A Witch’s Promise

Chapter 9: “She’s Gone”

Chris didn’t speak for a long time after he left the forest. He and his wolf Tyson felt the bond snap as soon as Naomi accepted his rejection. Thinking of her laying devastated on the forest floor pressed an unwanted ache into his chest.

“Mate.” Tyson whimpered.

“We’ve discussed this. The good of the pack comes before anything else. Alpha Zeke did the same thing. He knew this pack would never accept a witch as their luna. It would cause riots in the streets. The war of species was not so long ago. Hundreds dies on all sides. The Bears were nearly hunted to extinction. The elders remember. There will be no mixing.”

“I want her.” Tyson huffed.

Chris answered in frustration. “What you want doesn’t matter.” With that, he closed off his connection from Tyson.

Chris stood near the window of the Alpha’s office, hands loosely at his sides, staring out the window watching the elite soldiers on the training grounds. Wolves moved below in formation drills, voices carrying faintly on the wind.

“We have worked so hard to rebuild.” He said to himself. “We cannot jeopardize this. Life continues. It always does. Maybe I will too.”

Behind him, the Alpha Zeke and Beta Marcus and Xane, who had been called in from whatever she wolf he was underneath, were still talking in low, measured voices. They were attempting to set a strategy and discussing patrol adjustments, boundary reinforcement, and rogue activity patterns. Chris heard almost none of it clearly.

His thoughts were still stuck on Naomi. “It wasn’t supposed to feel like this. He should have felt relieved. He told himself that more than once. He should feel relieved and sure of himself that he’d made the right call. They would both be grateful that he hadn’t hesitated. It would have made breaking the bond later much more difficult for them both.”

He should be ecstatic that whatever was building around her, whatever strange, unstable pull the pack had started whispering about in fragments was no longer his responsibility. But, relief didn’t settle. Something else did. Something he didn’t have a clean name for. The memory of the woods came back anyway. Her standing there, shaking but not broken. The air bending wrong around her when she was scared. Angela’s voice—she shifted.

And Chris remembering the rules that had been drilled into him long before he ever became Alpha heir:

Witches are not to be trusted.

Magic is not stable.

Power that cannot be controlled becomes destruction.

This was not superstition. This was fact. It was history learned the hard way. It was blood.

And Naomi, whether she understood it or not, was the very embodiment of something no one was supposed to survive intact. Half wolf. Half witch. That wasn’t balance. That was fracture. And fractures spread. Chris reminded himself again. His rejection had been necessary. He knew that. Even if it didn’t feel clean. Even if it didn’t feel like victory. Even if, for a brief moment when she looked at him like he was the only solid thing in her world, something in him had wanted to hesitate. But he couldn’t afford hesitation.

He thought to himself, resolve building. “I am the future alpha. The success of this pack depends on me being a strong leader and not causing unnecessary strife.”

Rogue activity has been increasing along the eastern border. The patterns of attack kept circling back to Naomi. Back to her. This was the part no one else seemed willing to say out loud: The attacks weren’t random anymore. They were escalating. And Naomi was dead center.

The knock came late in the afternoon. Firm. Urgent. Controlled. Zeke didn’t turn from the map table when he spoke. “Report.” The door opened and Elijah cautiously stepped in.

Something in his posture was off. There was no humor or casual energy. Just tight focus and something harder underneath it. Chris noticed immediately.

“What is it?” Zeke asked, finally looking up. Elijah hesitated for half a second—long enough to mean it mattered.

“Naomi’s gone.”

The words didn’t land right at first.

Chris blinked once. “Gone where?”

Elijah exhaled slowly. “Not in her room. No belongings left except what was already issued by the pack. Her personal things are gone. Everything she had saved, all the money and clothes, all taken.”

Chris straightened slightly.

Elijah continued. “I tried calling her. The phone’s off. It looks like she removed the tracker too. The last known location was 6 hours ago at some diner in the human town.” Did something happen? The waitress said she looked upset. Like she had been crying.”

Chris’ face twisted. “What diner?”

Elijah frowned slightly. “Miller’s Stop off Route 8. What did you do?”

A pause.

Then, quieter:

“I rejected her.”

Elijah stared at his brother in wide eyed disbelief. “Bastard.”

The Alpha’s eyes narrowed dangerously. “What else do you know.”

