Cursed To The Alpha

Chapter 123

Gretchen's laughter echoes with a chilling edge, her head whipping towards me. 'Mate?' she cackles, her amusement laced with disbelief. Intense scrutiny bores into me as she seeks confirmation. 'You are Warrick's mate?' she queries, her voice tinged with curiosity and intrigue.

I nod, my heart pounding with fear and determination.

Gretchen retreats, her steps tracing a restless pattern upon the floor. 'The curse... Only a mate's touch could release him from the shackles of the wolf,' she muses, her gaze piercing through me. Gretchen stops and stares at me. ‘What ingredient were you trying to find?’ she asks.

I strain against Gretchen's gaze, searching for any glimmer of mercy in her eyes, and decide she knows everything else now and can’t think of a reason why her knowing the ingredient could make our situation any worse.

'The flower from a blossom fox,' I reveal, my voice quivering.

Gretchen turns to face me fully, a sinister smile playing upon her lips. 'The only spell I know that requires such an ingredient is the reversal spell,' she muses with calculating intrigue.

'That's the potion I needed Janie to create for me, the elixir I need to consume,' I confess. 'Hence, our journey through the portal to obtain the flower.'

Curiosity gnaws at Gretchen's core as she presses for further details. 'Reversal for what?' she inquires, eyes narrowing in scrutiny.

A surge of fear and uncertainty grips me. I hesitate, my mind grappling with the repercussions of revealing the truth. ‘It doesn’t matter. It’s irrelevant,’ I tell her.

Gretchen turned her back to me, a silent decree that seals my fate. 'Chain her up,' she orders Thaddeus and Orlan, seizing the silver whip from Amos. Panic surges through my veins, and I scream in protest, my pleas echoing through the chamber. But Gretchen remains unmoved, her cold smile a chilling omen of the pain that awaits me. ‘No, please, no!’ I scream.

‘No, stop!’ Warrick pleads. ‘I’ll tell you everything, just don’t hurt her!’ he shouts, but Gretchen smiles wickedly at him, and he knows just by her smile that she has no intention of stopping.

Thaddeus and Orlan release my restraints, their grip faltering as I fight against their hold. Seizing the opportunity, I swing a powerful punch at Orlan's face. The sickening crack of a bone breaking fills the air. He staggers back, clutching his injured nose in agony, a stream of blood pouring from his nostrils. Cursing and in a daze, he waves his wand to stop the bleeding, his pain evident.

Caius intervenes swiftly, seizing my other arm before I can land a blow on Thaddeus. With a swift motion, they shackle my wrists in the chains that dangle ominously from the ceiling, binding me inescapably.

Gretchen, revelling in her sadistic authority, tears the back of my shirt open, exposing my vulnerable flesh. Panic grips me as I realize her intention, knowing full well the insidious nature of the silver whip. Its touch would inflict wounds that would heal at a human pace, leaving permanent scars on my skin. 'Please,' I beg, with desperation, 'don't do this.'

As I hear the whip whistle cutting through the air, panic consumes me. In a last-ditch effort to protect myself, I hastily confess, hoping to disrupt Gretchen's sadistic plan. 'I'm not a wolf,' I reveal, my voice trembling with fear and desperation. 'I'm a human.'

Gretchen whirls around, surprise across her face. 'That doesn't make any sense,' she retorts, her disbelief apparent.

Struggling to remain composed, I press on, my voice quivering urgently. 'It does. Janie was making potions. I told her magic wasn’t real, and to prove it to her, I grabbed a random potion she had made and drank it. It was a lycanthrope potion she kind of messed up. Instead of making me shift into a werewolf, it gave me the ears, a tail and tendencies of one instead,’ I explain. I explained, desperation tingeing my words.

Gretchen's laughter resonates through the room with amusement. 'How could such a powerful witch botch such a simple recipe?' she muses aloud, her tone dripping with mockery.

‘Because she was new to it, she had only found out she was a witch,’ I tell her.

I can see Warrick clearly in his cell. The Mystic Council and Gretchen have their backs to him as they face me. I can see two bars have a bend in them but not enough for Warrick to get through. I continue watching discreetly as he scoops up the strewn hay. He’s planning on something, but I’m not sure what, but he looks determined as if whatever he’s thinking will work. I have to keep Gretchen and the Mystic Council distracted.

‘Janie did not know she was a witch?’ Gretchen says, intrigued.

‘No,’ I reply.

Warrick wraps the hay over his hands, and I now realise what he’s trying to do, creating a barrier between the silver and his flesh so he can bend the bars without the silver affecting him. As Gretchen is about to look over her shoulder at Warrick, just as he places his hands on the bars, I quickly blurt out, ‘Janie is Xander’s mate!’

Gretchen's attention snaps back to me, her eyes wide with surprise. 'What?' she exclaims

‘Xander has spent years trying to find his mate. He hadn’t told us he finally found her. How did he know she was from your world?’ she asks.

‘Bluebirds told him, so he came to our world and pretended to be one of us, and Janie naturally fell in love with him. He didn’t want to scare her, so he kept his powers hidden as he realised, she only discovered herself, she was a witch. Then he discovered my predicament as I was trying to hide my ears and tail with Janie’s help, and when he found out we needed a blossom fox flower to create the potion I needed, he said I would have to track it down myself since I’m a werewolf. Imogen insisted on coming along for support, and Janie too. That’s how we all came to be here and how Imogen met Orelious, and I found Warrick and broke the spell. I came across him thinking I had found the Blossom Fox, but instead, I had found my mate.’

Warrick stretches the bars open, quickly removes his clothes, shifts before leaping out the large gap, and sneaks up behind the wizards. I notice Pixel sneaking beside him.