The Witch and Her Four Dangerous Alphas

Chapter 23: Chapter 23: A place no woman ever wanted to go

"No...!" I rasped, trying to pull away. But his grip only tightened.

Laughter thundered through the room filled with mockery. A crowd of hyenas drunk on blood.

"Can’t even control a little bitch like her?" someone hooted. "What kind of dominant are you, Alex?!"

His name is Alex. The brute who now had his hand buried in my hair, yanking me harder as the others goaded him on.

My breath hitched, heart slamming in my chest as pain tore across my scalp and neck. Alex growled and pushed harder, my face hitting Lucien’s thigh with a thud that made me groan. I could barely think, could barely breathe.

Suddenly, his crushing hand was gone... gently pried away.

I gasped, the air burning my throat. My cheek still rested against Lucien’s leg. His scent — wine and smoke and cold steel filled my senses. But I couldn’t even process it before I heard his voice.

"Don’t be so rough with my little slave, Alex."

His tone was soft almost playful but it dripped with mockery. Mockery that wasn’t meant for Alex. It was meant for me.

To the casual observer, it may have seemed that Lucien was being merciful. His voice soft, his grip firm yet measured as he pulled Alex’s brutal hand away from Selene’s fragile neck.

But to the men in the hall, the ones who had lived through the fires her father lit. Lucien’s words were laced with cruelty of a different kind.

He wasn’t protecting Selene.

He was prolonging the spectacle. And the room knew it.

Kael’s voice came next, sharp and disgusted like a blade unsheathed.

"Brother, why bother training her yourself? Just throw her in the Warrior’s quarters. I bet she’ll be properly trained in a single night."

A hush settled in the air, the kind that stretches before the explosion. Then the dam broke.

"Yes!"

"She belongs there anyway!"

"Throw her in the quarters, let the warriors teach her submission!"

"She’s the tyrant’s daughter, the most beautiful bitch in the werewolf domain. Let’s all have a taste!"

Their voices were jagged, echoing off stone walls like the cries of wounded beasts finally let loose.

Because for them, Selene wasn’t some fragile flower fallen from grace.

She was his daughter.

And they remembered her clearly.

her father’s throne — unmoved, untouchable, wrapped

flinched when warriors were dragged in chains before her. Never blinked when sobbing girls were pulled away, screaming for mercy. She’d walk by the cages without turning her head. She

voice shaking with fury. "She watched while my sister was dragged by her father’s enforcers. Didn’t say a damn

back, "My mate begged her for help. Her guard spat in her face. And she

who knows how to gain

word. In their eyes, Selene wasn’t a helpless girl caught in the tide of war. She was the war. Her name was sewn into the memories of their destruction, her face carved

with

"The reason our mothers were defiled, our sisters ruined. Now it’s our turn to take

her feel what her father

like our

doesn’t deserve pity. She deserves

just bloodlust. It was grief sharpened by years of silence. Vengeance born from too many funerals

of pain that shapes men into monsters — not because they want to be, but because they’ve been left with nothing

to bend completely, how her eyes still held the dim flame of defiance. Even

That infuriated them.

one of them spat. "Still

be crawling, begging to

it’s like to

in the quarters!" another voice rang

roar that followed was deafening. Dozens of warriors standing — fists pounding tables, mouths twisted in

like a war drum, her breath shallow. But

of the man

didn’t care that she was young.

her as the blade that cut them... and now, they wanted

stop. To let their ghosts finally rest. To say — for once — we

it came at

rose as one, bound by the shared torment her bloodline had

She couldn’t breathe.

Her throat felt tight, but

they found his hand. She clutched it without thinking, gripping

Her heart screamed. Please...

them. That he’d pull her behind him, tell them she belonged to him and not to their

But then...

and his voice shattered

have all suffered because of this bitch... and her father. It is only right they take her to teach her a lesson.

Selene’s world shattered.

she’d held back finally broke free. A

do this to me! Please I’m innocent! I’ve done nothing

But it didn’t matter.

sound in the room. One that none of

be thrown into that

noble, she knew. And now, stripped of her name and title, she’d become the

floors... be nothing... live invisible...