The Alpha's Forbidden Vow novel Chapter 88

POV: Zane

Pain.

My world had been reduced to a single, searing point of it.

It was a fire in my shoulder, a cold sickness in my veins, a relentless agony that clouded my thoughts and stole my strength.

I was aware of moving, of the rough bark of trees and the damp smell of earth.

But my only true anchor in the swirling darkness of the delirium was her.

Selene.

I could feel the strength in her small frame as she supported my weight.

I could smell her scent of chamomile and fierce determination, a scent that was the only thing keeping my wolf from succumbing to the poison.

She was my only support. The thought was both deeply humbling and profoundly infuriating. I was the Alpha. I was supposed to be protecting her, and instead, I was a dead weight, a liability.

The self-loathing was almost as sharp as the pain.“I’m sorry,” I tried to mumble, the words thick and clumsy on my tongue. “So sorry, Selene…”“Don’t talk,” her voice came, a firm, steady anchor in my chaos. “Just walk.”

Sometime later, a new scent cut through the haze of my fever.

The foul, rancid stench of rogues.

And beneath it, the sharp, terrified scent of prey. A woman.

My Alpha senses, though dulled, screamed a warning.

My inner wolf, a weak and wounded thing, let out a low, pained growl.

Selene pulled me behind a tree, her body shielding mine.

I fought against the darkness, forcing my eyes open.

I saw them through a feverish, shimmering haze.

Three mangy rogues, circling a fallen woman in a moonlit clearing.

She was on the ground, her clothes torn, her face pale with a terror that was sickeningly familiar.

And then, the world shifted.

The fever, the pain, the poison—it all twisted my perception.

The woman on the ground was no longer a stranger.

Her face became Selene’s.

It was her, five years ago, in that rain-slicked alley.

The rogues were instantly flattened to the ground, whimpering, their bellies scraping the dirt in abject submission.

I held their terrified gazes, my entire being focused on a single command. Leave.

They scrambled to their feet and fled into the darkness like beaten dogs.

The clearing was silent.

I looked at the woman on the ground, and for a moment, I still saw Selene’s face, but this time, she was looking up at me not with fear, but with a dawning hope.

I had done it.

I had finally protected her.

The thought brought a moment of profound, blissful peace.

And then the monumental effort of what I had just done claimed its price.

The last of my strength vanished.

The world dissolved into blackness.

And I fell.