The Witch and Her Four Dangerous Alphas

Chapter 49: Chapter 49: I didn’t Shift..

Selene’s POV~~

The howl cut through the forest like a blade. It was deep, fierce, and laced with something that made the hairs rise along my arms. It was filled with rage and madness. And something colder... something that sank beneath my skin like ice water.

I knew that howl.

I didn’t know how...didn’t know how my body seemed to react, how my pulse jumped at the sound, or how my lungs forgot to breathe, but I knew.

It was him, Aeron.

I could feel it in the marrow of my bones. That sound came from his throat. I staggered back a step, my legs trembling beneath me. Why was he so angry when he could not bear to look at me for even a second?

Then came the second howl. It was even sharper and wounded with fury, Luca.

A moment later, a third one rang out, like something uncoiling in the dark. That was Kael. I remembered that sound from the times I’d been locked in the moving wagon and heard it drifting in on cold air.

Then came the last.

The one that made my skin crawl and my stomach twist. Lucian.

His was the cruelest, playful, almost. Like he was enjoying this. The hunt—I could already imagine his hunting smile.

My breath came fast. With each howl my chest heaved, but I couldn’t get air. I knew these howls were not normal; they were warning me. The trees around me seemed to grow taller and darker, their shadows reaching for me like claws. I turned to run—

But my legs wouldn’t move.

They refused.

They shook beneath me, boneless and hollow. My knees buckled, and I collapsed to the ground, scraping my side against the bark of a fallen branch. My hands scrambled in the dirt, searching blindly for the dagger again. I found it and clutched it to my chest like a child might a blanket.

No, I thought. No, no, no—

I couldn’t run anymore.

Not like this. Soon they will find me. And they were coming. They were close.

warning calls. They were tracking me

forward, dragging my body across the underbrush, every root and stone a new punishment. I could taste blood in my mouth from how hard I

Please... Please, not yet...

my head

and high above the trees. The stars glittered faintly

stared at it like a

Tonight.

seventeen. Just a few minutes. Maybe less. Then I would

be strong. I wouldn’t have to fear the snapping of twigs or the shaking of my

sky, to the Moon Goddess who had abandoned me, to whatever force might still listen. "Let me make it.

once I did, they wouldn’t catch me. They would never chain me again. But right now, I was still weak, a human whose feet refused to obey, even when my will remained alive. And the monsters who made me

longer, I told myself. A little more

werewolf came into their

is my only hope... My wolf. The one I’d waited for, begged for, and

higher, inch by inch, silver light

And nothing happened.

my skin. No pressure built behind my eyes. There was no voice whispering in my

storm to rise beneath my skin... but nothing happened. It was just me. Weak,

caught in my throat. "No," I whispered. My hands

up—half delirious—clutching my ribs as if that

on," I rasped.

closed my eyes, teeth clenched, willing it. Screaming for it in

there was

the cold.

into my gut. I wasn’t going to

I’d held onto all this time—this fantasy

I couldn’t

hear them in the distance, their paws slamming into the earth, breath like thunder. Getting closer to

had turned her face from me. And if she had abandoned me, then I would carve my

on torn feet and

bit into my

run that could barely be called such. My breath tore through my lungs. My

Still—it wasn’t enough.