The Alpha's Regret: Return Of The Betrayed Luna-Chapter 496 Stepping Up

"Correct. That is what we’ve concluded as well," Addison confirmed, supporting Archmage Elric’s claim.

She had only grown more certain after receiving confirmation from Chase. Still, certainty about their involvement did not mean certainty about their true objective.

They could only speculate.

Was placing an Alpha King of their choosing the ultimate goal... or merely a step toward something far greater? Was this their own scheme, or were they acting at someone else’s request in exchange for something they desired?

No one could truly tell.

Dark Witches were forces that defied prediction and logic. Their motives were often layered, hidden beneath schemes within schemes.

But one thing was certain.

When a Dark Witch involved themselves in something, the method never mattered. No cost was too high, no act too cruel. They would do anything necessary to achieve their end.

This was also why Addison felt the need to warn her parents.

There was a real chance they could walk straight into the enemy’s trap. And if that happened... she didn’t even want to imagine the consequences. How could she possibly deal with losing either of them?

All she wanted was for them to remain safe until she returned.

The bitter truth, however, was that she wasn’t strong enough to face their enemies yet.

Right now, she felt like the weakest link among everyone around her. She couldn’t even shift into her wolf form. The thought alone stung more than she cared to admit.

Her wolf was not just a companion; it was her other half. For a werewolf, it was also a source of strength, identity, and pride. A werewolf without a wolf was considered incomplete... some would even say they were no longer worthy of being called a werewolf at all.

And if others were to discover this...

No matter how much her father, the Alpha King, tried to shield her, she could very well lose her right to inherit the throne.

"Then... your curse... and your wolf..." The Alpha King’s voice faltered as the pieces finally began to fit together in his mind.

Why the Dark Witches had worked with the vampires to kidnap Addison six years ago...

Perhaps it had never been about using her as leverage against the werewolves.

It was possible the vampires had their own reasons for cooperating. But for the Dark Witches, the true objective may have been far more calculated.

To remove Addison from the line of succession.

To use her for whatever value she had left... and then discard her.

Sealing her wolf may have been the first step. Perhaps they had even intended for her wolf to die. And if that happened, Addison herself would not have survived for long in vampire territory.

Her death there would have given the werewolf kingdom a legitimate reason to wage an even greater war against the vampires.

The Alpha King’s expression darkened.

If that had been their plan all along... then both the werewolves and the vampires had been nothing more than pieces on a board, pawns moved at the enemy’s convenience.

And why would their enemy want the two races to fight?

For chaos. For bloodshed.

Dark Witches thrived in such times.

Five hundred years ago, the Saintess herself had led an expedition alongside the paladins to hunt down the Dark Witches and eradicate their faction. They would never have gone to such lengths if the Dark Witches had not been responsible for unspeakable atrocities across the continent.

Ancient records spoke of a Dark Witch who orchestrated wars between races, deceived kingdoms into turning on one another, and caused countless massacres, all so the rivers of blood could be used in a grand ritual.

No one truly knew the ritual’s purpose.

Some believed it granted the Dark Witch eternal youth and beauty. Others claimed it was meant to summon her lover, said to be a demon general. But no solid proof of either claim had ever surfaced.

Over time, the story faded into something dismissed as exaggeration, old tales, distorted by rumor and fear.

Yet if Addison’s deductions were correct... perhaps those stories had never been mere gossip at all.

But now, it seemed the Dark Witches might be walking that same path again.

Perhaps they intended to repeat what was done centuries ago, not merely for chaos, but to awaken the first Dark Witch from her long slumber.

Or perhaps they sought only to follow in her footsteps: to sow fear across the continent once more, to plunge the world into another age of unrest and near-apocalypse.

An era where their kind could thrive...

While the rest of the world lived in fear, distrust, and disarray.

And there was proof to support this line of thought.

Six years ago, the vampires had failed to completely carry out the plan. Addison’s wolf had not died, and she herself had survived, preventing what could have become a catastrophic, full-scale war between werewolves and vampires, one that might have gone down in history as the greatest war between races.

And yet... war still broke out. 𝚏𝗿𝗲𝐞𝚠𝕖𝐛𝗻𝗼𝐯𝕖𝚕.𝚌𝗼𝗺

It may not have been as devastating as originally intended, but the bloodshed still happened. Addison’s abduction, followed by the complete lack of news about her fate, had been enough to ignite the Alpha King’s fury and set the conflict in motion.

Which meant that, in the end, the Dark Witches had still achieved part of what they wanted.

It was no longer far-fetched to think this had been their true objective all along.

What remained unclear was why the vampires had agreed to cooperate. Vampires were arrogant and self-serving by nature; they prided themselves on standing above such underhanded schemes and would never willingly allow themselves to be mere tools in someone else’s grand design.

And yet... they had participated.

"Father, I can see you’re beginning to form a conclusion," Addison said calmly. "But everything we know so far may only be fragments of a much larger puzzle."

She held his gaze steadily. "We may never be able to see the entire picture or fully understand what our enemies are trying to accomplish. But one thing is certain, we are facing more than just the Dark Witches."

Her voice hardened slightly. "They are only one faction among many. Some may wish to see the werewolf kingdom erased for reasons we don’t yet understand. Others may want something from us. For now, we can only speculate."

She took a slow breath. "What we can do is strengthen our vigilance and our defenses. Our enemies have already planted people around us, so we must be far more careful about whom we trust and whom we bring to our side."

A faint, knowing glint appeared in her eyes. "And we must act as though we know nothing. Let them believe their schemes remain hidden."

Her expression sharpened with quiet confidence. "They operate in the shadows... but so can we. While they think they are unseen, we can begin pulling them out of hiding, one by one, while we remain the ones they fail to notice."

Beneath her calm exterior was a firm resolve. She knew she was still weak, but she refused to remain that way.

For the safety of her future, her family, and her people, she would fight with everything she had.

And to do that, she needed to break the curse sealing her wolf, so she could stand at the forefront and face the enemies circling them like vultures.

"You make a valid point... but what else can we do?" the Queen asked, her expression dark with a mix of anger and helplessness. "If what you’re saying is true, and our enemies have already planted not only spies around us but also seeds of chaos throughout the kingdom, with so few people we can truly trust, what can we possibly do?"

She looked like a caged beast, forced to do nothing but seethe while the enemy moved freely beyond the bars.

"Mother," Addison replied gently, her voice calm despite the rapid beating of her own heart, "we have to take this one step at a time. The more we rush our actions and force results, the more likely we are to fall into their trap."

"But sweetheart, we may not have that much time," the Alpha King said. "Our enemies are already closing in. They may already have surrounded us from all sides. If that’s the case... we could simply be waiting for the moment they choose to strike."

Despite his words, there was no fear or helplessness in his expression.

Instead, he watched Addison carefully.

He was not speaking as a worried father, but as a king observing his successor.

This was, in truth, the first real trial he had placed before her as the future monarch of their kingdom. Faced with a crisis woven from shadows and uncertainty, he wanted to see how Addison would think, decide, and respond.

Because situations like this would not be the last.

If she could not navigate this, if she could not shoulder the weight of such threats, then she might not be ready to carry the burden of becoming the Alpha King of all werewolves.