The Witch and Her Four Dangerous Alphas

Chapter 48: Chapter 48: Let the Hunt Begin

Aeron’s POV~

For a moment, I didn’t understand the words.

She escaped. how?

Two simple syllables shouldn’t have held the power to shatter everything. But they did.

My heart stopped beating. My breath caught. I felt the suffocation clawing at my mind.

The hall, once thick with tension, now turned shallow. Murmurs rippled like a wave through the nobles, a hundred heads swiveling toward the doors. But I couldn’t hear them. Couldn’t see anything but that warrior, panting and trembling, sweat glistening on his brow.

I took a step forward, my voice hoarse. "What did you just say?"

His eyes darted up, wild and frightened. "Selene...she—she escaped. She’s gone, Alpha. Vanished before the guard rotation. We—we don’t know how—"

The rest of his sentence drowned in the sound of something knocking behind my back.

Luca had risen first, knocking over a ceremonial goblet, his face twisted in a snarl. "Gone? What the fuck do you mean she’s gone?"

Kael looked dazed, blinking as if trying to wake from a bad dream. "That’s not possible," he muttered, voice hollow. "She was collared. She couldn’t have—"

Lucian said nothing. His eyes were wide, lips slightly parted, like the air had been sucked from his lungs. But I could see the twitch in his jaw, the barely suppressed rage simmering just under his skin.

The room was spinning. My hands curled into fists at my sides.

Without permission or any fear. Like we were nothing. Like our rules—our

How dare she?

and disbelief crashing into my chest. My bones ached with the need to shift, to hunt. To find her and remind her exactly where

it, low and primal. The nobles flinched.

defied us..." I

drag her back myself.

was, and I could see the rage and disbelief burning behind their gaze. My pulse thundered. I turned toward the doors, the memory of her eyes flashing behind my

was

Escape.

we’d built.

the gates," I ordered, my voice stern. "Alert every patrol. If she’s beyond the

glowing gold. "And

"We’re bringing her back." No matter

his bones were breaking, reshaping, and tearing through his skin. Black fur

hall as his brothers also shifted beside him, each of them trembling with rage too vast

transformation was the fastest violent and brutal, his jaws snapping before his paws even hit the ground. Luca’s roar shook the walls, and Kael... Kael didn’t speak. His wolf emerged with eerie silence, like a shadow unfolding across a bloodstained

wolves radiating fury. The nobles scattered. Priests fell

"No!"

from Meriya’s throat like a plea. Her silk-clad body lurched forward, arms outstretched as if she could hold back the storm. But the air had

at her side. Her lips trembled. "You can’t go...

further under the

them. "You swore it. Before the Moon Goddess, before the court, before every soul in this hall... You promised

I didn’t hear her or my brothers. Or worse—we

even glance her way. His wolf stood rigid, head