Elijah exhaled slowly. “No signs of a struggle. Nobody saw anyone take her. She paid cash, sat there for maybe thirty minutes, then left alone on a bus headed south.”

Chris looked away briefly, jaw tight. Alone. He could picture it too easily. That detail shouldn’t have mattered. But it did. He didn’t respond immediately. A cold dread was beginning to form in his chest.

“She left,” Chris said finally.

Elijah nodded once. “Looks like it.”

Silence stretched.

“Say that again,” the Alpha said.

Elijah hesitated. “She’s gone. Alpha. Naomi’s”

“I heard you the first time,” the Alpha cut in.

His voice was quieter than usual. That was worse.

Then Chris asked, quieter than before, “Did anyone follow her scent trail?”

Elijah shook his head. “It goes cold at the eastern boundary. Like she knew exactly where to break it.”

That landed harder than anything else. A clean break meant choice. Not panic. Not running blind. Choice.

Finally, Alpha Zeke said, “She’s not just gone.”

Elijah frowned. “What do you mean?”

Chris looked back toward the window.

Alpha Zeke responded: “Whatever and wherever she is… doesn’t stop being dangerous just because she disappeared.”

Chris turned slightly. The Alpha stood near the map table, one hand braced against the edge like he needed something solid to anchor himself to. His face was still, but the tension in his jaw was sharp enough to read clearly.

Something was wrong. Not politically wrong. Personally wrong.

The Beta stepped forward cautiously. “Zeke—”

“Get out,” the Alpha said.

The Beta stopped immediately. So did Elijah. One by one, they filed out without argument, leaving only Chris and the Alpha in the room as the door clicked shut. Silence followed.

Then the Alpha spoke again, slower this time.

“She is my daughter.” It wasn’t a question. More like a statement.

“I need to see her room. The alpha stated.

Chris frowned slightly. “East wing. Third floor.”

The Alpha was already moving. They reached her room in less than a minute. It was too quiet. There was no lingering presence or scattered belongings. It all looked incredibly organized for someone who rushed away.

Alpha Zeke stepped inside and stopped. On the small desk near the window, there was a single folded piece of paper. Chris watched as the Alpha picked it up.

For a moment, he didn’t open it. He just held it like he already knew what it would say. Then he unfolded it. His expression changed. The Alpha’s control slipped in a way it never had before. The letter was short with neat handwriting.

Thank you for taking me in when I had nowhere else to go.

I know I have caused problems for your pack. That was never my intention.

I won’t be the reason your people are hurt or put in danger.

I am leaving, and I won’t come back.

Please don’t look for me.

That was it. The Alpha read it twice. Then a third time. Chris watched him closely now, noticing the way his grip tightened around the paper—careful not to tear it, but clearly on the edge of doing so anyway. Something in the Alpha’s breathing changed. He sat down slowly on the edge of the bed. “I just found out,” the Alpha said quietly, almost to himself.

The Alpha finally looked up. His face mirrored the regret anchored inside him. His gaze dropped back to the letter.

“She was in my pack,” he said, quieter now. “Under my protection. And I let her believe she was unwanted in it.”

Chris didn’t respond immediately. Anything he said now wouldn’t change the past.

Zeke exhaled slowly, like it hurt to do it.

“Chris,” he said finally.

Chris straightened slightly. “Alpha.”

“You were chosen heir because Sarai and I were told there would be no direct line,” he said.

Chris didn’t move. He didn’t dare speak. The Alpha’s eyes hardened slightly—not at Chris, but at the situation itself.

“And now she’s gone. My daughter is gone.”

The Alpha stood again, slower this time. Carefully folding the letter and placing it back on the desk like it was something fragile that might break if handled wrong.

“She thinks she’s protecting us,” he said.

Chris frowned slightly. “She said she didn’t want to harm the pack.”

The Alpha’s expression tightened.

“She thinks she is the harm,” he corrected.

Silence again.

Then Chris said, more carefully than before, “We can still find her.”

The Alpha turned his head slightly.

And for the first time since Chris had known him, there was something unsteady behind his eyes. “If we find her,” the Alpha said quietly, “we risk confirming everything she already believes about herself.”

A pause.

Then, lower: “And if she is what I think she is becoming she would never be safe here.”