Chapter 4 The Witch and The Ruined Wedding Party

Moments ago,

The Grand Hall of Tathoris,

[Astrid P.O.V]

I was going to vomit champagne onto my brother's wedding shoes.

Not yet. But soon.

The hall reeked of roses and hypocrisy. Jaxon stood at the center like he was the sun - gold-embroidered jacket, perfect jawline, that easy Alpha confidence that made people believe anything he said. Selene hung off his arm in emerald, playing the grieving companion with the precision of someone who'd rehearsed this moment a thousand times.

The girl was good. I'd give her that.

"White lilies!" Elder Darnel was saying, his voice thick with approval. "How poignant, that she honors the fallen with such grace."

Selene's eyes went glassy on command. She let the chandelier light catch her auburn hair at just the right angle. One perfect tear slid down her perfect cheek.

Lumira's funeral had ended three hours ago.

I drained my champagne and reached for another.

"What do you think, Astrid?" Aunt Mercy - I'd forgotten her actual name by the second drink - turned to me with that bright, terrible smile. "Isn't this what Hauntspire High needed? A fresh start?"

A fresh start?!!! While Lumira's body was still warm in the ground.

"It's something," I said, and let the bitterness hang there like smoke.

Aunt Mercy didn't catch it. She just smiled and turned back to the spectacle.

Selene was touching Jaxon's arm again - that fragile, clinging touch that made him pull her closer like she might shatter. Protective. Possessing. I could see him rewriting the situation in real time. Selene wasn't the girl who'd orchestrated Lumira's social destruction - she was the brave heroine. The one standing by her Alpha while the "cursed" girl had finally done everyone a favor and jumped.

I wondered if he even remembered that Lumira had saved his life. That when those things breached Hauntspire's wards, she'd sealed them alone. Burned out her own soul doing it.

But memory wasn't convenient. So it was disposed of.

Elder Darnel was still talking about purging corruption, and the gods' will. All the comfortable language people used to justify celebration over a grave.

"May the gods forget her," he said finally, blessing the erasure.

Selene's hands came together like a prayer. "We should all pray for her peace."

I almost laughed. I actually had to turn away, pretending to adjust my dress, because if I didn't look away right then, I'd cross the room and rearrange her face.

'Peace,' I thought, watching them circle each other like wolves. 'That bitch is going to want a lot more than peace.'

Then the doors opened.

A servant appeared - pale, trembling, holding a lacquered box. Red and black. The kind of box you didn't ask questions about. Sigils crawled across its surface like they were alive.

Everything after that happened in slow motion.

"What's this?" Selene's voice was all curiosity, all lightness. She reached for the box before anyone could stop her.

The clasp clicked open.

The scream came before the reveal. That's what I remembered most clearly later - the scream before she saw it. Like some part of her already knew.

Inside the box was a heart.

Not symbolic. Not artistic. A real heart, still wet, still glistening. Blood pooled in the corners of the red lacquer.

Selene's shriek tore through the hall like something wounded. The heart fell onto her emerald gown, and the blood spread like it was alive, soaking into the silk.

Jaxon moved fast - one second beside her, the next wrapped around her, his Alpha-heat radiating blind fury. But before he could do anything, before anyone could move, the box erupted.

The voice came through the smoke like something inhuman, layered, and wrong.

"I CURSE THIS UNION. I CURSE THIS HOUSE. MAY YOUR MARRIAGE ROT. MAY YOUR LOVE BLACKEN. MAY YOUR LINE BE CUT SHORT."

A pause. Heavy. Deliberate.

"This heart is but the first offering."

Then the explosion.

I heard someone scream "Grenade!" but the sound came a second too late.

The blast hit like a physical fist, driving the air from my lungs. I dropped, instinct overriding thought, my ears screaming from the impact.

The box had been rigged with something - crystals, maybe, or shards of enchanted metal. They rained down like razor-sharp snow. When I pushed myself up, the air was thick with smoke and the metallic smell of ozone.

