The Witch and Her Four Dangerous Alphas

Chapter 50: Chapter 50: Mate

Mate.

My hand stilled midair, the dagger hovering inches from my chest, my grip slackening as if the air had been pulled from my lungs. I blinked once. Twice. But the monster looming above me didn’t disappear.

Neither did the word.

Mate.

I’d never heard anything sound more terrifying.

It wasn’t just the way he said it—low and filled with emotions, like it came from somewhere deeper than language. That was what came after. The silence that pressed against my ears, the tremble in my fingers that didn’t come from fear this time. The word didn’t echo aloud again.

But the same word repeated in my head, like confirming that it was all real. Like a secret my body had known long before my mind could name it.

Mate.

I swallowed hard, but the taste of blood and dirt clung to my tongue. My thoughts scattered, trying to make sense of what had just happened and what was still happening. I knew the voice that answered from inside me; it was not my wolf...it was my own.

The wolf loomed over me, chest heaving as if the weight of the forest pressed down on him too. His breath came hot against my skin, stirring the dirt and leaves between us.

He didn’t move at first. Just stood there, massive and silent, his claws sunk deep into the soil on either side of my head. The weight of him kept me pinned to the cold earth, and I could feel every shift in his body, every ragged breath that scraped through his throat.

Then he lowered his head.

His muzzle brushed against my neck—slowly, deliberately—and I went still. The dagger trembled in my grip, caught between instinct and something else I didn’t want to name.

He inhaled, a long, dragging breath that made something in my chest curl inward. It wasn’t just that he was scenting me. It was the way he did it—slow, careful, like he was trying to memorize the pieces of me I no longer knew how to hold together.

Then he growled.

A sound that didn’t come from his throat alone but from somewhere deeper.

"Mate."

again like he was savoring the taste

a ripple through

I expected. But something deeper. Like the faint hum of a current slipping beneath the surface of

collarbone, and I felt it—that jolt. That strange spark where his touch

space between my

I felt

would. Even though there was a burst of warmth, there was no sense

the

tasted wrong in my mouth. Like

a fairy tale. This wasn’t fate wrapped in warmth

his back when I needed someone most. The same man who dragged me down and marked me like an animal

to the warriors quarters, and

the dagger, but he was too focused on my scent that he did not even

of instinct. His snout brushed my jaw. But it only made me more disgusted. As the shock of the word mate faded, my senses

I said with my

So I screamed at the

OFF ME! YOU

something broken loose. I kicked, shoved,

with each breath. "I hate all of you. You

now. Just watching

asked. "Saying that word? Like it means

blinked, and tears slipped

they would do

burned. The

them—" I stopped. Swallowed. Couldn’t

I screamed again. Louder this time. Wordless. Angry.

slammed my fists into his chest, again and again, to make him

to call me that," I said, quieter now. "You don’t get to have

his throat...he recoiled at my words like I had said something that had