All Chapters of A DEAL WITH THE ALPHA DEVIL: Chapter 251 - Chapter 260

Fiona's povHe woke before dawn, eyes open, but not really seeing me. The fire was down to ash. His wrist burned faint red through the skin.“Logan,” I said softly.He blinked slow, as if dragging himself back. “I’m fine.”He wasn’t. His voice had a different echo, one that didn’t belong to him.Serena handed him water. He didn’t drink it. He stared at it until it rippled, like something underneath the surface was breathing.We didn’t talk after that. The mountain was awake, and words didn’t feel safe.By midday, the tunnel forked. Two paths, one climbing, one falling. Both breathed the same warm air.“Which way?” Serena asked.Logan looked at the rising path. “Up.”I caught his arm. “No. The boy said ‘under.’ We go down.”He turned to me slowly. “You think he was a boy?”“Don’t start,” I warned.His mouth curled. “If he wasn’t a boy, then what are you?”The mark pulsed, and for a second, his pupils thinned to slits. I stepped back. “Logan, stop.”He shut his eyes hard and pressed his

Fiona's pov“Don’t look at it,” Serena said.Her voice cracked like something brittle underfoot. We’d been walking since dawn maybe longer. The fog made time slippery.Every turn looked the same, every shadow moved like it remembered us. The reflection followed too — in puddles, in wet stone, in the slick curve of her knife. Always smiling. Always waiting.“I said don’t—”“I’m not,” I lied.The truth was, I couldn’t stop looking. Every time I blinked, I saw Logan’s face rippling in the dark water behind my eyes. Still breathing. Still trapped.We stopped beside a fallen pine, the trunk hollowed out by rot. The ground there was soft, layered in wet moss that gave under our boots. The air hung thick, almost metallic. Even the flies had gone quiet.Serena dropped her pack and sat hard against the log, breath coming in shallow bursts. Her hair was plastered to her neck with sweat and mist. “We should’ve gone back for him.”I didn’t answer right away. I stared at the water pooled near her

Fiona's povSerena pressed her palm to the wall, then yanked it back with a hiss. “It’s hot.”I touched it too. She was right, it began pulsing under my hand. The light inside the carved letters throbbed with the same pale blue as Logan’s veins.She took a step back. “Tell me we’re not going in there.”I wanted to. I really did. But the hum under my skin was answering the one inside the stone, syncing beat for beat.“It’s calling,” I said.Serena swore. “You sound like him.”Maybe that’s why it stopped scaring me.The entrance opened when we didn’t touch it.The rock split down the center with a sound like cracking ice. Mist poured out, heavy and sweet, carrying the scent of iron and something older.Beyond was a passage lit by faint veins of blue light running through the walls like capillaries.Serena muttered, “This is suicide,” but she followed me anyway.After a while, I realized it wasn’t echoing through the cave.It was echoing through me.We reached a chamber.It was enormous,

Fiona's povSleep didn’t come easy anymore. Logan lay beside it, half-covered in the blanket I’d found, eyes closed but not asleep. “You’re still awake,” I whispered.His mouth twitched. “So are you.”I smiled faintly. “We could lie to each other. Might help.”He opened his eyes. “I think we’ve done enough lying.”There was no accusation in it. I sat closer, close enough to feel the faint warmth off his skin. “Do you remember what it said? Before you went into the water?”His jaw tightened. “Not all of it. Just pieces. It was showing me something as you, the crown, the first door.”“Rowan said I opened it.”He looked up at me. “Did you?”I hesitated. “I don’t know. Maybe. There are gaps in me, places that feel borrowed.”He reached out, brushing a stray lock of hair from my face. “You’d tell me if it was you?”“I’d try,” I said softly. “But I’m not sure I’d know the difference anymore.”He exhaled, slow. “I don’t care who opened it, Fiona. I just don’t want it to take you, too.”That

Logan's povIt wasn’t death.This… this was noise. A thousand whispers crawling into the pack,, every one of them had a voice I almost knew.The last thing I remembered was Fiona’s scream, the wave hitting us like a tornado.Now, I was standing in it. The black water wasn’t cold anymore. It moved something wrapping around me without drowning me.When I looked down, I didn’t see my reflection. I saw hers.“Fiona?” I said.Her face didn’t move, but her eyes did.“You shouldn’t have come,” she whispered.“Then why did you call me?”The reflection smiled faintly. “Because it wanted you to.”And then she was gone.I thrust forth and halted across her.“Still fighting it?”The voice came from behind me.Rowan.He looked older somehow. His eyes glowed faintly.I clenched my fists. “You should’ve stayed dead.”He almost smiled. “You said that before.”“What did you do to her?”“I gave her what she was born for.”“Don’t talk about her like that.”He tilted his head, studying me. “Still protect