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Eighty nine: not even in death

ผู้เขียน: Lynda writes
last update ปรับปรุงล่าสุด: 2025-07-28 21:03:05

Fiona's pov

The invitation arrived on black paper. Sealed in wax the color of old blood.

It sat on my desk like a threat dressed in velvet.

“The Truce Table Calls.”

Below it, two names.

Rowan Ashbane.

Mia Verane.

I felt Logan step behind me, silent, reading over my shoulder.

His breath slowed. I felt it in the space between us.

“Are we going?” I asked.

His answer was simple.

"If we don’t, they’ll say we’re afraid.”

The Truce Table sits in the ruins of the Everreach. A sacred neutral ground once used by all wolfbloods.

Now cracked, weathered—still standing, but barely.

As we entered the clearing, the scent hit first:

Lavender and bone ash. Sweet rot. Power. Rowan was already there. Leaning back on a carved stone throne, hands steepled, dressed in silk the color of smoke. His crown of thorns was gone—but something darker lingered in his eyes. Something older.

Mia stood beside him. Barefoot. Smiling like a saint with blood on her lips.

She wore white. Logan stiffened beside me.

Not a wo
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  • A DEAL WITH THE ALPHA DEVIL   Chapter ninety six: smoke before the fire

    Fiona's pov “Are you sure this is the place?” I asked, staring up at the broken sign swinging above the door.He looked down at the paper in his hand, then back at the building.“This is it,” he said, but his voice wasn’t confident.I hesitated. The air smelled like rain and old smoke. The street was nearly empty, except for a couple arguing across the road and a cat slipping into the alley.The door looked like it hadn’t been opened in years.“I don’t like it,” I murmured.“Me neither.”We both stood there for a second too long. Then, without saying anything more, I stepped forward and grabbed the handle. The metal was cold.“Let’s just get this over with,” I said.Inside was worse than outside.The tavern was dark. Too dark. The wooden floor creaked with every step, and the air smelled like something sweet and sour at the same time. Cinnamon maybe. Or something rotting under it.There were a few people scattered around, heads down, drinks in front of them. No one looked up.I follo

  • A DEAL WITH THE ALPHA DEVIL   Chapter ninety five: no crown but mine

    Fiona's pov"She's in there too long," Logan said. His voice barely carried over the wind, but I heard the ache in it.Elandra’s eyes didn’t leave the place where the Gate had been. Her hands hovered midair, glowing with soft violet light. Every part of her was alert, but her mouth was set in resignation. “She will either return,” she said, “or she will not. That is the way of it.”I didn’t look away from the hollow space in front of us. The Gate was gone, yes, but the world hadn’t fully settled. The sky shimmered in pulses, like the air itself was remembering something it wasn’t meant to. Rowan knelt where he'd fallen. Mia was still immobilized by Elandra’s magic, eyes wet with fury and loss.But I couldn’t focus on them. Not now.Because something was moving in the space the Gate had once occupied.A whisper. Not sound, but sensation. The scent of iron and spring rain. The air thickened and then light bled back into the world, soft and amber.And I stepped through.My limbs tremble

  • A DEAL WITH THE ALPHA DEVIL   Chapter ninety four: close the gate

    Fiona's pov We felt it before the sky changed.A pressure, low and grinding—like something vast was shifting under the world. Birds stopped mid-song. The pups froze mid-run, ears flattened. Even the wind seemed to recoil.Then came the sound. Not a bell, not a scream.A summoning.Elandra stood from the scrying bowl, face bone-white.“It’s opening,” she said. “The Black Gate.”We left without waiting for counsel.Me, Logan, Elandra, and four of the fiercest wolves in our ranks. No caravan. No banners. No strategy.This wasn’t a war march. This was a reckoning.The closer we got to the Hollow’s heart, the worse it became. The sky peeled into bruises. The trees lost color. Everything smelled wrong—like burning honey and rotting stone.By the time we reached the ridge overlooking the sacred valley, the world had already started unraveling.The Gate was open.Not a doorway. Not something made.It was a tear, a jagged, vertical wound in the air itself. As if reality had been clawed apart

  • A DEAL WITH THE ALPHA DEVIL   Ninety three: hollow scream

    Fiona’s POVThe scream came at dawn.Not from inside the camp. Not from Mia. This one came from the west ridge—deep and ragged, cut from a man’s throat.We ran.Logan got there first. His sword was already in his hand, feet bare, hair wet from the river. I was three steps behind him, Elandra right after me.Three of our scouts were down. One dead, throat ripped clean open. Two more barely conscious, eyes blown wide with terror.The fourth—the youngest—was kneeling over the body, blood smeared across his cheek. Logan went still.“Who did this?” he asked, low.The boy looked up. “It wasn’t a wolf.”I crouched. “What do you mean?”The boy pointed, trembling. “It was like a man… but too fast. Too tall. Eyes like fire. He said the Hollow had already chosen.”Elandra sucked in a breath. “A Harrowborn.”“No,” I said. “They’re myths.”She shook her head. “Not anymore.”Logan didn’t speak on the way back.His hands were clenched tight the whole time. Jaw rigid. Every step carried too much weig

  • A DEAL WITH THE ALPHA DEVIL   Ninety two: honey and blood

    Fiona's pov“She’s in the temple ruins,” Elandra said. “Alone.”I was already strapping my knives to my boots.“She wants you to come.”“I’m counting on it.”The First Temple was rotting. Cracked stone, half-swallowed by earth and ivy. The trees here leaned inward like they were listening. The ground pulsed faintly beneath my feet, as if something ancient remembered the rituals once performed here and was waiting for another.I stepped through the threshold. No guards. No spells. Just scent—jasmine and rust.She was waiting at the altar.Red robes. Bare feet. Her hair unbound and tangled like a crown of thorns. The air shimmered faintly around her, charged. Still, she didn’t turn.“You came,” Mia said.“You lit the fire.”“I didn’t think you’d come alone.”“I’m not the one who needs protection.”Finally, she turned. Her eyes were rimmed with shadow. Pupils too wide. Her skin pale and pulled too tightly over cheekbones. But she was still beautiful. Still familiar. That was the worst pa

  • A DEAL WITH THE ALPHA DEVIL   Ninety one: moon does not mourn

    Fiona's pov “There’s a second moon,” Elandra said without looking up from her scrying bowl. “Just for a breath. Then it vanishes.”I blinked. “That’s not possible.”“No,” she agreed. “And yet.”I followed her gaze to the water’s surface, where the vision shimmered. Two pale orbs hung in the sky, one full and steady—the other flickering, red-veined, pulsing like a heartbeat. For an instant, they turned in tandem. Then the second winked out like a candle.“A projection?” I asked. “Some kind of illusion?”Elandra’s jaw tightened. “A signal.”“To what?”She finally looked up, her dark eyes steady. “To whoever’s listening.”By mid-morning, everyone had felt it—something subtle, a prickling beneath the skin. Wolves were more irritable, easily startled. One of the pups shifted without meaning to. Another refused to leave his tent, eyes locked on the sky.Logan watched from the training yard, shirt damp with sweat, hand clenched tight around the hilt of his practice blade. He wasn’t training

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