The Alpha's Forbidden Vow novel Chapter 77

POV: Selene

Zane was a man possessed by a new, focused energy.

The news of Isabella’s “abduction” by her brother had shattered our fragile peace, but it had also given him a clear enemy to focus on, and that seemed to settle the storm inside him.

His focus, unsettlingly, had turned to me.

Not with the possessive, jealous rage of before, but with the intense, demanding focus of a trainer preparing a warrior for battle.

“You have a power inside you, Selene,” he had said to me the day after the news broke. “A power you don’t understand. We are going to change that.”

He had brought me to the pack’s private training grounds, a vast, secluded area behind the manor.

“Your power is one of empathy, of calm,” he explained, his voice the low, rumbling tone of an Alpha instructor. “It is not a weapon of aggression. To control it, you must first find the center of your own calm. You must connect with your inner wolf, not as a separate creature, but as a part of your own soul.”

His methods were strange, based on ancient shifter lore.

He had me sit cross-legged on the soft grass, my eyes closed.

“Breathe,” he commanded. “Filter out the world. Focus on your senses. What do you smell?”

At first, all I could smell was the damp earth and the clean scent of his skin.

But as I focused, my werewolf senses, now reawakened and growing stronger every day, began to expand.

I could smell the sap in the trees, the scent of a rabbit in its burrow a hundred yards away, the distant perfume of the roses in my old garden.

“Good,” he said, his voice a steady anchor. “Now, listen. What do you hear?”

I heard the wind in the leaves, the frantic beating of a bird’s wings overhead, the low hum of the manor’s electrical systems in the distance.

And I could hear the steady, powerful beat of his heart.

“Now,” he said, his voice dropping lower. “Reach inside. Find your wolf. Don't fight her. Don't suppress her. Greet her. See her as your other half.”

I turned my consciousness inward.

For the first time, instead of seeing the scared, whimpering creature I had always imagined, I saw something else.

A she-wolf, proud and silver-furred, with eyes that held a deep, ancient wisdom.

“You see?” Zane said, a look of profound, undisguised pride in his eyes. “It is a part of you.”

But as I looked at him, at the raw power of his own Alpha aura, at the lingering torment in his stormy grey eyes, a new, reckless thought occurred to me.

The book said a Silvermoon could soothe the most savage of beasts, the most tormented of minds.

I closed my eyes again, and this time, I focused all of my newfound power, all of that warm, calming energy, directly on him.

I felt it leave me, a tangible wave of moonlight and peace, and wash over him.

He let out a sharp, ragged gasp, his entire body going rigid.

I opened my eyes and looked at him.

The hard lines of his face had softened. The torment in his eyes had receded, replaced by a look of stunned, profound tranquility.

The raging beast inside him, the one that had been at war for five long years, was finally, for the first time, at peace.

And we both knew, in that stunning, silent moment, that the power I held was far greater than either of us had ever imagined.