Fated to My Forbidden Alpha – Episode 43
The signature beneath Lucian’s threat belonged to Luna Elara, Selene’s mother. Ethel recognized the crescent flourish she used on private medical orders, yet grief refused to let him accept what the evidence implied. Elara had died during the Bloodwind massacre. He had seen her fall among the burning trees, then lost sight of her body when enemy wolves dragged him from the flames. For fifteen years, that final image had ended every dream of rescue.
Neris touched the red message and received a different memory: a woman behind laboratory glass, older than the mother in Selene’s childhood visions, singing the same lullaby across years of darkness. “She was alive after the attack,” Neris said. “Lucian kept her near the second core.”
Selene felt joy try to rise and stopped it before hope became certainty. Lucian had manipulated records, memories, and blood. A familiar signature could be another weapon, and false hope could divide them before the next fight began. “We verify everything when we reach Nightwind. Until then, she is a lead, not an answer.”
Alexander opened Nightwind’s emergency passage through the core map. The route crossed hundreds of miles in minutes, but using it exposed them to Lucian’s network. Selene insisted they take the risk; ordinary travel would arrive after moonrise.
Jackson placed Blood Moon under Luke’s command and joined them. Ethel brought the bracelet and sealed records, while Drake warned loyal Nightwind guards to isolate the northern estates without alerting the compromised council.
Neris entered the passage beside Selene. Physical fear made her hand cold, a sensation no simulation had prepared her to manage. Selene squeezed once. “Fear means you care what happens next. It does not make you unstable.”
They emerged beneath Nightwind into a tunnel lined with black-thorn runes. Alexander’s anger sharpened when he recognized ward stones approved during his first year as Alpha. Lucian’s network had grown beneath his authority while trusted advisers called the region unsafe. Each stone carried Alexander’s official seal, copied from infrastructure orders he had signed without seeing the buried work.
The mate bond drew Selene toward Alexander for one breath, reacting to the power of his territory. Jackson felt the shift but restrained his wolf. Neris noticed both reactions and asked why Selene tolerated connections that caused pain.
“Because a bond is information, not a verdict,” Selene answered. “What I do with it depends on what the person earns.” Alexander accepted the standard. Jackson looked away, knowing how far behind he remained.
They reached a steel door before the hidden laboratory. The stolen incident file floated inside a circular lock, its blood-infused ink authorizing access through Selene’s erased identity. Someone had arrived only moments earlier.
Tiffany stepped from the shadows in traveling clothes, a black-thorn ring on her finger. Exhaustion had stripped away her polished beauty, leaving bruises around her wrist where the jewelry burned. Jackson stared at the woman he once planned to make Luna. “You tried to kill Selene, stole the file, and opened my territory to Lucian.”
Her laugh cracked beneath exhaustion. Tiffany admitted loosening the chandelier rope and listening outside the library. She denied knowing the full conspiracy until her failure exposed her to Lucian’s agents. “My family served him before I was born. When they learned Selene survived, they told me I could save myself only by finishing what they started.” The confession carried self-pity, but the specific names she supplied gave Drake targets inside Nightwind’s council.
Selene heard fear rather than remorse. Tiffany regretted losing, not causing harm. Still, the black-thorn ring pulsed with a control rune similar to those on Lucian’s warriors. Choice and coercion existed together, complicating easy judgment.
Neris sensed a command building inside the ring. She shouted a warning as Tiffany’s arm lifted against her will and drove a blade toward the floating file. Destroying it would complete authorization by releasing the registered officer’s blood into the lock.
Jackson intercepted the blade. Black magic traveled through the weapon and threw him against the wall, but the delay allowed Selene to seize Tiffany’s wrist. Their eyes met across years of cruelty.
“He will kill me if I fail,” Tiffany whispered. Selene answered, “That does not give you permission to keep killing for him.” She broke the ring’s command without pretending the act erased Tiffany’s responsibility. Freedom from Lucian would allow Tiffany to face judgment as herself, not escape it.
The steel door opened anyway. Lucian had used their confrontation to complete the authorization remotely. Dark silver light poured into the tunnel, drawing Neris toward the laboratory.
A woman stood beyond the glass at the chamber’s center, her once-dark hair threaded with white. Restraints marked with architect runes held her upright, and faded scars covered both arms. Ethel stopped breathing. Even age and captivity could not erase Elara’s face or the way she lifted her chin when afraid.
Selene’s childhood memory surged: her mother shouting for her to run, blood on white sleeves, love stronger than fire. The woman raised one trembling palm to the glass. “My little moon.”
Before Selene could reach her, Lucian appeared behind Elara and pressed a black blade against her throat. “Both daughters arrived exactly as designed,” he said. Then Elara’s silver eyes opened, and the entire Nightwind core awakened beneath their feet.
