Alpha Xander's Undoing Chasing my Unknown Mate Back novel Chapter 44

Chapter 44

*Rory*

The parchment sat on my desk like it was watching me.

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Not literally–at least, I hoped not–but there was something about it that made the back of my neck itch every time I looked away. I had a feeling it was Professor Vallin who had left it to me. No instructions. No deadline. Who else could it have been? He’s the one who knew about the gifts. He also knew something about Eden and me, and now this? Who else could it have been?

At first, it was blank. Just rows of strange markings, too old to be modern wolf dialect, too deliberate to be random. But something told me it wasn’t blank because it was empty.

It was blank because I wasn’t ready to read it.

Until now.

I stared at it for what felt like an hour, curled at the corner of Xander’s couch while he moved around his room behind me. He hadn’t said much since I told him about the missing journal. About the word Chaos burned into the parchment. He was pissed about me and Matt’s little adventure, of course. But this scared me too much for me to keep from him.

The female dorms were ready to be occupied again, but with everything going on, Xander didn’t want me going back. And headmistress Varra wouldn’t protest, that I knew for sure.

“You’ve been quiet,” I said eventually, still not looking at him.

“So have you.”

“Touché.”

I heard him stop moving. A soft creak of floorboards. Then, slowly, he sat beside me. The couch dipped slightly under his weight, and the warmth of him drifted toward me like gravity. I could feel the way he was looking at me, but I kept my eyes on the scroll.

“I don’t know what I’m supposed to do with this,” I said quietly. “I think it’s from Vallin. But I cant even understand anything on it apart from Chaos.”

“Maybe that’s the point,” he said. “He wants to see if you can read it.”

I turned then. “Why would I be able to read something older than the Lunar wars?”

His jaw flexed, “Because you’re not normal, Rory. You haven’t been for a long time.”

I hated that he said it like a death sentence. Like some terrible truth we were both circling but refusing to say aloud.

“I’m not Chaos,” I whispered.

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Chapter 44

He didn’t answer.

…

😀

I pressed my lips together and turned back to the parchment.

And that’s when I saw it.

One line–right at the bottom–had changed.

46

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It wasn’t there before. I would’ve seen it. But now, in my handwriting, curled in the familiar loops and slants of my penmanship, it read:

The threshold is marked.

I blinked.

Xander leaned forward. “What is it?”

I didn’t answer.

Because I didn’t remember writing it.

I hadn’t touched the paper with a pen. I hadn’t written anything.

But there it was.

My handwriting. My letters. My ink.

And yet… not mine at all.

I stood too quickly, heart slamming in my chest. “I–I need to test something.”

Xander rose too, his brows drawing down. “Test what?”

But I didn’t answer. I grabbed a blank piece of parchment and scrawled a sentence on it: I am in control.

Then I left it on the desk. Didn’t touch it again. Didn’t look at it. Just went through the rest of the day with that cold knot growing in my chest.

By morning, the sentence had changed.

I am not alone.

I was with Matt then, after he delivered my medicine, which I only drank half of again. By next week, I’m thinking of going down to a quarter dose, until I’m not entirely dependent on it again.

But the point was, the sentence had… changed.

“You think Zerina’s doing this?” Matt asked later that day as we huddled in a shadowed corner of the library’s second floor. The parchment lay between us, the old markings dull and almost reluctant to be seen.

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Chapter 44

:.

“I don’t know,” I said, rubbing my eyes. “But something’s… bleeding through.”

“Like she’s acting when you’re not aware.”

I nodded.

He studied me for a long moment, his face serious. “Are you scared?”

I didn’t answer right away.

“Yes,” I finally whispered. “Not of her. Of what it means.”

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He didn’t press me. Instead, he pulled out a battered translation guide and opened it between us.

“Let’s start with the basics. Maybe we’ll find something that helps.”

It took hours. Most of it was just guessing–comparing old rune shapes with scraps of preserved dialect. But slowly, piece by piece, something began to emerge.

“The Veil is not a place,” Matt read slowly. “It is a boundary.”

“A boundary between what?” I asked, peering over his shoulder.

He scanned more. “Between the living and the broken. Between wolves and the forgotten ones. It’s fragmented, but… look at this.”

He pointed to a phrase.

‘Born of shattered sky. Carved from broken stars. The fifth gift will walk alone.

I swallowed hard. “That sounds like a prophecy.”

“Sounds like you,” he said quietly.

I looked away, pretending not to hear that.

“It mentions fire, too,” I added after a moment. “And thresholds. What do you think that means?”

He shrugged. “Either something poetic. Or something really, really literal.”

My eyes drifted to the scroll again.

The threshold is marked.

Was it Eden? Was it Zerina? Was it me?

Was I the threshold?

***

That night, I didn’t take any medicine.

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Chapter 44

I didn’t need to.

Sleep dragged me under like a storm–tide anyway.

And this time… the dream wasn’t soft.

It wasn’t the silver forest. It wasn’t Zerina waiting in the mist.

It was fire.

Raging. Consuming. All around me.

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The battlefield stretched as far as the eye could see–scorched earth littered with the bones of wolves and smoke. Black skies boiled above, and ash fell like snow, coating my hair, my shoulders, my fingers.

I stood in the middle of it all, barefoot and burning.

But it wasn’t me.

Across the field, a girl walked through the flames.

She had my face. My body. My hair.

But it wasn’t me.

She was taller, older, eyes glowing like the sun had caught fire behind them. Her hands were wreathed in flame, but she didn’t burn.

She was destruction given shape.

And she smiled when she saw me.

A slow, terrible smile.

The fire bent toward her. Worshipped her.

I tried to scream, to run–but my feet were rooted. My lungs full of smoke,

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