All Chapters of THE MAD ALPHA : Chapter 131 - Chapter 140

POV: KAELThe stones start humming the second I step inside and I swear it feels like they’ve been waiting for me.Not for me specifically. Just… waiting.It isn’t a sound you hear the normal way. It’s under my skin. In my teeth. It crawls along the back of my skull like cold fingers and settles there, buzzing, and I have to stop for half a second just to steady myself because this place remembers things. Old things. Things older than the pack, older than the curse, older than me and my stupid mistakes.“Stay close,” I tell Arin quietly as we pass under the broken archway.The temple isn’t really a temple anymore. Half the roof is gone. The moon just spills straight down into the center like it belongs there. Vines choke the walls, weeds split the floor stones, and everything smells like damp earth and dust and something faintly metallic. Old magic has a smell. Most people don’t notice it. I do.The carvings on the walls are worn down almost smooth but when I walk past them, they flic

POV: DariusIt feels like someone shoved their hand straight into my skull and twists.Not a clean pain. Not something sharp and simple. It’s pressure. It’s wrong. It’s something dragging against the inside of me, pulling at parts that have been buried for too long.I stumble mid step, boots scraping over gravel, and I grab the nearest tree before I drop flat on my face because something inside my chest just yanks sideways like a chain pulled too tight.“Elara,” I choke.She spins toward me so fast her hair whips across her cheek. “What? What is it?”It hits again.This time it’s deeper.Not just my head. My ribs. My spine. Like something threaded through my bones is being tugged, slow at first, then harder. My vision blurs and the forest in front of me flickers. For a split second I don’t see trees.I see stone.A carved floor.A circle.Arin.My heart slams so hard it hurts.“He’s there,” I rasp, pressing my palm against my temple like I can hold my thoughts in place. “He’s in the t

POV: VAREKThe blast hits the exact second I jump.One second I am at the edge of the circle and the next second the entire temple erupts, and I throw myself forward without thinking, because the wall of power coming out of that circle is wide enough and violent enough that if it slams straight into the boy it will rip him apart.“Elara!” someone shouts behind me.I do not turn.There is no time.The column of power around Arin explodes outward, silver light and black curse threads whipping through the air like a storm losing its mind, and I hit the center of the circle just as the surge slams into me.It feels like running straight into a moving truck made of fire.My whole body jerks back, my boots scraping against the stone floor as I force myself to stay upright, and the second the energy touches my skin it burns.Not hot like normal heat.It is worse.It is like the magic is alive and angry and it is trying to dig into my bones.“Move!” Kael shouts somewhere behind me.Too late.

POV: KAELThe second my hand closes around the curse, it bites back.Not like magic. Not like energy.Like a living thing that does not want to die.The black mass twisting in the center of the circle snaps toward me the instant my fingers touch it and the moment the contact happens it feels like grabbing a nest of snakes made out of fire.My whole arm jerks.“Goddess!” I choke.The magic slams into my palm and tries to tear itself away but I tighten my grip anyway, my fingers curling into that writhing energy even though every instinct in my body is screaming at me to let go.Behind me someone shouts my name.“Kael!”I think it is Elara.I cannot turn to check.Because the curse suddenly surges and a blast of power rips through the bond that still connects the circle to Darius.The reaction is instant.Across the temple Darius doubles over like someone punched him straight through the chest.He grabs his ribs and gasps.“What is he doing?” Elara demands.“Finishing it,” Darius manage

POV: LYRA Something inside my chest snaps. It is not soft. It is not quiet. It breaks like a bone being crushed and the pain hits so hard my breath vanishes in the same second. I drop. My knee slams into the dirt floor of the forest clearing and my hands shoot out to catch myself but even that does not help because the pain keeps spreading, ripping through my ribs, climbing up my spine, tearing straight through my skull. “What the hell!” The words rip out of me before I can stop them. My heart is racing. No. Not racing. Jerking. Like it forgot how to beat. I grab my chest. And then I feel it. The bond. The thing I built. The thing that held him. The connection that wrapped around Darius’s wolf for years like chains made of magic. It is breaking. “No,” I whisper. The word falls out of my mouth without air behind it. The bond shudders violently inside my mind and then another crack runs through it and the pain doubles, sharp and brutal, like something just dragge