Born To Be Your Apocalypse

The Chain Around My Neck

Zane’s POV

My mother’s necklace… just like all those years ago, when I had stood before him and told him that Sabrina was my mate, begging him to spare her.

He had used my mother’s necklace then, too, holding it over me like a chain he knew I could never break, forcing me to remember that Sabrina’s mother had been responsible for my mother’s death.

No matter how many years passed, he always found a way to drag that necklace back into my decisions, twisting my grief into a weapon and using the memory of my mother to control me whenever I dared to choose something he didn’t agree with.

My wolf groaned deep inside me, his irritation mirroring the anger burning through my veins. I was tired of it. Tired of my father deciding what I should do by reminding me of the woman I had lost, as if loving my mother meant I had to surrender every choice I made to him. As if her death had given him the right to hold the rest of my life hostage.

I lifted my eyes to him, forcing myself to meet his stare. His gray hair had grown too long, curling past his collar, while the lines carved into his face were deeper than I remembered. Age had not softened him. If anything, it had only sharpened those hard, unforgiving features, making him look every bit as unyielding as the man who had spent years using my mother’s memory to keep me under his control.

I glanced at his hair again and sighed. “Father, go get a hair cut.”

He stared at me as though I'd lost my mind. “What?”

“Your hair.” I gestured toward his head. “It's beginning to look like you're trying to join a rock band.”

I picked up another file and began flipping through it as though it contained something important.

“This shouldn’t concern you so much. I am the Alpha now,” I said calmly. “I'll handle things here my way.”

For half a second, silence filled the room…then his fist slammed down on the desk hard enough to make the ink pot jump. The wood cracked under the force. I didn’t flinch.

“I hope you are not entertaining any thoughts toward that curse,” he growled, leaning over the desk until his breath hit my face. “You will be making Lyria your Luna and that is final. Her return does not change anything. Do you understand?”

He held my gaze for several seconds, waiting for me to challenge him.

I didn't. But the mention of Lyria's name did nothing but add another weight to the storm already pressing against my ribs.

“What are you saying, Father?” I answered, keeping my tone even despite the anger fueling inside me. “I rejected her years ago.”

The lie sat heavy on my tongue.

And for the first time that day, I had to remind myself that my father didn't need to know the truth.

I had never rejected Sabrina. I couldn’t. The universe had given me the one girl I had wanted as far back as I could remember, the one I used to watch from across the training fields, the one who smiled at me once when no one else was looking.

Watching the pack tear her down piece by piece had turned something inside me to ice. I became the cold, unfeeling bastard they never expected.

I hurt myself later in private after she escaped, replaying every lash, every bruise, every tear she shed, as if the pain could somehow balance the scale. It never did. She hates me. The only woman who ever made my heart race looks at me like I am the monster who helped destroy her life.

All because I was a coward. Because I chose my father’s chains over her.

I had watched her suffer and done nothing that she could see.

The truth was that I didn’t have a choice back then.

My father had been Alpha then.

Every move I made had been watched.

Every expression had been noticed and reported back to him.

If I had shown Sabrina even the slightest hint that I cared about her, my father would have known and ordered her death.

So I had done the only thing I thought would keep her alive.

I had made everyone believe I hated her too.

It had been the hardest thing I'd ever done my entire life.

Every time she looked at me with those wounded eyes, I wanted to tell her the truth. I had wanted to tell her that I was sorry, that I hated seeing her suffer, that I would give anything to take her pain away.

Instead, I looked away.

I had pretended not to care.

And every time I did, I hated myself a little more.

That was until I learned she was going to be killed by my father.

That was when pretending stopped being enough.

I had found my best friend and told him to help her escape.

I didn't care whether my father would discover what I'd done. I hadn't known whether I would survive the consequences.

I only knew that if Sabrina stayed, she would die.

So I took the risk.

I told myself that was all I could do for her.

I told myself she needed to be away from this pack if she was ever going to live.

And for seven years, I had tried to believe that was enough.

Now fate had brought her right back.

I flipped another page of the report, pretending the numbers mattered more than the storm building in the room.

He stared at me for a long second, searching for any c***k. I gave him nothing…except a cold look.

Finally he turned toward the door, still muttering under his breath about curses and bloodlines and the girl who should have died with her mother.

Just then the door opened and she stormed in, eyes blazing, fury written in every line of her body.

“Speak of the devil,” I muttered to myself.

The words slipped out under my breath the second I caught the flash of dark hair and those furious eyes.

My father shoved past the figure in the doorway without a second glance, still muttering things I couldn’t care less about.

Lyria stormed in like she owned every inch of the study.

Her face was twisted, lips pulled tight, eyes flashing with anger. She planted herself right in front of the desk, heels clicking hard against the floorboards.

“Zane, how could you keep her in your room… our future matrimonial room? Don’t you even consider my feelings? I’m your wife to be!”

She stamped one foot against the ground, the sound sharp and childish in the heavy quiet of the study. I closed my eyes for half a second, rubbing my temple with two fingers. The headache that had been building since my father walked in only got worse.

“You never let me into that room despite the fact that we are a couple,” she kept going, voice rising. “And now you let that… that cursed murderer’s daughter in?”

The second the words left her mouth, my wolf, Scar, exploded inside my skull.

A deep, vicious snarl tore through my chest, so loud in my head that for a moment I couldn’t hear anything else. He wanted blood. He wanted her throat. He had always hated the way people spoke about Sabrina. She is the only one the bond recognized. The only one he had ever claimed as his. And Lyria had just spat on that claim like it meant nothing.

Scar and I had been enemies sharing the same body for years. He blamed me for every lash, every tear, every night Sabrina spent alone and broken while I stood there doing nothing. He never let me forget it. The rage he threw at me every time I thought of her was constant and exhausting. Right now that rage turned fully on Lyria.

I felt my canines press against the inside of my lip. My hands tightened on the edge of the desk until the wood creaked. I forced the snarl back down my throat before it could escape. Forced my face to stay blank. Forced the cold Alpha mask to stay in place even though every instinct screamed to throw her out of the room.

Just then, a sharp knock cut through the tension as one of the omegas shoved the door open without waiting for permission, eyes wide, breath coming too fast.

“Alpha… it’s the cursed girl… she’s… she’s—”

“She’s what?” I growled, already on my feet, the chair scraping hard against the floor as I pushed it back.