Alpha of her Heart

CHAPTER 3

SERIS stepped toward the window of the tower, and she looked out. She found out that she was at the highest place of the Black Tower. It is so high that it will kill her if she tries to jump out of the window.

The sunlight filtered through the glass window. Seris raised her hand, and finally, she could feel the warmth of the sun. Nyxaria finally let her out of her cage but threatened her not to do anything stupid.

The Witch was confident that Seris couldn’t escape because the whole Tower was surrounded by a barrier. Seris would get burned if she tried to get near the barrier. Her hopes of escaping died down.

There were no other people except her and the Poison Witch in the tower.

Seris planned to escape.

As she was no longer in her cage, she watched for days, memorized the spells carved into the walls, and learned when the Poison Witch went to sleep. She didn’t know, but she could read spells at first glance, even if she didn’t learn any of them. Just one look and she already knew what it was.

And tonight was her only chance, or the last chance, to escape from the cruel Witch.

Seris couldn’t take it anymore—the pain, suffering, terror, and the poison in her blood.

As night fell and the Black Tower moaned in the wind. Lighting arched in the distance. The scent of hemlock, old blood, and decay lingered in the air. She was already at the door, but before her hand reached it, a voice spoke from behind.

“Seris, I told you not to do anything stupid.”

Seris’s hope was shattered when Nyxaria used her witch power to contain her and chained her to a cold metal table.

The chamber stank of rot and burning herbs.

Seris screamed as the liquid, heavier than venom and thicker than blood, burned through her veins, causing her back to arch fiercely against the cold metal table. It felt like a burning of fire and ice that had melted together.

Each link of the chains, which were designed to suppress magic and beasts, dug into her wrists and ankles. Her vision blurred, and she gasped for breath.

At Seris’s side, Nyxaria stood, smiling while looking at Seris like a masterpiece.

“Your mother’s protection was nothing, Seris. I could still break it. She couldn’t protect you,” Nyxaria said while caressing Seris’s head as if she were caressing a pet. “So, you better be obedient.”

Seris tried to speak—to beg and to scream—but the pain devoured her words. Then something changed within her. Her fingers curled into claws, her skin shimmered with some silver, and her blood felt like it would boil out of her.

She couldn’t breathe.

Seris felt that something inside her stirred, but she didn’t know what it was.

Then a low, echoing growl rolled through her chest, not from her throat, but from deeper. It was primal.

Her eyes suddenly flew open. Glowing. And silver-white lit from within.

The table underneath Seris cracked as a shockwave of magic flowed from her. The chains began to smoke.

Seris moved her limbs instinctively.

The wolf within Seris surfaced. But not fully, her bones didn’t shift, and her fur didn’t break through her skin, but the spirit of the wolf rose like a storm surge, refusing to sleep any longer.

Seris got up as the chains broke and clattered to the floor.

Nyxaria stumbled backwards. “You—”

However, she was unable to continue because Seris produced an aura that hit her like a wall. Thick with rage and sorrow. It was divine but wrathful magic.

“You made her suffer.”

Nyxaria’s eyes widened. She tried to use her Witch Power to control Seris, but her power didn’t work.

“You made me suffer, Poison Witch. I must kill you!”

Then the explosion came. Seris’ core erupted with raw energy, causing the stone walls to c***k, the ground to split, and the ceiling to shudder.

Seris' mixed bloodline was awakening.

Smoke filled the chamber.

Then Seris ran, barefoot, bloodied, eyes glowing like the moon. She had gone into the woods, into the storm, and the unknown.

And the Witch’s perfect weapon?

Was no longer under control.

ALPHA CASSIAN and his Beta arrived at the Black Tower with their group before the day turned dusk. The car stopped on the muddy path with the tires hissing against the wet ground. The forest around them hissed when the wind blew and echoed with something unnatural, like the world had just flinched.

Cassian stepped out first from the car. And the air hit him like a slap. The air smelled like ash, burnt wood, blood, and something else he couldn’t name.

Noah followed, and his eyes darted toward the broken silhouette in the distance—the Black Tower or what was left of it.

“I couldn’t sense the Poison Witch,” Cassian said as his jaw clenched, and he walked towards the Black Tower.

He saw the smoke coiling into the sky like snakes. One side of the tower had collapsed inward, with the walls blackened and crumbling.

As they walked near the Black Tower, Cassian saw the ruins.

“Something happened here, Alpha,” Noah said grimly, surveying the ruins with narrowed eyes.

Cassian didn’t say anything. He walked forward slowly, passing the shattered outer wall and into what remained inside the Black Tower. His boot crunched over the broken glass and charred floor. His nose twitched when his heightened senses were picking up traces of burned herbs, blood, molten silver, and... venom.

Then he smelled it.

It was faint.

It was a kind of smell—sweet and intoxicating. It was a woman’s scent.

‘Man, find her.’

Cassian was confused by his wolf. ‘Find her? What do you mean?’

‘That scent was driving me crazy. I want to know who the owner of that smell was. She might be our mate.’

Cassian could only shake his head because of his wolf’s words. That was impossible because his wolf just based its instinct on the faint scent they had smelled.

He crouched by the cracked slab when he saw a broken iron chain. The metal was melted at the clasp.

“Someone must have been chained in this place,” Cassian said and stood. He looked around, but couldn’t sense anyone in the Black Tower. He couldn’t feel any presence.

“She’s not here,” Cassian concluded.

“Alpha,” Noah approached Alpha Cassian after talking with one of their members who inspected the place, “there was no sign of the Poison Witch. She must have sensed us.”

“No,” Cassian said and looked at Noah. “She won’t leave even if we come. There was only one possibility why she left the Black Tower and wouldn’t face us.”

“What possibility, Alpha?”

The corner of Cassian’s lips curled up. “It was either that she was injured, weak, or powerless.”

“But who could attack her in her own haven?” Noah asked.

Cassian looked at the broken iron chain. “Nyxaria was experimenting on supernatural beings like us. Her last pet might have made these ruins,” he said as he looked around. “I can sense the power that was used. It was wild, raw, and untrained, as if it had just awakened.”

“Noah, ask someone to scout the surroundings of the Black Tower. And continue to search the whole place.”

“Yes, Alpha.” Noah bowed his head.

Cassian looked at the big hole in the wall when he could see the forest outside. The faint smell of the sweet and floral scent he had smelled earlier was still lingering in his mind. He walked out of the Black Tower, and his ash-gray eyes locked on the forest trail.

He closed his eyes and sniffed the air. When he locked his target location, he vanished into the trees, following the trail of the faint scent.

But Cassian ended up in a lake and didn’t see anyone except for a necklace that was left on the grass.

He picked it up and stared at it.

It was a necklace with a thin silver chain, braided with tiny threads of something he couldn’t name… like it was a threat of an enchanted plant—he wasn’t sure. At its center hung a small pendant, shaped like a crescent moon cradling a thorned rose. The moon was carved from a white opal. The rose was made of obsidian but with veins of emeralds running through the petals, as if something green and living refused to die within the stone.

Cassian felt the enchantment of the necklace. He knew the necklace belonged to a supernatural being.

Then he turned the necklace.

On the back of the necklace, a word or name was engraved.

“Seris…”

As Cassian whispered the name, his heart started to beat fast.