All Chapters of THE ALPHA'S LAST CHOICE : Chapter 41 - Chapter 50

The silence that followed the flame’s whisper was complete, pressing in from all sides like a second skin. It drowned out even the sound of Thorne’s panicked shout, Mira’s approaching footsteps, and the thunder of Selena’s pulse. The chamber itself seemed to hold its breath, as though the world were suspended in the moment between one heartbeat and the next. The air felt heavier now, warped, as if reality had been bent by the presence of the flame’s will. And in that breathless hush, Selena fell to her knees, her strength finally stripped away.Her hands slapped the obsidian floor, and the polished surface cracked beneath her palms. The fracture lines radiated outward, forming a network of splintered glass that swallowed her reflection whole. Where once she had seen herself—broken, aflame, hollow—now there was only darkness. The Heartstone pulsed once, bright and angry against her chest, then began to fade, the light dimming as though drawing inward, conserving itself. Selena’s breath

The world above greeted them with silence—but not peace. As Selena and the others emerged from the Heartstone’s chamber, the landscape had changed. The sky, once overcast and gray, now churned with veins of crimson and streaks of deep indigo. It wasn’t just a sunset—it was as if the heavens themselves had been scorched by unseen hands. Strange winds howled across the peaks, thick with the scent of ozone and earth, carrying the taste of things long buried and now awakened.Mira stumbled, catching herself on a jagged outcrop. “What happened while we were down there?” she whispered, staring at the sky that flickered like lightning trapped behind silk. Kael squinted into the distance. “That’s not just weather. That’s—” He paused. “That’s a breach.”Selena stepped forward, eyes narrowed. The power she now carried still hummed just beneath her skin, not wild but no longer dormant. She could feel the land shuddering beneath her boots, the fault lines of magic running deep into the bones of t

The valley they entered was dead quiet—too quiet. Once a fertile crescent of green and song, it now stood barren under a bruised sky, the ground scorched in spirals, as if something ancient had danced there. Selena stepped cautiously, her boots crunching over ash that hadn’t come from fire alone. It smelled of something fouler—like burnt bone and memories. Around them, the wind had died, but the pressure hadn’t.Thorne walked beside her, every sense coiled, protective instinct practically radiating from his skin. His knuckles were bloodless where they clenched his blade. Mira hung back, warding their rear, eyes darting over her shoulder as if afraid of her own shadow. Kael led ahead, his sword drawn, but even he looked uncertain—as though the world beneath his feet no longer obeyed the laws he trusted.They passed through what remained of an old outpost, its stone walls crumbled, the wards once etched in its towers long since faded. Selena paused beside a shattered window, staring at

The question echoed long after the doppelgänger’s lips stilled—Are you ready to become what they always feared? Selena’s breath hitched, the cold in her chest now a steady bloom that pulsed in time with something not quite her own. She wanted to deny it, to scream that she was still herself, but the words sat heavy in her throat like swallowed stones. Across from her, the figure wearing her face watched in silence, its expression unreadable, the tilt of its head perfectly mimicking her hesitation. The air between them buzzed, not with magic—but with inevitability.Thorne took a shaky step closer, his voice breaking with restraint. “Selena, look at me. You're still in control. Whatever this is, whatever it’s trying to make you believe—it’s not stronger than you.” His eyes were raw with desperation, hands hovering near her but never quite touching. She could feel the tension in his body, the aching need to pull her back before she slipped somewhere he couldn’t follow. But even as he spo

The sky split like brittle glass, its shatter echoing across the heavens. Fire poured through the breach in molten streams, not consuming, but unveiling. Selena stood at the center of it all, the golden blaze roaring from her hands as the mountain beneath her trembled. Her body felt weightless, but her spirit was anchored—rooted not in fear, but in the truth she had finally faced. She had not been chosen by fire. She was the choosing.Thorne and the others staggered back, shielding themselves from the sheer heat. The breach no longer yawned like a wound but pulsed like a heart—fierce and furious. Out of its burning center, something emerged. Not the doppelgänger. Not the void’s shadow. But a creature older than language, composed of skeletal wings and endless light, its form blurring between beauty and horror. Its voice came not from its throat, but from everywhere. “You are the Emberwake. At last.”Selena’s heart clenched. She knew that name. She had seen it etched in old ruins and w