speak of, that he’d been just as trapped and tormented… it painted a picture of suffering I hadn’t attributed to him.

I had always seen him as the orchestrator of my pain, not a fellow victim of circumstance.

A cold, analytical part of me began to process the information, piecing together the fragments of the past.

But then, the anger, dormant for a moment, surged back, hot and uncompromising.

*So what?* The thought screamed in my mind.

*So what if he was hurting, too?*

His pain did not erase mine.

His misguided intentions did not heal the scars he had carved into my soul.

He had made a choice that night, and every single torment I had endured since—the lonely exile, raising our son alone, the public humiliation, the constant, gnawing fear—it all stemmed from his actions.

He, the all-powerful Alpha, had claimed to be protecting me, but his decisions had only ever pushed me deeper into the abyss.

He had pushed me away, then dragged me back, and through it all, he had kept me in the dark, treating me like a pawn in a game I didn’t even know I was playing.

*How could he expect me to forgive that?*

*How could I forgive the man who, for five years, allowed me to believe he had chosen another, that I was a disposable plaything?*

No. I couldn't.

It would be a betrayal of the past Selene, the one who cried herself to sleep for years, the one who watched her son grow up believing he had no father.

It would be unfair to myself to simply brush away the trauma with a single, desperate apology.

My gaze hardened.

I looked at him, truly looked at him.

His eyes were still filled with a raw, agonizing plea, a reflection of the truth in his words.

I finally turned to look at him, my eyes blazing with a hatred that was pure and cleansing.

“You make me sick,” I whispered, the words a blade I twisted in his heart. “Your touch disgusts me.”

His face lost all color, his eyes clouding over with a profound, soul-crushing despair.

He had expected anger, tears, screams. He had not expected this absolute, fundamental rejection.

He thought his truth would be a key to unlock my heart. Instead, I had used it to reinforce the bars.

He stumbled back a step, the silent proof of how deeply my words had cut him.

The hope in his eyes died, replaced by a terrible, empty pain.

He truly believed I hated him, beyond all repair.

And in that moment, I saw his complete and utter devastation.

A treacherous part of me ached for him.

But I crushed it down.

It was a wound he had earned.