All Chapters of THE ALPHA MUST DIE: Chapter 61 - Chapter 70

The chapel was no longer a place of worship. It reeked of scorched blood, half-shifted fur, and the madness of a man no longer bound by reason. Only the stained-glass moon above remained untouched—its red eye gazing down like a voyeur, watching the descent with fascination instead of horror. Victor stood bare-chested in the center of the stone floor. Blood already slicked his hands. His breath came in short, fevered bursts, each one dragged up from the deepest pit of him like he had to tear it loose. The knife was obsidian. The edge not forged, but broken. Sharp in the way curses are—shaped by hatred and handed down. He didn’t flinch as he carved the sigil into his chest. A spiral of fang and claw. The Hollowborn mark, mutated with his own—lines interwoven, twisted like mating snakes. A mating brand. His fingers trembled at the final curve, but not from fear. It was joy. When he was done, he dropped the blade. It clattered against the stone, echoing too loud in the chapel's sil

The storm didn’t announce itself with thunder, but with stillness. A silence so sharp Emilia thought her own breath might shatter it. The trees outside the farmhouse bowed as if bearing witness, wind barely stirring their limbs.She opened the door to her room and froze.There it was. Laid neatly on her bed, atop the worn quilt her grandmother had stitched years ago—a dress. White. Laced. Full-skirted. The fabric shimmered in the low light like bone under moonlight.But the bottom hem...Stained. Soaked in red.Dark and wet and unmistakable.Blood.And worse still—the smell.Wolfsbane. Sweet at first. Sickly. Then cloying. Like poison disguised as perfume. Layered beneath it... roses. Not wild. Not fresh. Not real.Dead roses. Wilted petals, dried and crushed into the lining like funeral confetti.Emilia didn’t move. Didn’t breathe.Her hands twitched at her sides, nails nearly piercing her palms.It wasn’t just a dress.It was a message.A ritual.A vow.“I’m coming,” it whispere

It began with wind.Not the kind that howls or lashes—but the kind that slips between the ribs and settles into the marrow. Emilia felt it as she stepped into the woods that night, pulled from sleep by a hum vibrating in her blood. Her bare feet pressed into the cool dirt, the air thick with copper and frost.The wolves weren’t following her.They were hiding.The forest, once so loud with life and unseen breath, had fallen silent as a crypt.And then—she saw the first of them.A hollow shape at the edge of the trees, hunched forward, dragging one leg as though bound by invisible chains. But there were no chains. Only bones. Hollowborn bones, yellowed and cracked with time, strung together by sinew and rot.Its eyes were gone.Smoke leaked from its sockets in wisps of silver-blue.Emilia didn’t scream. Not even when it opened its mouth and whispered her name like a question.“...Emilia…”She stepped back. Once.Twice.Then she heard more. Behind. Beside. Above.They were everywhere.T

It started with a tremor underfoot.Not an earthquake. Not wind. A pulse.Like the earth itself had a heartbeat... and it was quickening.Emilia followed Julian through the dead forest, past hollowed stumps and bones embedded in the roots like the land had devoured its own dead. Neither of them spoke. There were no words left for what they were doing.He carried a lantern that didn’t flicker. The flame inside was black.Julian’s voice, when it came, was barely more than a growl. “We’re close.”They reached the edge of a cliff where the world seemed to fold in on itself. A jagged crevice yawned in the earth, choked in ivy and moss and something older—runes cut into the stone so deep they bled red sap, like the stone was alive and wounded.Julian touched a mark at the cliff’s edge.The stone trembled… then opened.The mouth of the cave exhaled breath that reeked of old blood.Emilia stepped in first.The descent was long and steep, the walls slick with condensation that smelled like rus

The forest had gone still again.Not the peace-before-dawn kind of stillness—but the other kind. The bad kind. The kind that made animals bury themselves deep, made birds forget their wings, made the wind itself hold its breath like it knew something sacred was about to be defiled.Something old was clawing its way into the world.Victor stood barefoot in the ash-choked chapel where the Hollowborn once whispered their oaths beneath dying candles. But the chapel was no longer hollow. Not tonight. Something watched from the cracks between the stones. Something listened from the roots beneath the altar.Victor’s chest was bare, painted in sigils inked with his own blood. His ribs moved like the breath of a dying god.He had not slept in days. His skin had begun to tear in thin seams, splitting at the spine where the wolf had tried to crawl out but found the soul inside... incompatible. He’d denied the bond. And it had denied him back.Until now.He knelt before the altar—no longer offeri