All Chapters of The Witch And The Alpha : Chapter 1 - Chapter 10

POV: Vaelor"She's waiting for you at the stones."My father's voice cut through the great hall like a blade. I looked up from sharpening my knife, meeting his iron gaze. The firelight threw shadows across his scarred face, making him look older than his years.."A witch?" I asked, standing. My wolf stirred beneath my skin, restless and hungry."Trespassing on sacred ground." He crossed his arms. "The pack expects blood, Vaelor. Don't disappoint them."I nodded once, sheathing the blade at my hip. This was a test. Another one. My father had been testing me since I could walk, preparing me for the day I'd take his place as Alpha. A lone witch on our borders? Easy prey."I'll bring you her head," I said.He smiled, cold and approving. "Good boy."The night air bit at my skin as I left Rauvenhollow's walls behind. Six of my father's best warriors flanked me, their boots crunching through snow. None of them spoke. They didn't need to. We all knew what happened to witches who crossed into

POV: IlyraThe pain woke me at midnight. I bolted upright in bed, gasping, my skin burning like I'd been thrown into a fire. Amber light poured from my hands, crackling and wild, illuminating my small room in the cottage. Magic I'd never felt before surged through my veins, demanding to be released."What is this?" I whispered, staring at my glowing palms.The light pulsed in rhythm with my heartbeat, growing brighter with each breath. It hurt. Not like a wound, but like something inside me was trying to break free, to go somewhere I couldn't see.Then I felt it.A spell. Distant but unmistakable. Old magic, wrapped in desperation and blood, and it carried a signature I'd know anywhere.My mother's."No," I breathed. "That's impossible."My mother had been dead for five years. Her magic should have died with her. That's how it worked. When a witch died, her spells unraveled, her power returned to the earth. There were no exceptions.But this spell was alive. Active. Calling to me acro

POV: IlyraThree days in that cell taught me what true helplessness felt like. They fed me once a day, stale bread and water, never speaking. The iron chains stayed on my wrists, burning constantly, keeping my magic suppressed. And every night, that voice whispered in the darkness."You feel familiar.""I know your blood.""Soon."I stopped sleeping.On the fourth day, the cell door opened, and Vaelor stood there with four armed guards."Come with me," he ordered. I didn't argue. Anywhere was better than this tomb.They led me through the fortress to a large study lined with books and weapons. A fire crackled in the hearth, and the warmth felt like heaven after the freezing cell. Vaelor dismissed the guards but positioned them outside the door."Sit," he said, pointing to a chair.I sat, my chained hands folded in my lap. He paced in front of the fire, his movements tight and controlled. I could see the tension in his shoulders, the exhaustion in his face."You said you could see the

POV: IlyraThe room Vaelor shoved me into felt more like a cage than a guest suite, even if it was filled with rows of old books and heavy oak furniture that smelled of dust and beeswax. I spent the first hour just pacing the floor and trying to get used to the heavy, thick air of the fortress, which was so different from the sharp, herbal scent of the marshes where I grew up. Here, everything smelled Of pine resin, cold stone, and the musk of wolves, a constant reminder that I was surrounded by people who would gladly kill me if their Alpha looked away for even a second. I could almost feel their eyes tracking me through the thick stone walls, their hatred a physical pressure that made the back of my neck itch while I began to lay out my mother’s grimoires on the large wooden desk.I traced my fingers over the leather covers and opened the first one, hoping to find a clear instruction on how to fix the mess Vaelor had become, but the pages were a chaotic mess of symbols and shorthand

POV: IlyraVaelor had been gone since the first light of dawn to oversee the armory and the mounting of the scout patrols, and his absence left me in the care of Maren, the healer who seemed to be the only wolf in Rauvenhollow not currently trying to find a way to sharpen a knife behind my back. We sat in her apothecary, a room filled with dried herbs that smelled nothing like the sweet rot of the marshes and more like sharp menthol and bitter bark, and she watched me with a stillness that was unnerving while she ground roots into a fine powder."You should drink your tea, girl, because you’ve been staring at the wall for twenty minutes and your energy is bleeding into the air like a wounded bird," Maren said, not looking up from her mortar and pestle but indicating the steaming mug with a tilt of her chin."I’m just trying to understand how things went so wrong at the sacred stones, because my mother's journals mention a ritual of containment, not a slaughter," I replied, wrapping my