The Alpha's Witch |18+|

Chapter Thirty Five

BRAXTON

Hopeless.

That's how I feel as I sit here, bound to this seat, unable to do anything but watch this scene unfold in front of me.

My gaze is set on Adeline, who sits just as I do, tethered down to a wooden chair as she's forced to answer question after question. Although, it's not the persistent questioning that puts this dreadful feeling within me—it's both the sinking feeling that buries deeper down into my chest with each answer, and the fact that I can't even feel the bond that once sparked between us.

I can't smell her, that scent I've been craving since she disappeared in front of me into thin air. I can't hear her heartbeat, the sound that soothes my nerves because it so obviously means that she's still alive. And I can't feel that pull between us, even when those green eyes found mine after what felt like an eternity apart—I couldn't feel it.

This place is wicked. Purely vile.

She's the closest to in my grasp she's been, yet this place won't let me get even the slightest twinge of hope. It's only solidifying my worst fear.

That I'm about to lose her.

I've felt this unbidden feeling once before—the day my father died. I'm unwillingly pulled into the memory that I remember all too vividly.

The summer heat is viscidly humid, forcing the hair on my body to cling to my skin as I sprint forward.

My attention is set on the large black mass of fur in front of me. My father's wolf is the same raven shade as my own, only his form is slightly bigger than mine.

These border patrol routes he's forced me to do every day for the past years are getting, honestly boring. The repetition is unwavering. He insists that it's necessary though, that I will need to know every single part of the territory. Every part of my territory, when it becomes mine one day.

I detest even that thought. I've been trained from the moment that I first shifted on how to be an alpha. How to be the best. My wolf takes pride in it, but personally, this fate I've been destined for has never called to me.

It seems to be nothing but an overwhelming role that I have no choice but to fulfill. My only hope is that that day will not come for quite some time.

"Do you smell that?" My father's deep baritone interrupts my thoughts as he mind links me.

"Rogues," I reply, the scent filtering through my nostrils not a second later.

"They should know better than to enter the territory, but keep an eye out just in case."

We continue with our pace, following the edge of the border and tracking the scent purely as a precaution. It grows stronger and stronger as we persist forward, deeper into the thickening trees. I soon realize that it's more than just a couple rogues, there's precisely five of them.

"Should we call for backup?" I question my father.

Just as I suspect, he chuckles back. Like I'm somehow making a mockery of him by requesting backup even when we are outnumbered by more than double.

"No need—" his response is cut off.

There's a blur of fur that shifts in my peripheral vision before the bodies of lighter colored wolves mash into the black of my father's wolf.

All five of the rogues that I had smelled are suddenly biting and clawing at him, not giving him even the slightest decency of a fair fight.