Alpha’s Forbidden Mate

CHAPTER THREE

Kaia’s POV

The forest did not feel as cold on the way back.

Or maybe I simply wasn’t paying attention.

I moved through the trees on instinct, cloak gathered in my fists, boots barely grazing the forest floor. I refused to look back. Refused to wonder if he was still standing there at the cliff’s edge, watching the place where I had disappeared.

Neutral territory faded behind me. The borders rose ahead like quiet sentinels. By the time the iron gates of Vale Manor came into view, my expression was composed again. Measured. Untouchable.

The heir.

Not the girl who had almost kissed a Lycan Alpha under moonlight.

I slipped through the side entrance and retraced my steps through the servant’s passage, ascending the spiral staircase in silence. The castle was asleep. Blissfully unaware of the fracture line running straight through its future ruler.

When I reached my chambers, I locked the doors.

Only then did I exhale.

The room greeted me with familiarity. Silk curtains stirring faintly. A low fire reduced to embers. The wide canopy bed standing pristine and untouched.

Everything exactly where it should be.

Unlike me.

I shed my cloak and laid it across a chair. My fingers lingered briefly at my jaw, at the place where his thumb had brushed my skin. The memory was vivid enough that my breath faltered again.

Ridiculous.

It had been nothing.

A near mistake.

I changed slowly, mechanically, folding fabric with unnecessary precision before slipping beneath the covers. The mattress dipped around me. The pillows were cool against my skin.

I closed my eyes.

Sleep did not come.

The ceiling felt closer than usual. The quiet heavier.

And without permission, my mind drifted backward.

Two nights ago.

The chamber.

The first touch.

I could see it with unsettling clarity. The candlelight flickering along stone walls. The tension coiled in his shoulders. The defiance in his eyes even as he lay wounded in enemy territory.

I had told myself I was calm.

Professional.

Untouched by his presence.

But when my fingers had finally descended to his skin—

The memory struck like lightning all over again.

The heat.

Not warmth.

Heat. Immediate. Consuming. As if something ancient had surged awake inside my veins. My breath had caught so sharply I thought I might choke on it.

His skin had been solid beneath my hands. Strong. Alive with restrained power. And the instant contact was made, it was as though invisible threads snapped into place between us, tightening, weaving, binding.

I had felt his heartbeat.

Not metaphorically. Literally.

Each steady thud had echoed inside my chest until I could no longer distinguish his rhythm from my own.

And the look in his eyes—

Shock. Recognition. Something primal rising to the surface faster than either of us could suppress it.

It hadn’t felt romantic.

It had felt inevitable.

That was the terrifying part.

The ceiling blurred above me.

I tried to will the memory away.

It only sharpened.

Two nights ago.

The chamber had felt smaller after the bond ignited. Smaller and brighter, as if the candlelight had grown teeth. My fingers were still pressed to his shoulder, the torn muscle beneath my palm knitting slowly as I forced my blood to work.

He had inhaled sharply the moment it happened.

“What—”

“Don’t,” I whispered.

Not harsh. Not frightened. Just firm.

Because if he said it out loud, if he named it, it would become real in a way I was not ready to confront.

His chest rose and fell unevenly beneath my hand. I could feel the power in him trying to surge forward, instinct battling injury. His wolf had stirred. I felt that too. A second heartbeat layered beneath the first. Wild. Restless.

“Kaia,” he tried again, voice rougher this time.

I pressed my fingers more firmly against his skin, not to hurt him, but to anchor him. To anchor myself.

“Be quiet,” I said softly. “If you disrupt my focus, the healing will slow.”

That part was true.

What I did not say was that if he kept speaking in that low, fractured tone, my concentration would shatter completely.

The energy moved through me in controlled waves. Warmth flowed from my palms into him, threading through torn muscle and bruised tissue, urging it to mend. My blood answered instinctively, glowing faintly beneath my skin, ancient and deliberate.

He went still.

Not because he obeyed.

Because he was watching me.

I could feel his gaze like a physical touch along my face, my throat, my hands. The bond pulsed with every beat of his heart, stronger when our eyes met, steadier when I focused on the wound.

It wasn’t chaotic anymore.

It was aware.

I finished sealing the worst of the damage first. The torn muscle fused. The bleeding stopped completely. The bruising began to fade from violent purple to muted shadow.

His breathing steadied.

And all the while, that invisible thread between us tightened.

When I finally withdrew my hands, the sudden absence of contact felt like stepping out into winter without warning.

The air between us cooled instantly.

I stood.

Too quickly.

The room felt tilted. Off balance.

“It’s done,” I said, keeping my voice neutral. Clinical. As if I had just completed any ordinary task. “You’ll need rest to regain full strength. I’ve repaired the damage, but your body must recalibrate.”

He pushed himself up slightly on his elbows, testing the healed shoulder. His expression shifted from disbelief to something darker.

“You felt it too,” he said quietly.

I moved to the side table, gathering the cloth I had used, avoiding his eyes.

“You were wounded,” I replied. “Heightened sensations are common after significant trauma.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

Of course it wasn’t.

I crossed the chamber toward the door.

“We will not discuss it.”

“Kaia.”

My hand had just reached the handle when I felt it—

Fingers closing around my wrist.

Firm. Warm. Certain.

The contact sent a fresh surge through the bond, less explosive than the first, but deeper. Rooted. Like something settling into place rather than igniting.

