Alpha Xander's Undoing Chasing my Unknown Mate Back novel Chapter 120

Chapter 120

*Xander*

“You smell that?”

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Isaac’s voice cut through the trees ahead, low and tense. I caught up beside him, boots crunching through frost as the air shifted. The scent hit a second later–smoke, heavy with iron and rot. Not fresh, but not old either.

“Venatorum,” I muttered.

He nodded, jaw tightening. “Or what’s left of them.”

We moved slower after that. The woods were too quiet, even for winter. No birds. No wind. Just that faint, sick–sweet burn clinging to the air like a warning. Azrien pressed restless inside me, his growl vibrating through my ribs as if he too knew something was wrong.

When the trees finally broke, the first camp appeared below.

Or what used to be a camp.

Tents sagged in blackened heaps, their edges still curling with the memory of flame. Metal crates had melted into the dirt, and ash blanketed everything in a thin, glittering layer that almost looked like snow.

It wasn’t the kind of destruction left by a raid. It was too clean, too complete. No bodies, no tracks leading out -just the silence of something that had burned from the inside out.

“Third one this week,” I said, scanning the perimeter.

Isaac crouched near one of the charred crates, running a gloved hand over the soot. His expression was hard to read, but his eyes… they gave him away. He wasn’t surprised.

“You knew,” I said.

“I suspected,” he replied without looking up. “The pattern’s too exact to be coincidence. This isn’t Venatorum work.”

“Then who?”

He stood, brushing ash from his palms. “Durnham.”

The name landed heavy. I stepped closer. “You’re sure?”

“I’m sure enough,” he said quietly. “He’s cleaning house. They betrayed him, and now he’s burning his way through every outpost he can find.”

I frowned, the pieces already sliding into place. “So he’s turning on them. That doesn’t make him our ally.”

“No,” Isaac agreed. “It makes him desperate. Which is worse.”

11:15 Tue, Oct 21

Chapter 120

The way he said it–quiet, certain–made me look at him differently. Not as Durnham’s nephew or the boy who’d once chained Rory, but as someone who’d seen what desperation could make a man do.

“Why didn’t you tell Vallin sooner?” I asked.

He met my eyes, and for a moment, I saw the weight there–guilt, maybe even shame. “Because part of me didn’t want to believe it. Durnham’s capable of a lot, but this… this means he’s lost control.”

“Maybe he never had it,” I said.

Isaac’s lips twitched in something that wasn’t quite a smile. “You sound like Rory.”

I couldn’t help it–I smiled faintly too. “She’s usually right.”

That earned me a look, a small flicker of something that might’ve been amusement–or jealousy. I couldn’t tell. The line between the two was thinner than I liked.

We continued the patrol, circling the outskirts. Tracks cut through the ash–heavy, deliberate–but they stopped near the treeline. No trail beyond that. Azrien bristled. ‘Someone covered it,’ he growled in my head.

Isaac knelt, tracing the prints with his fingers. “They headed north.”

“How do you know?”

“Because that’s where I’d go,” he said simply, standing again. “There’s an abandoned relay outpost by the cliffs. It was Venatorum property before the war. If Durnham’s moving, that’s his next step.”

I watched him as he spoke–focused, precise, calculating. He reminded me of myself more than I cared to admit. Maybe that’s why I didn’t like it.

“You talk like you were trained by him,” I said finally.

Isaac’s jaw flexed. “In a way, I was.”

There was more he wasn’t saying, but I let it sit. I wasn’t sure I wanted to know.

The clouds above us had thickened, cutting off the faint light that filtered through the canopy. Shadows bled longer, the air colder. It felt like the forest itself was holding its breath.

I was about to suggest heading back when Isaac stopped dead in his tracks. His head tilted slightly, eyes scanning the dark.

“What is it?”

“Do you hear that?”

I strained my ears, but all I caught was the whisper of the wind through charred branches. “Nothing.”

“Exactly.” His hand went to the hilt of his blade. “That’s not normal.”

Azrien pushed harder, his growl deepening until it echoed in my skull. Move. Now.

11:15 Tue, Oct 21

Chapter 120

Before I could respond, something shifted in the ashes ahead. A low ripple of sound, barely there, like breath moving through flame. The hairs on the back of my neck stood on end.

Isaac’s band brushed my arm, steady but tense. “Stay still.”

“I don’t do still.”

The ground cracked. A figure rose from the black dust–nothing more than a shape at first, edges distorted by heat shimmer. When it stepped forward, the air around it rippled with faint, lingering flame. A man–or what used to be one. His eyes burned faint blue beneath the soot.

“Durnham’s work,” Isaac whispered.

The thing looked at us, head tilting. Then it vanished.

Azrien roared in my chest, and before I could think, my blade was in my hand. The air shifted, movement flickering behind us. I turned, slashing through the ash, but nothing met my strike.

It was gone again.

“Rogue remnant,” Isaac said, scanning the trees. “One of his constructs. He leaves them behind to clean the evidence. They burn whatever’s left.”

“Wonderful,” I muttered. “And here I thought we’d just walked into a normal fire pit.”

He shot me a look, but there was the faintest hint of a grin under it. “You really don’t know how to shut you?”

1. up.

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“Ask Rory. She’ll tell you it’s part of my charm.”

That almost earned a laugh. Almost.

We searched the perimeter once more, but the thing was gone–dissolved into smoke, maybe, or waiting for Durnham’s next order. Either way, the message was clear. He wasn’t hiding anymore. He was cleaning.

When we finally started back toward the Academy, the quiet settled in again, heavier than before.

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