Lahat ng Kabanata ng GIVEN TO THE WRONG ALPHA: Kabanata 31 - Kabanata 40

The dungeon doesn’t smell like stone and piss.It smells like gold.Because the vines are already here. Under the floor, in the walls, threaded through the blood I spilled on the mountain when I bound Cove and Ash and Creek to me. They hum now, quiet, waiting. First Blood calls to First Blood, and I’ve got four of them in one room.Cove sits against the far wall. He hasn’t spoken in twenty minutes. Eight years old and he’s learned that silence keeps you alive longer than screaming. His cuffs are on, but Wrath didn’t tighten them. They’re a costume. A lie for the cameras that aren’t here.Ash paces. Three steps, turn. Three steps, turn. Flame licks her fingertips then vanishes, over and over. Control. She’s beating it into herself because she saw what happened on the feed. She saw D.C. label her asset and Draven label her threat and me label her daughter. Only one of those keeps her breathing.Creek doesn’t pace. Doesn’t fidget. Both palms flat on the stone, head bowed like he’s prayin

The first strike isn’t Sky’s.It’s the sky’s.She doesn’t move a muscle. Doesn’t blink. But the clouds above Duskbane tear open and a column of white light punches the ground where I stood a heartbeat ago.The earth turns to glass. Still smoking.I roll left, come up spitting grit. “No pack,” she says. Voice like thunder through a child’s throat. “You swore it.”“I’m keeping it.” I shake out my hands. No claws. No shift. The wolf is pack, and I promised her one-on-one. “But you don’t get to call down heaven just because I’m standing alone.”Sky tilts her head. Storm-glass eyes measure me. Fourteen, maybe. Old enough to level cities. Young enough to think it’s a game. “Fair.”The next one’s from her hand.She flicks her fingers. A needle of lightning, thin and precise, aimed for my throat.I don’t dodge.I breathe in.Cove’s in my blood. I’m in his. The blood-binding doesn’t need vines today. When I open my mouth, the bolt goes into me, through me, into him. He’s two hundred yards back

D.C. fires.Moira smiles.Bullets don’t hit her. They don’t need to. They hit the air three feet out and stop. Not deflected. Not burned.Eaten.Lead, copper, gunpowder — all of it goes gray, then dust, then nothing. Two hundred rifles go empty in two seconds and Moira sighs like she just sipped wine.“More,” she says.Alistair stumbles back. “Silas—”Silas moves.He’s fast. Faster than Wrath. Faster than Draven on his best day. He crosses the glass in a blink and his hand goes for Moira’s throat.Null meets Hunger.For a second, nothing happens.Then Silas screams.It’s the first sound he’s made. High. Wrong. Like metal tearing. His hand turns black at the fingertips. Not bruise. Not burn. Empty. The same off he puts in others, Moira’s giving back to him.“Can’t eat nothing,” Moira tells him, almost gentle. “But I can eat you.”She bites.Not his throat. His gift.Silas convulses. The emptiness around him cracks. Gold leaks back into the world — Cove gasps, eyes flaring. Ash’s knuckl

Quiet doesn’t last on Duskbane.The mountain exhales. Not wind. Relief. Like something ancient just finished a meal and leaned back.Full.For now.I stand on what used to be lightning glass. It’s stone again. Duskbane stone, shot through with gold veins. The crown’s roots run under it. Under me. Under all of us.Seven vessels. One bond. One land.Draven’s hand is in mine. Human. Warm. Solid. The bond isn’t a thread or a furnace anymore. It’s the whole damn sky.Cove’s crying into Ash’s shoulder. She lets him. Fire banked, arms tight. Creek’s on his knees, palms to the dirt, listening to something none of us can hear. Sky stands still, watching her hands like they might start a storm without her. Pride’s asleep against Lyana’s chest, gold eyes shut, dreaming loud enough that the crown hums with it.Eli sits cross-legged in the dust. No tubes. No bag. No black veins. Just a boy. Brown eyes. Shaking. He keeps touching his chest, checking for the hollow.Moira kneels. Collar smoking. Gri

The south gate closes.Three hours later, the sky answers.No missiles. No jets. No drones.Letters.Thousands of them.Paper. Real paper. Falling like ash over Duskbane. Over the stone that used to be glass. Over the pack. Over the mountain.The first one hits my palm.Folded. Military grade. Addressed by hand.Wren Duskbane.I open it.One sentence.We believe you.Draven catches the next. Then Wrath. Then Rowan. Then the Hollow, the Thorns, the pups.All the same.We believe you.No signature. No seal. Just those three words.“Psych op,” Caiden says, crushing his in his fist. “Make us doubt. Make us—”“Look.” Sky points.East ridge.People.Not soldiers. Not D.C.Civilians.Hundreds. Thousands. Coming up the old logging road. On foot. Cars dead behind them, lined up for miles. They carry kids. Bags. Nothing else.And they’re all holding letters.Rowan’s got his drone up. Screen shakes. “It’s not just here. Seattle. Boise. Portland. Salt Lake. They’re walking. To us.” He looks at me