📖 The Story Continues
The story doesn't end here.Continue reading the full story adaptation below and discover what happens next.
Fated to My Forbidden Alpha – Episode 2
Fifteen years had passed, yet Alpha Ethel still remembered the exact weight of his daughter in his arms. Selene had once fit beneath his chin, her small fingers always reaching for the silver clasp on his uniform. Now all he possessed was memory and a painted likeness above the fireplace in Bloodwind’s council chamber.
Rain struck the tall windows and blurred the mountains beyond them. Maps, patrol reports, and ancestral portraits surrounded Ethel, but his gaze remained fixed on the smiling child in the painting. The face belonged to a life untouched by the night that shattered his pack and left her nursery empty.
Advisers had urged him to accept the likely truth. There had been no ransom demand, no confirmed sighting, and no trail that survived longer than a week. They considered the absence of a body another form of proof; to Ethel, it remained the only reason hope was not madness.
Blood Moon warriors had crossed their border fifteen years earlier beneath a sky stained red by smoke. By dawn, the attackers were gone, guards lay dead outside the eastern wing, and Selene’s bedroom window had been shattered. The three-year-old heir of Bloodwind had vanished without leaving enough blood to prove she died there.
Ethel searched battlefields, rogue settlements, and human cities. He paid trackers, questioned prisoners, and followed rumors until each one dissolved in another country or grave. Whenever someone spoke of Selene in the past tense, his wolf rejected the word with the same ferocity it had shown on the first morning she was missing.
“Where are you, little moon?” he whispered. Lightning illuminated the grief time had carved into his face, but he allowed himself only one unguarded moment. An Alpha could not lead through mourning forever, so he had learned to wear command over the wound without ever letting it close.
A warrior entered and bowed, rain darkening his uniform. “The convoy is ready. Nightwind has confirmed your audience.” Ethel fastened his cloak and looked once more at Selene’s portrait. Today he would call in the greatest debt anyone owed him, and Blood Moon’s silence would finally face a power it could not dismiss.
Hours later, Nightwind’s grand council hall surrounded him with black stone pillars marked by generations of claws. Guards stood along the walls with disciplined stillness, while advisers occupied their seats without wasting a word. At the far end of the oak table sat Alexander Kane, the strongest Alpha in the country, wearing no crown because he needed none.
Ethel placed both hands on the map between them. “For fifteen years, I have woken without knowing whether my daughter is alive, suffering, or buried in an unmarked grave.” He had rehearsed a measured appeal during the journey, but the outline of Blood Moon territory stripped restraint from his voice.
Alexander did not offer false sympathy. “Tell me what you are asking of Nightwind.” His golden eyes remained calm, though the power beneath that calm kept every wolf in the chamber attentive. The steadiness gave Ethel room to speak without being reduced to a grieving father begging for pity.
“Honor your promise.” Years earlier, Ethel had dragged a wounded Alexander out of an ambush and held the line until Nightwind reinforcements arrived. Alexander had sworn to repay the life debt whenever Ethel named his need, and no Alpha worthy of the title treated such an oath as ceremonial language.
Ethel identified Blood Moon as the pack that attacked, abducted Selene, and obstructed every investigation afterward. Jackson had inherited the territory and its denials, while witnesses disappeared and messengers failed to return. “No child vanishes from a guarded nursery without help,” Ethel said. “Someone inside that pack knows the truth.”
Alexander’s Beta warned that accusing an established pack without surviving evidence could destabilize every regional alliance. The caution was reasonable, but reason had been used to delay Ethel for fifteen years. He struck the table hard enough to rattle its carved markers and demanded action before another piece of the truth disappeared.
Silence held the chamber. Alexander studied the exhausted Alpha across from him and saw no hunger for territory or excuse for conquest. Ethel had spent half a lifetime walking toward a sealed door because admitting it would never open felt more unbearable than every failed attempt.
Alexander rose. “I will investigate Blood Moon. If Jackson’s pack hid your daughter or destroyed evidence of what happened to her, they will answer to Nightwind.” His wolf stirred beneath the promise, turning formal words into a threat no one in the room misunderstood.
Relief nearly drove Ethel to his knees. He steadied himself against the table and thanked Alexander without pretending the promise guaranteed a happy ending. Hope was dangerous after fifteen years, but for the first time it had an army willing to follow it.
After Ethel left, Alexander remained before the map. His Beta asked whether he was prepared to confront Jackson, an ambitious Alpha known for violence when challenged and arrogance when flattered. Alexander answered with a humorless smile. Dangerous men rarely troubled him; dangerous men convinced of their own cleverness usually revealed exactly where to strike.
Yet debt was not the only force drawing him east. The previous night, his wolf had awakened to an impossible pull from Blood Moon territory, leaving warmth beneath Alexander’s ribs and a single certainty in his mind. He had spent years searching for a mate who never appeared, and now fate had whispered from the land of a potential enemy.
Inside Blood Moon’s private sitting room, Jackson stared toward the same forest while Tiffany sat across his lap. Her perfume, laughter, and teasing touch usually pleased him, but tonight they could not quiet his wolf. The animal paced restlessly whenever Jackson thought of the servant girl who had slipped into the woods after midnight.
Tiffany asked what was wrong as Jackson lifted his drink. His wolf slammed against his control, and the crystal fell from his hand, shattering across the floor. While amber liquor spread at his feet, three Alphas turned toward the same hidden girl for three different reasons—none realizing Bloodwind’s missing heir already lived inside Blood Moon under the name Selene.
