The Alpha's Forbidden Vow novel Chapter 87

POV: Selene

“My power… it’s not enough,” I said, my voice laced with a new, terrifying despair. I had thought my Silvermoon ability was a key, a secret weapon. But against this dark, insidious magic, it was like trying to stop a flood with a handful of sand.

Zane lay on the floor, his consciousness fading, his body still twitching with the aftershocks of his agony.

“You must help him,” I pleaded with Alaric, turning to the old artisan. “You know of these things. There must be a way.”

The old man shook his head, his face a mask of sorrowful regret. “I am a smith, my lady, a worker of metal and stone,” he said, his voice heavy with the wisdom of his years. “This is a sickness of the blood and the soul. My craft is useless against a witch’s curse that has taken root so deeply.”

My hope crumbled into dust. We were in the middle of nowhere, with a dying Alpha, and the one wise man we had found was powerless.

“But…” Alaric continued, his head tilting as if listening to a distant memory. “There are legends. Old stories, from before the great wars, when the magic of this land was still wild. Stories of healers who live deep within the eastern woods.”

My head snapped up. “Healers?”

“They are not of the wolf packs,” he explained. “They are solitary practitioners, descendants of an ancient line who understand the balance of all things, both natural and magical. It is said they can cure any ailment, for a price.”

It was a long shot, a fairy tale whispered by a blind old man. But it was the only shot we had.

At that moment, a sound from outside cut through the tense silence of the cabin.

A distant howl.

It was not the sound of a wild wolf. It was the disciplined, hunting call of a pack warrior.

Zane, his consciousness flickering, heard it too. His head snapped up, a low, warning growl rumbling in his chest, his protective instincts overriding his pain.

“The Council,” he gasped, his body tensing. “They’ve found us.”

He looked down at me, his stormy grey eyes clouded with a pain and a frustrated helplessness I could only imagine. He, who had always been in control, was now forced to surrender his fate entirely to me.

“Selene…” he began, his voice a hoarse whisper.

“Save your strength,” I said, my voice firm and steady, betraying none of the terror that was churning in my gut. “I’ve got you. I won’t let you fall.”

A look of profound, humbling trust passed over his face. He was placing his life, his very being, entirely in my hands.

It was a terrifying, and strangely empowering, responsibility.

I nodded to Alaric in a silent gesture of thanks.

Then, with Zane leaning heavily on me, his ragged breaths hot against my cheek, I kicked open the cabin’s back door and plunged into the dark, unforgiving wilderness, the howls of our pursuers growing closer behind us.