Fated to My Forbidden Alpha – Episode 15
The chandelier filled Selene’s vision as it plunged toward the marble floor. Time seemed to slow around twisting iron arms and spinning crystals, but her body could not move quickly enough. There was no open path beyond the widening shadow.
Alexander’s warning thundered through the corridor. He launched forward, caught Selene around the waist, and threw them both beyond the falling fixture. They struck the floor as the chandelier crashed where she had stood one heartbeat earlier.
Iron twisted against marble and crystals burst into glittering fragments. A broken arm struck the wall hard enough to split stone where Selene’s head had been. Alexander shielded her beneath his body until the last pieces stopped falling. Dust blocked the morning light, and for several seconds Selene heard nothing except his heartbeat and Lyla’s frightened breathing inside her mind. The ordinary hallway had become the scene of an execution that missed by inches.
He asked whether she was hurt, his breath uneven from terror and exertion. Selene found only a burning scrape along her arm. When their eyes met, the bond carried Alexander’s fear directly into her—the absolute certainty that watching her die would have broken something inside him.
Lyla settled with fierce recognition. Alexander had protected them before calculating the cost. The intimacy of his rapid heartbeat warmed Selene’s cheeks, but another voice crashed through the dust before either could move.
Jackson arrived seconds too late. He stopped at the sight of Alexander bent over his mate, one arm still circling her while trust softened Selene’s face. Something inside him snapped, and Alpha pressure drove gathering servants backward.
Alexander rose and helped Selene to her feet. Dust coated her dress, blood marked one sleeve, and crystals clung to her hair. Jackson reached toward her, then remembered the watching corridor and let his hand fall before contact betrayed more than anger already had.
Luke examined the wreckage and lifted the severed support rope. Its fibers showed a deliberate cut before the final break. The chandelier had not fallen through neglect; someone inside Blood Moon had prepared it to kill the person standing beneath it.
Jackson’s excuses for emotional distance collapsed beneath the knowledge. He planned to reject Selene, yet feeling her terror through the bond had resembled death entering his own body. His wolf demanded vengeance against an enemy Jackson had allowed to move freely inside his pack.
On the upper landing, Tiffany withdrew before anyone looked up. She joined the arriving servants with one hand over her mouth and performed horror perfectly. “Selene, are you all right?” she cried, even reaching forward until Alexander’s cold stare stopped her.
Selene studied the concern that never reached Tiffany’s eyes. Lyla detected fear beneath her perfume, but not fear of the accident. Tiffany feared what had survived it, and the distinction chilled Selene more than open hatred would have. For the first time, suspicion gave Selene a face she could remember.
Ethel knelt beside the cut chain. If Selene was his daughter, he had nearly lost her again moments after finding her. The helplessness of the nursery attack tore through him, and his wolf answered with a vow that no one would take her a second time.
Jackson cleared the corridor until only Selene, Alexander, Ethel, Luke, Drake, and he remained. He thanked Alexander with visible difficulty. Alexander replied that he had done what anyone should, though every man present knew few Alphas would throw themselves beneath falling iron for a servant met the previous night.
Later, a healer bandaged Selene’s arm in the quiet infirmary. Lyla noted that three Alphas had reacted as if her life mattered. Selene answered that it never had before, and the sorrow in those words revealed more about Blood Moon than any accusation.
“Perhaps you were surrounded by people who refused to see its value,” Lyla said. Value did not begin when an Alpha noticed it. Selene had accepted the names others assigned her—servant, orphan, wolfless nobody—but the contradictions around her past now made each label suspicious.
Someone had concealed her origin, and the attempt on her life suggested the secret remained dangerous. Selene whispered the question pressing behind every new discovery: “Who am I really?” Lyla offered no answer, only the steady companionship Selene had once prayed to find.
Across the manor, Ethel unfolded a cloth bundle carried through fifteen years of searching. Inside lay a tiny silver bracelet commissioned before his daughter’s third birthday. His wife had engraved two words along its inner curve: My Selene.
Ethel had imagined fastening it around his daughter’s wrist if he found her. The bracelet outlived his wife and nearly all his certainty. Alexander reminded him that instinct and records were strong, but Selene needed bloodline proof no one could challenge.
Neither man noticed Tiffany listening beyond the partially open door. If the servant was truly Bloodwind’s lost heir, Tiffany’s failed accident had targeted an Alpha’s daughter and invited a pack’s vengeance. She retreated before fear betrayed her presence.
One failed attempt taught Tiffany that chance could not be trusted while two mate bonds warned powerful Alphas whenever Selene was in danger. Hidden in the corridor, she made a colder vow: before bloodline proof transformed a servant into Bloodwind’s heir, she would ensure there was no Selene left for anyone to find.
