The Witch and Her Four Dangerous Alphas

Chapter 148: Chapter 148: You Are Mine, Kael

Meriya’s POV~

The entire day I could not think of anything else. It was buzzing in my mind like a swarm of bees, loud and restless, and all I could see before my eyes was Kael—and the way he might look at me if only I could shine brightly enough to catch his gaze.

"For just once... just once," I whispered under my breath, my lips trembling as if I were praying. "For a single heartbeat... look at me. Only me."

My alphas. The ones who should have been mine long ago.

It has been a year, an entire year, since that bitch died, and still their eyes carry mourning for her, still their hearts are shackled to her memory, as if she had not already stolen enough when she was alive.

"Rot in your grave, Selene," I hissed, quiet enough that no one else could hear. "Rot and choke on the worms until there’s nothing left. You’ve stolen enough. Enough!"

Sometimes I swear I want to drag her out of her grave with my bare hands and kill her again and again, until she never dares to appear before me in this life or another.

All my life I had worked for this. From childhood I shaped myself into perfection, I carried myself with the grace of a queen because I knew one day I would be their queen, the one who walked beside them.

Yet no matter how hard I tried, no matter how much I polished myself, I was always overshadowed. Always. By her.

"Selene, Selene, Selene..." I spat the name like poison. "Even dead, your shadow still claws at me. How much longer must I endure your ghost?"

She was the dazzling one, the beautiful one, the clever one, the kind one. The one everyone praised as if she were some goddess fallen from the skies.

in a sing-song mockery, my

to my cousin, her fate bound elsewhere, and

the lives of my alphas. The men who had been mine since before I

a girl

the empty air, my voice cracking into a

it with all my heart. I became the perfect model of what they would admire, respect,

serving them, breathing their air, stealing their attention with

time...

the humiliation. The day of our mating ceremony—I stood waiting at the altar, waiting to

shattering. "They left me standing there like a fool while the whole pack laughed. They left me

how I burned that day? Do they know how my soul cracked as I stood there alone, every eye on me, pitying, mocking,

I muttered bitterly. "That’s what they said with their eyes. Not

I saw him—the man I had admired my entire life. He stepped into the hall with that same unshakable aura, tall and commanding, and my heart was already shining with

me like a

breathing, and everything else blurred, because he was here. My Kael. And all I wanted was to step close to him, to touch even the edge of his sleeve, but when I reached out—when I dared to take that single step—he

said only one word that shattered me

touch what is not

cut deeper than

whisper fell out: "Not mine?