The Alpha and The Cursed Witch

CHAPTER 2

Seraphine

The forest was too quiet.

That was the first thing I noticed. No night bird, no scurry of small paws in the underbrush, not even the whisper of wind through the branches. The silence pressed against me, thick and unnatural, as if the trees themselves were holding their breath.

I should not have been here. Not in these woods. Not under the Blood Moon. And certainly not this close to Bloodfang territory, where wolves prowled the shadows like knives waiting for throats. Yet my feet had carried me, restless and reckless, across the invisible border as if drawn by a thread I couldn’t cut.

The curse always pulled me to places I shouldn’t go. It whispered in my blood, thrummed in my bones, reminded me that I didn’t belong anywhere. Not with the witches who had cast me out, not with the humans who looked at me with fear, and definitely not here, where wolves ruled the night.

But tonight, the whisper was louder. It wasn’t just a tug. It was a command.

I told myself I only came because the wards on witch land burned against my skin. My own people had chased me out long ago, treating me like a plague. They whispered that even standing too close to me could twist their magic. They weren’t entirely wrong. I had seen what happened when someone touched me.

I remembered the first time, too vividly. I had been sixteen, trembling, still more girl than woman. A boy from the enclave had reached for my hand, curious and bold. He wanted to prove I wasn’t dangerous, that the elders were only spreading lies. His fingers brushed mine. By the time he collapsed, his skin blackening where we’d touched, I was screaming too loudly to hear my own heartbeat. He died within hours.

That was my curse. Anyone who touched me risked death.

Sometimes quickly. Sometimes slowly. Always painfully.

The witches called me an omen. The humans called me a monster. And so I was banished, forced to wander, surviving on scraps and shadows, forbidden from belonging.

And yet, what I craved most was the very thing I could never have. The warmth of a hand, the press of lips, the closeness of another heartbeat. Loneliness was its own kind of death, stretched thin across years.

So why was I here, in the heart of wolf territory? I could have stayed hidden in the valleys. I could have skirted the riverbanks and disappeared into human lands. Instead, my steps carried me deeper into Bloodfang’s forest, under the heavy red gaze of the Blood Moon.

It wasn’t a choice. It was compulsion. Something greater than me had its claws in my soul, and no matter how I resisted, my feet obeyed.

My pulse thudded as I paused among the pines. A sound at last, the crunch of leaves behind me. I spun, fire sparking in my palms, but the night stretched empty.

No. Not empty. I could feel it. A presence in the dark, steady and heavy, like a predator circling prey. My skin prickled. My curse stirred, restless, as if it too sensed danger approaching.

I should have run. I should have vanished into the mist before any wolf caught my scent. But my body froze as a figure emerged from the trees.

He was tall, broad-shouldered, and moved with the unhurried grace of someone who had never once known fear. Shadows clung to him, yet the moon painted his sharp jaw, the cold fire in his eyes.

A wolf. Not just any wolf. An Alpha. I could feel it in the way the air shifted around him, bending to his will. Authority radiated from his skin.

His gaze locked on me, piercing, unrelenting. I braced myself for the sneer, for the disgust that always followed once someone recognized what I was.

Instead, he whispered my name.

“Seraphine.”

I froze. My body pressed tighter against the bark at my back, every muscle wound tight, my breath trapped in my chest. He had said my name. My name.

Seraphine.

The sound of it left his lips like a claim, not a question. As if he had always known it, as if he had carried it inside him, waiting for this night, waiting for me.

But how? No wolf should know me. No wolf had ever known me. My own kind had erased my name from their tongues long ago, as though refusing to speak it would erase me as well. Humans never learned it. I had made certain of that. I had guarded it as the last shred of myself I could keep safe.

Yet he spoke it as though it was carved into him.

“What did you say?” My voice cracked, brittle and dry in the tightness of my throat.

He stepped closer. His men shifted restlessly in the shadows, but I barely noticed them. All I saw was him, his gaze fixed on me with such intensity it pinned me in place. His presence smothered the night, silencing the forest, leaving only the frantic hammer of my pulse in my ears.

“Seraphine,” he said again. Firm. Certain. My name carried a weight in his mouth that felt too heavy, too dangerous.

Heat flared inside me, colliding with fear until the two became inseparable. My terror sharpened into anger, the only weapon I had left. “How do you know my name?”

His jaw tightened. “I don’t know. I just do.”

The answer sent a shiver through me. It was not an explanation. It was impossible. And yet the air between us vibrated, thick and electric, binding me to the sound of his voice as though the universe itself had tied a cord between us.

The scent of wolf closed around me, sharp with pine and iron, wild and unyielding. It slid into my lungs, sank into my blood, and it felt wrong. My curse stirred uneasily beneath my skin, whispering a warning I could not ignore.

“Stay away,” I commanded, though my voice shook.

Something shifted in his eyes. His wolf, I realized. The beast inside him. It snarled at my words, even if he did not. My command scraped against something primal in him, something that refused to bow.

“I can’t,” he said, his voice cutting through the night, low and final.

My stomach dropped. “You can and you will,” I hissed, desperate for him to hear the truth before it was too late. “You do not understand. You cannot touch me.”

“Watch me.”

The sound of his voice made my heart stumble. It was not just a threat. It was a vow. The kind of vow Alphas gave before they tore kingdoms to the ground.

And then he reached for me.

“No!” The word ripped from my throat, raw and desperate.

His fingers brushed mine.

The world went white.

Agony burst from his touch, searing through my hand and lashing up my arm until it reached my chest. My lungs seized. My vision blurred. The curse roared awake inside me, dark and greedy, eager to devour the fool who dared defy it.

He convulsed, his body shuddering under the force of it, and still he did not let go. Smoke rose where our skin met. His jaw clenched, his teeth ground against the pain, but his grip only tightened.

Terror ripped through me. Not for myself, but for him. He was dying. My curse was killing him.

“I told you,” I gasped, horror strangling the air in my lungs. My hands trembled violently, my own body fighting to break the contact. “I am cursed. I will kill you.”

I had warned him. I had begged him. He should have let me go. He should have recoiled like every other soul who had come too close. That was how it always ended. Alone. Untouched.

But he did not release me.

Our eyes met, and for the first time in years, I saw no disgust. No fear. Only defiance.

Through the fire tearing him apart, through the agony twisting his features, he forced words through clenched teeth, raw and absolute.

“You are my mate.”

The forest seemed to recoil at the sound, the trees holding their breath as if they too felt the weight of his declaration. My curse surged violently in protest, gnashing in my blood, unwilling to surrender its hold over me.

And I stood there, caught between two dooms, fate and death, realizing with a sinking certainty that I might not survive either.