Alpha Xander's Undoing Chasing my Unknown Mate Back novel Chapter 107

Chapter 107

Chapter 107

*Rory*

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“Tell me this won’t kill me,” I said, even though I already knew Vallin wouldn’t lie if it might.

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The air in the ritual hall smelled of chalk and rain. The runes had been scrubbed clean months ago, but the stone never forgot. Every line the Solstice carved into it had sunk too deep to erase. Even under the morning light filtering through the fractured glass roof, the circle pulsed faintly, like an old scar that still remembered pain.

Vallin’s voice carried low across the space as he directed his assistants to prepare the room. He spoke in that same measured tone he always used, calm enough to make me nervous.

I watched him from the archway, my wrists folded against each other, chains long gone but the habit still there. Xander stood a few steps behind me, silent but close enough that I could feel his warmth at my back. It was the only warmth that didn’t feel foreign anymore.

I hadn’t walked back into this room since that night. Since the white light and the runes screaming and Zerina’s voice being ripped out of me. Standing here now made my throat ache.

Vallin finally turned toward us, his sleeves rolled to his elbows, his hair tied back with a strip of dark cloth that looked far too ordinary for a man about to attempt to stitch a soul back together.

“You’re certain about this?” he asked quietly. “If I start, we can’t stop midway. The backlash could tear the remnants of the bond apart completely.”

“I’m certain,” I said. My voice didn’t sound like me. It hadn’t since I woke up in that dungeon.

Xander’s hand brushed my arm, his thumb tracing a circle there as if trying to soothe both of us. “You don’t have to do this today,” he said softly.

“I do,” I replied. “If I wait any longer, I’ll lose what’s left of her.”

He wanted to argue, I saw it in the set of his jaw, but he didn’t. He only nodded once, slow and resigned. Vallin watched us with that strange look of his–part scientist, part priest, part man carrying too many ghosts.

“Then step inside the ring,” he said.

The outer lines of the Solstice circle had been re–inked, their symbols smoothed and corrected. There were four rings again–earth, water, air, and fire—and in the center, a blank space waiting for what no one had named yet. I stepped into that silence, the soles of my boots whispering against the stone.

Xander followed but stopped at the edge where Vallin gestured. “Not you,” the professor said gently. “This must be her alone.”

Xander’s protest rose in his throat, but Vallin’s steady stare cut it off. “The bond was born of her spirit and the wolf within it. Until she finds that line again, you can only watch.”

I met Xander’s eyes and tried to smile. “I’ll be fine.”

14:58 Tue, Oct 7

Chapter 107

“You’re a terrible liar,” he murmured, but he stepped back, fists curling at his sides.

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Vallin’s assistants left quietly, closing the doors behind them. The echo settled like dust. Only the three of us remained. Vallin knelt beside the ring, his chalk moving in swift, sure strokes.

He murmured under his breath, words in a tongue that sounded older than the Academy itself. The chalk flared as it left his hand, each line lighting faintly, a glow that made the air hum.

“Sit.” he told me.

I lowered myself to the center, legs crossed, palms flat on my knees. The stone felt cooler than I remembered, as if the world beneath it had gone hollow.

“Close your eyes,” Vallin instructed. “Breathe. You’ll feel a pull. Don’t fight it. Let the circle find you.”

I did as he said.

At first, there was only quiet–the kind that lives inside your skull, heavy and endless. Then something flickered. It wasn’t light. It was pressure. The faint hum of something brushing the edge of me. I breathed slower, letting it come. The hum turned into a thread, soft as silk, weaving under my skin.

“Good,” Vallin said quietly, though I hadn’t realized he was close enough to see. “Now, call her name.”

My lips trembled before the sound came out. “Zerina.”

It broke the silence like a match against stone.

The air shifted. The runes around the outer ring brightened, a slow bloom of light that spread inward. My pulse raced. The thread in my chest twisted, tugging toward the space behind my heart–the hinge where Zerina used to live.

“Again,” Vallin said.

“Zerina,” I whispered, stronger this time.

Something answered. Faint. Fragile. A flicker against the dark.

I gasped. “She’s-”

“Stay with it,” Vallin said sharply. “Don’t reach too hard. Let her come to you.”

I wanted to. I tried. But the moment I felt her–the faint brush of her fur, the echo of her heartbeat under mine–I reached. I reached too far, too fast, too desperate.

The circle responded with a surge that felt like lightning in my veins. My body convulsed before I could stop it. Pain shot down my spine, hot and blinding. My knees slammed against the stone. Somewhere, I heard Xander shout my name, the sound torn and raw.

“Hold her!” Vallin barked, but his voice sounded far away.

The runes flared brighter, lines of fire crawling toward the center. I couldn’t breathe. Every muscle locked as

14:58 Tue, Oct 7

Chapter 107

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if my skin had turned to glass. My vision blurred. I saw flashes–the Solstice field, the white light, Zerina’s eyes burning gold before they went out.

“Rory!” Xander’s voice again, closer now, breaking.

The light pulsed once more, then snapped. The thread inside me jerked hard and recoiled. A scream tore from my throat, though I barely recognized it as mine.

Vallin’s hands pressed against my shoulders, grounding me, pulling the current away. “Stop,” he commanded the circle, as if it could listen. “Enough.”

The light faded as suddenly as it had come. The runes dimmed to nothing but faint chalk again.

When I opened my eyes, the ceiling spun above me. My body felt heavy, too heavy to move. Xander was kneeling beside me, his arms catching me before I slid sideways. My head fell against his chest, his heartbeat loud and frantic.

“I’ve got you,” he murmured. “I’ve got you, Rory.”

The air smelled of burnt chalk and ash. Vallin was still kneeling across from us, breathing hard. His usually steady hands shook as he wiped the dust from his palms.

“She was there,” I whispered. My voice came out cracked. “I felt her.”

“I know,” Vallin said quietly. “And she felt you. But the tether’s not ready to hold.”

“Why?” My throat burned. “Why can’t I bring her back?”

He met my eyes, and for once, his calm faltered. “Because you’re trying to drag a sun out of eclipse with bare hands.”

I didn’t understand at first. I just stared, waiting for him to make sense of it.

He sighed, leaning back on his heels. “A bond isn’t something you light like a candle, Aurora. It’s a sun. When it sets, you can’t force it to rise by screaming at the horizon. You wait. You prepare. You heal enough to bear its heat again.”

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