The Witch and Her Four Dangerous Alphas

Chapter 1: Chapter 01: I am Selene Moonveil, The War Criminal

Mate.

My hand stilled midair, the dagger hovering inches from my chest, my grip slackening as if the air had been pulled from my lungs. I blinked once. Twice. But the monster looming above me didn’t disappear.

Neither did the word, Mate.

I’d never heard anything sound more terrifying.

But the same word repeated in my head, like confirming that it was all real. Like a secret my body had known long before my mind could name it.

His muzzle brushed against my neck—slowly, deliberately—and I went still. The dagger trembled in my grip, caught between instinct and something else I didn’t want to name.

He inhaled, a long, dragging breath, like he was trying to memorize the pieces of me I no longer knew how to hold together.

Then he growled. He said it again like he was savoring the taste of the word on his tongue.

And still... all I felt was dread.

This wasn’t a fairy tale. This wasn’t fate wrapped in warmth and comfort.

I tightened my grip on the dagger, but he was too focused on my scent that he did not even notice the dagger clutched in my hand.

"Get off me," I said with my shaking voice.

He didn’t move. So I screamed at the top of my lungs.

"Get OFF ME! YOU Bastard!"

"I hate you," I said, my voice shaking with each breath. "I hate all of you. You ruined me."

I lifted the dagger and turned it—not toward him, but toward myself. Pressed the tip to the soft skin of my throat.

His eyes went wide. He growled with warning at my face... I could feel the shock and hurt behind his eyes.

So when he stepped closer, hand reaching for mine with pleading eyes, I didn’t flinch.

Instead, I drove the dagger forward—straight into his chest, just inches away from the frantic beat of his heart.

His mouth fell open in shock, a strangled sound leaving his throat like he could not believe what I did to him.

I met his gaze with a cold voice. "I told you, you don’t get to have me."

Soon, I was surrounded by three more towering wolves, who shouted in unison, Mate.

my only reaction

trembling with something like wild rage, "and I swear on the graves of every girl

****

One week earlier...

Selene’s POV

wind smelled like

all that remained of my home, just smoke and ruin drifting through the air like a cruel memory

bare feet scraped against the rough, jagged path that led toward the gates. Every step sent another jolt of pain through my swollen ankles. My legs trembled beneath me, barely holding me upright, my skin raw and streaked with grime, blood, and dried tears. The filth had long since crusted over my pale skin. I couldn’t tell what hurt more, the ache

others

of those, only the lowest omegas had been left untouched. Because they were worthless, powerless, and not even worth the trouble

But not me.

Selene Moonveil, the daughter

to its knees in war. And now his

heavy knots down my back. My lips were cracked and split, the taste of iron still fresh in my mouth. I could barely see through my right eye; the skin around it was bruised and swollen shut. My collarbone throbbed where the

am only seventeen. I hadn’t even awakened my wolf

I was being marched through enemy territory, chained and marked like a

tightened. My steps slowed, even when I was yanked forward. I could feel it in my bones that the real punishment is still far

A war criminal.

my head, twisting around my thoughts until

I didn’t kill anyone.

even fight that

I was barely thirteen.

They think I did.

why can’t I

stopped. They stabbed at me from the inside, louder than the guards’ insults, heavier than

from the guard behind me snapped me back to the present. I stumbled and nearly

speak. My throat was too dry. My tongue was thick and heavy in my mouth, and I tasted blood every time I tried to swallow. The other girls, noble daughters like me...kept their eyes on the ground. They didn’t speak either. We were all chained now. Even they, with their Beta and Gamma bloodlines, hadn’t escaped

of them were treated like

They weren’t beaten.

I was.

the tall black gates groaned open before us. The

was the Silver Dawn Pack, but

dark and precise, the pathways paved with perfect stone, the walls tall and fortified like a fortress carved from obsidian. There was no warmth here, only discipline,

She-wolves behind shuttered windows. Even pups peeked out from behind the legs of stronger wolves, their stares

came the whispers, soft and cutting like

"That’s her."

"The alpha’s brat."

who slit our people’s throats."

she