All Chapters of FORBIDDEN BOND: The Alpha's Desire : Chapter 1 - Chapter 10

(Keal's POV)The air in the kitchens was thick with the smells of roasted meats and sugared pastries, a stark contrast to the floral sweetness I craved. Tomorrow was Prince Alaric’s thirty-first birthday, a fact hammered home by the sheer scale of the feast being prepared. Thirty-one years… a lifetime away from my meager twenty.I hated the noise, the frantic energy, the casual shoves and insults thrown my way. "Oi, Beta-boy, watch where you're going!" Chef Barnaby bellowed, his face red, as I dodged a tray laden with miniature tarts. I mumbled an apology, heart hammering against my ribs. Pretending to be Beta was exhausting, a constant tightrope walk. One wrong step, one stray whiff of my true scent, and... I didn't want to think about it.The sun dipped below the horizon, painting the sky in hues of orange and purple as rich as the fabrics adorning the palace walls. I could feel a restlessness building inside me, a need to escape the stifling atmosphere. And then I saw him. Prince A

(Kael's POV)My stomach churned. Assistant to Prince Alaric? Me? It felt like a cruel joke the Moon Goddesswas playing on me, one moment granting my birthday wish, the next threatening to expose mydeepest secret. How am I even going to pull this off?I knew what Alaric’s former assistant, Theron, must be feeling. Theron was an alpha, the perfectfit for the role. He was built like a fortress, with a booming voice and eyes that could intimidateeven the most seasoned courtier. Me? I was…me. Small, unassuming, and desperately trying toblend into the background as a Beta.My first day started before dawn. I barely slept, replaying the scene in the hallway over andover. Theron on top of me, his fist raised...and the Prince, his voice cutting through the air, athunderclap that silenced everything."Kael. You will be my new personal assistant."The words still echoed in my ears.My mother, fussed over me, her frail hands smoothing down the worn fabric of my tunic. "Areyou sure you can

For someone as unfortunate as Kael, he should have known that ending up as the Prince's mate wasn't going to be exactly a good thing for him, regardless of his very unhealthy crush for the Prince. There's no sugarcoating because there he was, trying to prevent his tears from falling as Alaric's expression didn't even try to hide the anger boiling in his veins.“Follow me.” That was all Alaric said before marching towards his chamber, but he turned back to see Kael was not following him as ordered.A growl rumbled in Alaric’s chest, a sound that resonated more with a predator than a Prince. His jaw tightened, a vein throbbing in his temple. He stalked back to Kael, his footsteps echoing with suppressed fury. “Did you not hear me?” His voice was dangerously low, a barely contained growl.Kael flinched, his eyes darting around the hallway as if searching for an escape. “Your H-Highness, I…” He couldn’t articulate the protest forming in his throat. How could he explain the terror that gri

Alaric stood at a distance, his regal boots sinking slightly into the damp earth of the palace gardens. The painful sobs coming from Kael sounded too close, resonating within him like a discordant note in a symphony. He watched the mother and son, Elara's frail form wrapped protectively around Kael, their shared grief a palpable entity.His expression was unreadable, a mask of controlled composure attempting to hide the turmoil raging within. Yesterday's anger, the visceral rejection that had spewed from his lips, now felt like ash in his mouth. He had seen Kael, truly seen him now, not a Beta servant who is actually a male Omega, not as an inconvenience, but as… himself. Kael, a werewolf, and a son to a loving mother… His fated mate.And now, watching him crumble, Alaric no longer felt like Kael had ruined his life. He felt like he had ruined Kael's. The boy had been surviving, carving out a meager existence, cloaked in Beta anonymity. He had been doing well, all until he, the Alpha

(Kael's POV)The palace felt… different. Not in a grand, sweeping way, but in the subtle shift of shadows, the almost imperceptible hush that settled over the corridors. Three days. Three days of forced respite, courtesy of Prince Alaric, had passed since the… revelation. Since the earth had cracked open and swallowed my carefully constructed reality whole. Okay, to put that in a simple way, Alaric made me take a three days rest because I was “sick”.I took a deep breath, or tried to. The scent-blocker clung to the inside of my nostrils, a chemical barrier I’d fortified in the last few days. It was a suffocating necessity, a shield against the truth that pulsed beneath my skin, a truth Alaric had made so abundantly clear he despised. "Never, ever, let me smell that scent near me again," his words echoed in my head, a brutal mantra I was determined to uphold.The Lower Quarters felt like a distant memory. I navigated the opulent hallways, the familiar tapestries and polished floors moc