The Alpha's Promise ✔️

C H A P T E R 26

Shirley Temples 

"I believe that when you love someone and that person loves in return you're uniquely vulnerable. They have the power to hurt you like nothing else." - Elijah Mikaelson

ALESSANDRA ROMANO

My eyes blink open to an ornate ceiling. This one black unlike the white one in my room. A wave of nausea hits me and I rush to get up. This only intensifies the feeling and the pain from earlier crawls up my back.

"Ah!" I yell out.

"Stop!" I hear.

Zane approaches me with a worried look on his face. He brings a glass of water to my lips then pushes me back so I'm lying down.

"You can't move for a while," he tells me.

"Why?"

"The herbs have to kick in to dull your pain."

"What happened?"

"You were attacked by the spirits of the people who Lorenzo Moretti killed."

"Why? I thought Rosanna didn't do anything?"

"She didn't, but the best way to get to a wolf.."

"..is through their mate," I finish. Zane bows his head perhaps in anger or maybe in shame, I can't tell. I think we were just having a moment but it's ruined now. I can feel him pulling away again. The darkness that seems to follow him like a cloud seems to have thickened during the past two years.

"Would you like something to drink?"

I look at him with wide eyes. In all the years I've known him he's never cared about me. If I had a drink he would be the one to snatch it from my hands and down it in one gulp. I'm not even sure if he's ever offered me anything.

"I'd like a Shirley Temple," I tell him.

His face scrunches up in disgust and he levels me with a blank stare.

"Seriously? You still like those?"

"Of course I do."

"I guess some of us are stuck in preschool," he says quietly.

"Excuse you! I'll have you know that Shirley Temples happen to be the best drinks out there," I say with a pout.

"You were just attacked by ghosts! Your heat is about to start and you want a Shirley Temple? How about some water like a normal—"

"What did you just say?"

He looks at me with wide eyes.

"Valentina!" He calls out my mom's name and rushes out the door.

"Hey! Where are you going?"

The obnoxiously loud door creeps open. My mom's head peeks out through the small crack. She's still in her ceremony attire like I am but I'm certain I look worse than her.

"Oh, my baby! I can't believe it's happening," she says with tears in her eyes.

"Mom, are you going to tell me what's going on?"

"Alessia, you're heat is about to begin."

"What! No! It's too early mama, I don't even like Zane!"

"Sweetheart, it's not nice to talk about your mate that way," she says in a stern tone. I might be an adult now but to her, I'll always be the chubby toddler who threw tantrums when she didn't get chocolate. It's sweet but it's also annoying.