The Witch and Her Four Dangerous Alphas

Chapter 26: Chapter 26: Arrival of the Lycan Prince

Aeron’s POV

The wind carried the weight of storm clouds as the banners of the Silver Dawn snapped sharply overhead. The iron gate had been polished just yesterday, and yet the cold air made it look like it had never known warmth.

My brothers stood flanking me—Kael to my left, Luca and Lucian just behind. Each of us dressed in ceremonial black—not the soft velvet and gilded robes of court, but in fitted leather layered fabric. We weren’t here to impress. We were here to command. Our attire, like our reign, was made to endure blood and fire.

Down the path came the royal escort, their polished obsidian-tipped spears gleaming even under the heavy clouds. Their armor bore the crest of the royal lycan family: a crown surrounded by fangs and a crescent moon. The air shifted when they arrived. Everyone noticed it but no one said it aloud.

At their center, calm and composed, sat the prince.

Vaelen Lysandros.

It had been six years since I last laid eyes on him. We were seventeen back then, still sons of power. But even at that age, Vaelen carried himself like a man who had never been told ’no’. Time had only sharpened that aura. He dismounted with a kind of grace no soldier could be taught...it was bred into royals like him.

He wore the standard lycan military attire, navy trimmed with steel gray, the royal insignia glittering at his collar. His golden gaze swept over us, calm and impassive. He was calculating, measuring—not just our posture, but our unity.

He didn’t smile. Neither did I.

"Alpha Aeron Duskdraven," he said, his voice perfectly balanced between cool civility and authority. "My congratulations. Silver Dawn has reclaimed its honor."

honor your presence, Your Highness," I replied, nodding with a bow. "You

bows behind me. Our gestures were formal, polite, distant. We had spent our lives learning how to hide the truth behind masks. But none of

his glove. "Forgive the intrusion. But after such a shift in power, I thought it

all," I said smoothly, though the words

Crimson Fang. And certainly not by a man who once laughed with him at the table while our

I knew that face before I saw it clearly—Lady

her shoulder, her gown shimmering like a serpent under moonlight. Meriya was the daughter of Beta Theron. The

Palace. That bloodline had protected her. And when we burned under Crimson Fang’s rule, she vanished from the map like a feather swept away in the

Now she was back.

dressed like a

by council, sanctioned by the palace, and accepted by us not for love, but for duty. Because her father

far too eager for the mood. I don’t know

gown, and rested her gaze far too intimately on

with false honey. "It’s

didn’t blink. "Miss

she not introduce herself to the master of the estate? But never mind. It is better to stay away from

heard the Silver Dawn Pack is very beautiful," she said. "It would be a

the tightness in Kael’s jaw and the paleness