The hall was chaos. Guests were screaming. Jaxon was still holding Selene, blood - hers, the heart's, who knew - spreading across his gold jacket. The elder guard was moving toward the exits, looking for threats that had already vanished.

But what I noticed, what stuck with me, was Selene's expression beneath the tears.

For just a moment, when she thought no one was looking, I saw something that wasn't fear.

It was triumph.

------------

Moments later,

[Mason P.O.V]

The shockwave hit me before I even made it out of the funeral hall.

The chapel had cleared already - people scattering like insects when the light comes on. I was crossing the courtyard when the distant boom rattled the stone beneath my feet. For a second, I thought it was part of the ceremony. Some old tradition I'd forgotten about.

Then the sirens started.

I ran.

The wedding hall was a war zone when I got there. Smoke hung thick enough to choke on. The police were already sweeping the perimeter, and I could see Jaxon through the haze, holding Selene like she might disappear.

I moved through the wreckage, my mind already spinning. One part of me - the part that was still bound by blood and oath to my Alpha - wanted to protect him, defend his name, shield his reputation from whatever this was.

The other part? The part that had spent the last hour at Lumira's funeral watching a girl nobody wanted to remember get lowered into the ground?

That part wanted to laugh.

"Secure the exits!" My voice cut through the panic. "Sweep for residue. Move!"

The guards responded immediately. This was easier - the authority, the command, the clear purpose. This didn't require thinking about who deserved protection and why.

Jaxon's eyes found mine across the room. I saw the question there: 'Was it her?'

I already knew the answer. Lumira was barely able to stand. There was no way she had the power or the will to orchestrate this. But saying that out loud would only protect her, and I was still bound by silence.

Still pretending she was dead.

A police officer approached, notepad ready. They had that exhausted look that said they'd rather be anywhere else.

"Alpha Fenrir," the officer said. "Any idea who might have done this?"

Jaxon's jaw tightened. When he spoke, his voice was venom wrapped in civility.

"There is only one enemy who would desecrate my union with such cowardice. Lumira Duskbane."

The words hung in the smoke like poison gas.

I forced myself to stand silent. To nod. To play the part of the loyal Beta confirming his Alpha's accusation. Every second of silence was a sin, but it was also a shield. Let them chase the name of a dead girl. Let them spend their resources hunting a ghost. Every hour they wasted looking for Lumira was an hour she had to survive.

"The Duskbane girl?" the officer was already writing. "We'll put out an APB..."

"She's already buried," someone said. One of the aunts.

But then Astrid was there, walking toward them with that smile on her face - the one that made people nervous even when she was helping them.

"Careful," she said, her voice sharp as broken glass. "You're blaming a corpse for something that happened while you were all drinking champagne on top of her funeral pyre."

Jaxon's face darkened. "Astrid..."

"A wedding to eclipse the funeral of your ex-mate," she continued, talking over him. "Did you really think no one would notice? Did you hope people would be too busy celebrating to remember that Lumira died twelve hours ago?"

Selene made a wounded sound and buried her face in Jaxon's chest. He pulled her closer, fury and confusion warring on his features.

Astrid turned to the police. Her smile was a knife.

"You should hurry to the Duskbane mansion. Make sure you arrest her corpse before it decays further."

The officer looked uncomfortable but nodded. They were already moving, radioing ahead, setting wheels in motion. The hunt had begun.

I stood very still, my heart hammering against my ribs.

A message arrived in my mind - not words exactly, but intention, image, emotion. Seraphina's touch in my consciousness, brief and burning.

'Seventy-two hours. She needs seventy-two hours of rest. No contact. No interference.'

I didn't respond, but I understood.

Every lie I permitted now bought her life. Every hour I stood silent while they chased a ghost was an hour she had to wake, to heal, to become something other than what they'd all decided she was.

I stood in the wreckage of the wedding and made a silent promise.

When the Witch rose - and she would rise, I could feel it - I would be waiting. Not as Jaxon's Beta. Not as the loyal guard bound by blood and duty.

As hers.

Even if it meant standing against my own blood. Even if it meant becoming a traitor to everything I'd sworn.

Some oaths mattered more than others.