All Chapters of Witch Among Wolves - The Alpha's Enemy Bride: Chapter 1 - Chapter 10

Rowan’s patience had limits. He felt each second of waiting like a wolf pacing inside his ribs, teeth bared.The witch should have woken by now. He’d seen her chest rise, slow and shallow. Alive, but not quite there.He lingered in the hall outside the holding room—his holding room, really. He’d claimed it years ago as a fallback for threats, spies, the occasional traitor. Now it stank of lavender and burnt sage, the trace of whatever wards she’d carried on her skin.“She’s awake,” came Mac’s gravelly voice from inside, followed by Livia’s sharper tone. “Finally. For a moment, I thought we’d broken her.”He didn’t care about their chatter. He’d given them orders: wake the witch, test her mettle, keep her alive if she showed sense. If not, well—wolves didn’t coddle their prey.Rowan flexed his left arm, feeling the twinge where the scar ran rough from elbow to wrist. Old pain, familiar. A reminder of the price of leadership and the cost of letting witches too close.He wondered, fleeti

The packhouse was not what Thalia expected.It felt less like a home and more like a fortress—stone-walled, heavy beams overhead draped in drying herbs and animal bones, lantern light flickering in shadows like a warning. Every detail spoke of history and power: the tapestry of a silver-furred wolf, the scent of pine tar and old blood, the polished antlers above the doors. A place that eats outsiders alive.Rowan led her into the dining hall, where the heart of Silverpine’s authority pulsed beneath the trappings of hospitality. The room was built to impress, to unsettle: long tables lined with battered silver, ancestral blades on the walls, candlelight shining off dark wine and meat, but never quite reaching the corners.Six councilors sat at the head table, every one a different kind of predator. Thalia felt the weight of their attention, cold and calculated, sizing her up not just as an intruder but as a threat to their delicate balance.A thin man at the table’s end—his nose sharp

The fire in her room had burned down to embers, but sleep still refused to visit. Thalia lay awake on the unfamiliar bed, staring up at carved beams that seemed to shift and writhe in the moonlight. The furs tangled around her legs felt like a wolf’s embrace—a little too tight, a little too warm.Of course I end up in a house full of insomniacs, she thought, rolling onto her side. Even the ghosts in this place are restless.A clock somewhere chimed midnight. From the hall, distant laughter and the muted thump of boots told her that not everyone in Silverpine was safely tucked away. Anxiety gnawed at her bones. Her skin prickled, her magic a live wire humming somewhere just out of reach.I could try to meditate. Or I could go exploring like a complete idiot.Decision made, Thalia slid out of bed and shrugged into her cloak. The wooden floor was icy under her toes. She crept to the door, paused to listen, then eased it open.The corridor outside was thick with shadows, the faint glow of

Sunlight crept across the heavy furs, warm on Thalia’s cheek. She mumbled and rolled away, determined to steal a few more moments of peace. Her body ached in places she’d forgotten could ache—a souvenir from the trial.You survive a moon trial and they still expect you up with the chickens. Savages, she thought, tugging the covers tighter.A knock—too brisk to be Mara. Before she could answer, the door swung open.Rowan stood there, arms folded, jaw set in a line that could cut stone. He looked her up and down, then let his gaze settle on the window’s golden spill.“You planning to sleep through lunch, or are you waiting for a formal invitation?”Thalia cracked one eye open. “Is this my reward for yesterday? Because I have to say, I expected breakfast in bed. And maybe a medal.”He crossed the room in three easy strides, taking in the heap of covers, her tangled hair, the coat thrown over the foot of the bed. “Medals are for heroes. I don’t hand them out for survivors.”She snorted. “

The packhouse was coming alive as Thalia returned—kitchen clatter, distant laughter, the thud of boots on floorboards. She slipped in through the heavy doors, pulse just beginning to slow. Livia’s warning still rang in her ears, but it was the ache beneath her skin—the magic she’d used, the memories it had shaken loose—that stayed with her.She moved quietly through the entry hall, skirting the kitchen and the too-bright warmth of early risers. She found a large leather highbacked chair in a shadowed corner of the sitting room, near a tall window that framed the thinning fog and the sun climbing behind pines. It felt ancient, a throne for exiles and the weary. She curled herself small, Mara’s coat wrapped tight, knees hugged to her chest.She gazed out at the world, light spilling gold across forest and glade. Her breath slowed.But she couldn’t outrun memory. It came for her—ruthless, unstoppable.MemoryThe woods are alive, velvet with midnight and wild with panic.She is not Thalia