The Alpha's Forbidden Vow novel Chapter 85

POV: Selene

The journey to the northern mountains was a tense, quiet affair.

The argument between Zane and me still hung in the air, an unspoken wall of mistrust and hurt feelings.

He was trying. I could see it. He didn't issue commands; he asked for my opinion. He didn't crowd me; he gave me space. But the possessive, watchful gleam never truly left his eyes.

After two days of travel, we found him.

The last of the Corbin line.

He was an old, wizened man named Alaric, living in a small, isolated cabin at the foot of a towering, snow-capped mountain.

He was blind, his eyes clouded over with the white film of age, but when we entered his small, cluttered workshop, he turned his head directly toward me.

He sniffed the air, his nostrils flaring.

A look of profound, reverent awe washed over his ancient face.

“It cannot be,” he whispered, his voice a dry, rustling sound like old leaves. “After all these years. The blood of the Silvermoon. It has returned.”

He did not see me with his eyes, but his shifter-attuned senses recognized the scent of my lineage, the unique aura of my power.

Zane stood protectively at my side, his hand resting on the small of my back, his own Alpha aura a low, warning hum.

I stepped forward, my heart pounding.

I unclasped the crescent moon pendant from around my neck and gently placed it in the old man’s outstretched, trembling hands.

He ran his gnarled fingers over the cool silver, his touch full of a familiar reverence.

“Yes,” he breathed. “This is my grandfather’s work. The Key of the Sleeping Valley.”

“A key?” I asked, my voice a whisper.

“It is the only thing that can reveal the path to the Silvermoon Sanctuary,” Alaric explained. He turned the pendant over, his thumb tracing the tiny, intricate markings on the back. “A lock that can only be opened by the one who holds the key.”

He stood and shuffled over to a large, dusty chest in the corner of the workshop.

He lifted the heavy lid, revealing a collection of ancient, rolled-up parchments.

He selected one, his movements sure and certain despite his blindness.

I whirled around.

He had stumbled back a step, his hand clutching his shoulder where Marcus’s poisoned blade had struck him.

His face was suddenly pale, a sheen of cold sweat on his brow.

The confident, powerful Alpha was gone, replaced by a man in the throes of a sudden, agonizing pain.

His legs buckled, and he fell to one knee, his body trembling violently.

“Zane!” I screamed, rushing to his side.

The dormant poison.

Elias’s warning.

It had not been cured. It had only been waiting.

And it had chosen this exact moment, in the middle of nowhere, to strike.