The Witch and Her Four Dangerous Alphas

Selene's POV

~

Tears still clung to my lashes as I sat slumped against the grand door of the Alpha's chamber. I should've stopped crying. I knew that. But once the memories opened their floodgates, they never let me go without dragging me under first.

The prince was coming.

And now... I would have to face him again.

My chest ached at the thought, not just with fear, but with something heavier. A deep-rooted shame that dug claws into my skin and wouldn't let go.

I curled my fingers into my apron and shut my eyes tightly.

It started when I was fifteen. The year everything changed.

That was the year my father stopped using his fists—and began using his words instead.

He told me to make friends with the Lycan prince. Said I had a pretty face and a gentle smile, and if I used them right, I could secure our future. His future.

I didn't want to go. I hated the idea. I knew exactly what he meant. If I couldn't "win over" the prince… if I didn't do enough, he would break my legs.

But worse—he'd burn everything my mother left behind. Her shawl. Her old journal. The tiny wooden box she carved for me before she died. All I had left of her.

The beatings hadn't worked. I had stopped reacting to it. So he found a new way to hurt me.

One that worked.

So, I began going to the palace, terrified but silent. I didn't say no. I couldn't. I started lingering around the prince like a shadow. I smiled when I had to. Laughed when I could manage it. Not for charm—but because I was scared of what would happen to my mother's memories if I failed.

But… something strange happened.

The prince never treated me like the others. He wasn't cruel. He didn't look at me like I was a tool or a servant. He saw me.

And somehow, slowly, we became friends.

Not just the kind you pretend to be for survival.

We talked for hours sometimes. About things that mattered. His family. My nightmares. Our fears. He listened when I spoke about my father and didn't flinch when I told the truth. I had never told anyone everything before—but with him, the words just spilled.

He didn't pity me. He just understood.

And maybe that was why I started dreaming foolish dreams. I began to imagine… what if I escaped? What if I ran far from my father's hands and into a future where someone like him could protect me?

He was kind and gentle. Strong in all the ways I had never known.

And when he smiled at me like I mattered… like I belonged… it made my chest ache.

We weren't lovers. But he was the closest thing I'd ever had to someone I could call mine.

And now he was coming here. I didn't know how to face him. Would he look at me and see the girl he once called friend?

Or would he see this pathetic shell, marked as a slave, scrubbing someone's floor with hands that had once reached for a future?

Would he look at me with pity?

Or worse—disgust?

Tears streamed down my cheeks again, But another thought twisted in the back of my mind. A cruel, fragile hope.

Maybe he came to save me. Maybe he remembered that he has a friend. Maybe… maybe this was the day I could finally leave this nightmare behind.

But then again, what if it wasn't?

What if he came and turned his face away? What if he saw me and walked past like a stranger?

I buried my face in my arms and cried.

Cried for my mother.

For the girl I used to be.

For the prince I once trusted.

And for the fear that maybe… maybe I would lose him too.

After a few minutes, I forced myself to stop.

I couldn't afford to fall apart. I wiped my face, forced the sobs down my throat, and picked up the broom again. Mariam had given me two hours. I didn't have the luxury to break.

My legs still trembled as I stood, but I pushed them forward. I moved from one corner to another, brushing carefully, dusting the shelves, sweeping between every tile. The scent of pine and smoke lingered in the air. I couldn't tell if it comforted me or made it harder to breathe.

The private chambers were quiet, but thick with presence—like the shadows here remembered who they belonged to. The Alphas' rooms were untouched, and I didn't dare step inside the adjoining doors. I stayed in the central hall, trying to make it spotless.

What I didn't know—what I couldn't know—was that someone was watching.

Above, hidden behind the arched balcony of the second floor, a figure sat silently.

Lucian.

His posture was relaxed, one leg slightly bent, arm resting casually over the carved edge of the railing. He spun a small iron ball between his fingers, the light from the high window glinting off the smooth surface with each slow turn.

His face, however, was anything but relaxed.

It was unreadable.

Cold, calm, and distant—but behind that calm was something sharp. His silver eyes, so like his brothers', held a focus that rarely slipped, and right now, they were locked on her.

He had been there since the moment Selene entered.

He had heard it all.

The moment her body hit the floor. The broken sobs that escaped her throat.

He didn't flinch, neither smile mockingly or frown in pity.

He simply… watched. Like a wolf watching a wounded creature that still had fangs.

There was no warmth in his expression—but there wasn't cruelty either. Just that cool stillness he wore like armor, as if emotions were tools he chose carefully, never showing them without reason.

When she cried about missing the prince, his thumb paused briefly over the iron ball.

Just a second. Barely noticeable. And then he started spinning it again. Only the quiet, thoughtful tilt of his head as he listened.

He leaned slightly forward, resting more weight on the railing now. Not out of interest—at least not the kind you could explain. But as if he were cataloguing something. Storing a moment that didn't belong to him, but that he now carried anyway.

Finally, when her cries faded and she began sweeping again, he pushed away from the balcony and stepped onto the stone edge, crouched for a second, and then leapt down from the second floor like a shadow breaking free.

His landing was so quiet that she wouldn't have heard it even if she had been listening.

And just like that…

He was gone.

And Selene never knew he was there.