I turned slowly.

He was standing now.

Fully upright.

Too steady for someone who had been near collapse an hour earlier.

His grip wasn’t painful. It wasn’t forceful.

But it was unyielding.

“You don’t get to pretend that didn’t happen,” he said, voice lower than before. Stronger. The weakness had drained from it. “I’ve never felt anything like that.”

“That is precisely why we are not discussing it,” I replied, though my pulse betrayed me.

His thumb shifted slightly against the inside of my wrist, and the bond responded immediately, a quiet flare beneath my skin.

His gaze dropped to where he held me.

Then back to my eyes.

“Two days,” he said.

I frowned faintly. “What?”

“Two days from now. Midnight. The cliff in neutral territory.”

My breath caught.

“You presume much.”

“I presume nothing,” he corrected. “I will be fully rested by then. Healed. Strong.” His jaw tightened slightly. “I want to feel it again without weakness clouding it.”

The audacity.

“You think this is something to experiment with?”

“I think,” he said carefully, “that whatever it is, it won’t disappear because we refuse to acknowledge it.”

Silence stretched between us.

His grip loosened slightly, but he did not let go.

“If you don’t come,” he continued, “I’ll know you’re afraid of it.”

My eyes narrowed. “I am not afraid.”

“Then prove it.”

The challenge hung between us, sharp and deliberate.

For a heartbeat, I considered refusing outright. Walking away. Ending it there.

Instead, I pulled my wrist gently from his grasp.

“I make no promises,” I said evenly.

But he saw it in my eyes.

I would come.

I left the chamber without looking back.

And now, lying in my bed two nights later, staring into darkness, I realized something that unsettled me far more than the bond itself.

He hadn’t sounded hopeful when he asked me to meet him.

He had sounded certain.

And I had gone.

Ronan’s POV

She’s gone.

And yet I still feel her. Every step she took away from the cliff left a pulse inside me, tugging at my chest, threading through me like fire. The bond hums beneath my skin, alive, insistent, demanding. I taste her in the air—her cloak, her scent, the faint warmth she left behind. My wolf growls, restless, hungry, echoing my own need.

I shouldn’t want her. I shouldn’t feel like this. She’s a vampire, my sworn enemy, the daughter of our worst rivals. And yet… every nerve in me aches for her. Every fiber of my being is drawn to her, to the memory of her hands on me, to the way she smelled, to the way she looked at me, defiant even as she healed me.

I remember the weight of her touch from two days ago. The heat of her blood, the pulse of her life beneath my fingertips. My body reacted before my mind could even protest. My wolf stirred violently, low growls vibrating in my chest. I wanted more. I wanted to feel her pressed against me. I wanted to taste her. To claim her. To see her tremble under my hands—not from fear, but from me.

She silenced me with that look—fierce, commanding, impossibly beautiful—and I obeyed. And that only made the desire sharper, more consuming.

When she moved to leave, I didn’t hesitate. My fingers closed around her wrist, firm, possessive. The bond surged, thrumming through me like it had a pulse of its own. I could feel her, every heartbeat, every stolen breath, every flicker of tension in her body. She tried to resist me, but it only made me want her more.

“Two days,” I said, my voice rough, low, and almost a growl. “Meet me at the cliff. Midnight. No excuses.”

I saw the flicker in her eyes—defiance, fear, maybe curiosity. Maybe she felt it too. The pull, the bond, the heat, the need.

Now, standing alone, I can still feel her. Restless. Angry. Alive. And it consumes me, drives me mad with want. I can’t control the wolf inside me. I can’t control the way my body reacts at the memory of her. I can’t control the way my mind replays her—her skin, her pulse, the way her lips almost brushed mine.

I want her.

I want her sharp, defiant, unwilling. I want her trembling under me. I want the impossible—her in every sense, bound to me whether she admits it or not.

My jaw tightens. My hands curl into fists. I pace the cliff edge. The night air does nothing to cool the fire inside me.

I exhale sharply and force myself to step back from the cliff’s edge. My boots scrape against the stone as I turn, the wind tugging at my hair, but I don’t care. I can’t stay here. Not with my wolf thrumming beneath my skin and her scent still clinging to the air like a promise I’m not allowed to keep.

I pace briefly, chest tight, heart hammering. Every nerve in me is screaming, every muscle taut with want and frustration. But I have to calm it down. I have to.

Finally, I begin the walk back through the forest, careful, silent. My wolf protests every step, low growls vibrating beneath my ribs. I grit my teeth and focus on the rhythm of my own heartbeat, on steadying my breath, on the mundane sound of boots on leaves and branches snapping beneath my stride.

I replay the memory anyway—her hands, her touch, the way she silenced me, the way the bond responded instantly. I can’t stop it from rising inside me, can’t stop my body from remembering.

But I will stop it from controlling me.

Not here. Not now.

The moonlight glances off the trees, and I pull my cloak tighter, forcing the heat and desire back under control. My wolf growls again, sharper this time, but I clamp down, forcing it into the shadows of restraint.

By the time I reach my home, sweat cooling on my skin, I’m still tense, still burning with her, but I manage to steady myself. I lock the door behind me and exhale, slow and deep, trying to remind myself of reason, control, dominance.

The bond thrums beneath my skin, steady but restrained for now. I can feel her even here, even now, and it’s maddening—but I survive. I control.

For now.