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.

howls hadn’t just been warning calls. They were tracking me and,

forced myself to crawl forward, dragging my body across the underbrush, every root and stone a new punishment. I could taste blood in

Please... Please, not yet...

my head toward the

almost full—round and high above the trees. The stars

it like

Tonight.

would be seventeen. Just a few minutes. Maybe less.

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

to whatever force might still listen. "Let me make it. Just let me hold out long enough

a human whose feet refused to obey, even when my will remained alive. And the monsters who made me

longer, I told myself.

into their own. The day their wolf rose, stretching from its slumber, wrapping power

wolf. The one I’d waited for, begged for,

inch, silver light bathing the

And nothing happened.

built behind my eyes. There was no voice whispering in my head. My bones remained still—silent, unchanging. The shift

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

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

delirious—clutching my ribs as if that might wake something buried

on," I

willing it. Screaming

was only

cold. Only

sank in slowly, like a knife pushed inch by inch into my gut. I wasn’t going to shift. I was never

this time—this fantasy of escape, of

suddenly, I

the distance, their paws slamming into

Moon Goddess had turned her face from me. And if she

running on torn feet and

I crawled from the roots like something half-dead, clutching the dagger tight, and stumbled forward. The cold bit into my skin. My legs screamed in

foot forward. Then the next. A desperate, stumbling run that could barely be called such. My

Still—it wasn’t enough.