All Chapters of The Alpha Who Forgot Me: Chapter 31 - Chapter 37

REMY POVThe transition from the Deadlands to the mortal world wasn't a sudden burst of color or a triumphant fanfare; it was a slow, suffocating bleed of atmosphere. The heavy, purple pressure that had crushed our lungs for days simply evaporated, replaced by a damp, biting cold that smelled of pine needles, wet earth, and the metallic tang of ozone. My lungs seized, eager for the moisture, greedy for the oxygen that the void had starved them of.But the air tasted like ash.We were standing on the edge of a ridge, looking down into the valley that should have felt like home. The Silver Creek territory. Trails I had run, mountains I had howled at under the full moon. It looked like a graveyard. The sky above us was a churning mass of charcoal-grey clouds, mirroring the desolation we had just escaped. The forest below was silent—not the peaceful silence of nature, but the silence of a place holding its breath.Nash swayed beside me.

REMY POVThe rain didn't feel like water here; it felt like judgment.It wasn't the cleansing, purifying rain of the Silver Creek forests that smelled of pine and damp earth. This was a cold, stinging deluge that carried the metallic tang of the Deadlands on the wind, a persistent reminder of the void we had just crawled out of. It washed the grey ash from our skin, leaving rivers of muddy sludge running down our arms and legs, but it couldn't wash away the memory of the silence.I dragged him.My boots sank inches into the mud with every step, the suction trying to claim me, trying to pull me back down into the earth. Nash was dead weight. He was six feet three inches of pure muscle, even in his wasted state, a heavy, dead anchor I refused to let go of.I had his arm draped over my shoulders, my hand gripped tight around his wrist. His head lolled against my collarbone, his dark hair plastering to my face, mingling with my own. I could feel the fever radiating off him even through th

REMY POVThe forest didn't feel like home anymore.It felt like a mouth waiting to close.The canopy overhead was a suffocating blanket of grey moss and pine needles, blocking out the bruised purple sky of the clearing we had escaped from, but letting in the damp, biting chill of the coming winter. The silence here wasn't the heavy, magical silence of the Deadlands; it was a tense, watchful quiet. The birds weren't singing. The squirrels were frozen in the bark of the oaks.I moved through the underbrush, my boots sinking soundlessly into the moss. I hadn't gone far—just to the ridge line to scan the horizon for Marcus’s cabin. I hadn't found it. The woods had shifted in the years I was gone, or maybe the Deadlands had distorted my internal compass.I was turning back, the cold knot of anxiety in my chest tightening with every step, when the wind shifted.It carried a scent that froze the blood in my veins.