All Chapters of THE ALPHA MUST DIE: Chapter 21 - Chapter 30

The blade wouldn’t stop humming.Even after Victor had vanished into the trees like fog crawling back into the night, the obsidian still buzzed in her hand with a pulse that wasn’t metal... it was memory. Heat clung to its carved spine like breath on glass. Her fingers had closed around it too long. They trembled now, kissed red by the handle’s bite.Emilia didn’t speak when she came back into the farmhouse.She didn’t answer when her grandmother asked what she was holding. She didn’t blink when her grandfather took a step forward, his voice thick with something older than concern. She only moved when the scent of earth filled her nose again... when the dampness of the woods still on her skin made her stomach clench and her teeth itch.She took the blade and went into the barn.The moon was high. Staring.She stacked dry wood and broken branches from the pile in the corner. Her hands moved like they remembered a motion from a life that wasn’t this one. Her father’s hands, maybe. Her m

The tree stood like a sentinel in the clearing, gnarled and silent, its bark cracked open with time and secrecy. Emilia approached it as if called—no footsteps, no thoughts, just instinct leading her through the brush, leaves hushing under her bare feet. The woods whispered, breathless with anticipation.The sigil still burned faintly where she had carved it with trembling hands days ago. It glowed now—not in light, but in memory. A pulse beneath her skin matched its rhythm. Her wolf shifted behind her ribs, restless and watchful, and for once, she didn’t push it down.She pressed her palm to the mark—hard enough to make it bleed again. Warm blood ran in rivulets, trickling down into the grooves of the sigil.The bark moved.Not dramatically, not like a story would tell it—but subtly, sickeningly. Like breath drawn through ancient lungs. The tree shuddered, and a hollow in its center widened with the sound of splitting wood.Inside, wrapped in oiled cloth and time itself, was a weathe

The scent of iron hung in the air like old perfume.Not sharp. Not fresh. But aged, fermented, thick with the memory of wounds long healed and wounds that refused to. The kind of scent that stained... not just skin, but bone. Soul.Victor stood barefoot in the ruins of an altar older than language, deeper than creed.A ring of stones lay crumbled beneath the trees. Broken statues of wolves, mouths open in howls that had long since lost their teeth. The moon... full and bruised... pressed light between the branches overhead, casting red across his bare chest.He was naked from the waist up, skin pale and gleaming with sweat, muscles corded like ropes strung too tight. Black ink covered his arms, ancient runes twisting down from shoulder to wrist like ivy born from darkness.He held something in his hands.A silver goblet... tarnished and dented... filled to the brim with blood.Not just anyone’s blood.Hers.Collected from the sigil tree. From the altar she had bled on. From the ground

The dream did not begin gently.It tore her from sleep like a breath caught mid-scream, lungs half-full of smoke, heart bruising the walls of her ribs. No moon. No forest. No whisper of trees.Only a room.It wasn’t hers.Yet it knew her.Walls the color of old bruises. Windows smeared with ash. A mirror... framed in rusted iron... stood at the far end like a waiting mouth.And in it…Victor.But not as she remembered.He was bound.... chains of obsidian and blood-blackened bone. Kneeling. Shirtless. His skin burned in lines down his chest where symbols had been carved with something cruel. His breathing ragged, shoulders trembling, hair soaked as if he’d been in a storm that only existed for him.His eyes found hers.Not with hunger.Not with control.But desperation.“Emilia,” he rasped, voice hoarse and splintered like rotted bark. “Please.”She took a step forward, the floor beneath her soft—like peat, like the inside of something still alive.“Where are we?” she whispered.He loo

The message arrived on Nolan's desk without fanfare, without a return address, and sealed with old wax. No name. Just a folded slip of paper wrapped in an outdated manila envelope, yellowed by time and carrying the faint scent of soil.He stared at it for a long while before touching it. Something about the seal gnawed at him. The symbol... a crescent moon split down the middle, jagged like it had been torn by claw... wasn’t in any known criminal database. But he’d seen it once before.In Emilia Rutherford’s case file."Hey," Martha leaned into the room, eyes tired, coffee trembling in her grip. "Forensics came back on the fur. It's not canine. Not wolf either. Lab says it's... unclassifiable. And they found trace amounts of lunar-bonded iron in the samples. That's not even possible."Nolan didn’t look at her. He unfolded the letter slowly.The handwriting was sharp. Furious. "The moon bleeds for her. Prepare the threshold. The Hollowborn must awaken when the sky tears."Below it was