All Chapters of THE ALPHA'S LAST CHOICE : Chapter 31 - Chapter 40

The fire swallowed everything—stone, steel, even sound—until all I could hear was the relentless thunder of the shard in my chest. My body shook as flames licked along my arms, spilling into the air like serpents freed from chains. For a heartbeat, I saw nothing but ruin stretched before me: Damian lying broken in the ash, Marcus’s blood staining the earth, Angela’s eyes dimming into silence. The shard promised victory if I gave it what it wanted, but every image of triumph was painted in the loss of those I loved most.Damian’s voice cut through the roar, ragged and raw. “Selena! Come back to me.” His hands still gripped my face, refusing to let me fall away, golden eyes blazing with the kind of devotion the shard could never mimic. That look tethered me even as fire tried to rip me free, a fragile thread against a storm threatening to consume us both.Kayden’s laughter carved through the battlefield like a blade. “Yes. Burn for me, Selena.” His words twisted with the shard’s hunger,

The vision tore itself from me like shattered glass, leaving my body trembling as though I had walked through fire and come out half-burned. The chamber blurred before my eyes, and only the sound of Damian’s voice anchored me, ragged and desperate as he caught me before I could collapse. His scent wrapped around me, grounding and dangerous all at once, but the shard was still there, pulsing inside my chest like a living wound. Its hunger whispered, clawing at the edges of my soul, but this time it wasn’t only my blood it reached for.I felt it stretching outward, sensing, searching, latching onto something that made my breath stutter in terror. It wasn’t Angela’s steady magic, nor the faint echoes of the council’s distant spells—no, the shard had found another thread entirely. Damian stiffened as though he, too, felt the weight of something unseen tugging at him, his golden eyes widening in confusion. And then I knew with a cold certainty: the shard recognized him.Damian’s grip tighte

The name the shard hissed lingered like smoke in my skull, curling through every thought I tried to form. It was not Damian’s name, nor mine, but something alien and old, something that clawed against the edges of memory. I staggered back, breaking contact, the bond’s glow flickering and then dimming to an ember against my chest. Damian reached for me instantly, his eyes sharp with alarm, though he tried to soften his grip as if I might shatter in his hands.“I saw something,” I whispered, though my voice cracked on the words. My palms were cold despite the fire that should have been coursing through me. The image of those blackened eyes and that cruel smile pressed against my mind like a scar I couldn’t erase. Damian’s thumb brushed my cheek, rough and trembling, but his touch steadied me enough to breathe again. “It wasn’t you, Damian—it wasn’t anyone I know.”His brow furrowed, the lines deepening in shadow as torchlight guttered in the chamber. “The shard is showing you pieces of i

The silence was deafening.Selena lay motionless, her body sprawled across the fractured stone floor of the chamber. The air around her no longer burned—it shimmered with a strange stillness, like the pause between heartbeats. Her chest rose in shallow, uneven breaths. The Heartstone no longer pulsed like a war drum. It was quiet, dulled to an ember nestled against her ribs.She blinked slowly, her lashes gritty with soot and ash. The battle—no, the choice—still rang through her bones. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she expected to hear the echo of her doppelgänger’s voice, cruel and knowing. But there was only her own breath and the faint crackle of distant flame.Had she won? Her limbs were heavy, as though dipped in molten lead. It took everything she had to push herself upright. She gasped as the motion jolted her ribs, pain flaring down her side like a lightning strike. But she welcomed the pain—it meant she was still here.She looked around the chamber, or what remained of i

The voice rolled through the chamber like a tremor, brushing against Selena’s bones with cold familiarity. She stood frozen, the air heavy with more than dust and silence. Thorne stepped closer, his sword raised in a protective arc, but even the blade felt small in the vastness of that unseen presence. The darkness wasn't empty—it was listening. Waiting.“What do you mean?” Selena asked, her voice low but steady. The moment the words left her lips, they echoed unnaturally, warped by the shape of the chamber. There was no immediate answer, only a deep pulse in the ground beneath her feet. Then, from the fractured monolith, a silver mist began to rise, curling like smoke into the shape of a figure cloaked in flickering shadow.It hovered above the stone, half-formed and unbound by any natural law. The face was hidden, obscured beneath layers of light and ash, but its presence struck something deep in Selena's soul. When it spoke again, its voice came in layers—like voices from different