Alpha Xander's Undoing Chasing my Unknown Mate Back novel Chapter 47

Chapter 47

*Xander*

…

I smelled blood before I saw it.

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It was faint–just a whisper in the cold night air–but it hit like lightning. Metallic. Fresh. Wrong. I stiffened outside the gates of the manor house, still clutching Rory’s limp form, her breath shallow against my throat.

She’d passed out minutes ago. The sedative was strong, maybe stronger than Z3. I could feel her heartbeat, thready and fast, pulsing against my chest as I held her. Every inch of me was coiled, bracing for something I couldn’t name, something that was already here.

Behind me, the party roared on. Music. Laughter. Masks and wine. And somewhere in the dark, someone had just tried to kill my mate.

Again.

The world tilted. Not from the drug they gave her–but from the fire I felt building under my skin.

“Hold on,” I whispered into her hair. “Just hold on a little longer.”

But then she tensed.

Her body jolted in my arms, just a twitch, but enough. Enough to make me freeze.

“Rory?” I breathed, pulling back to look at her face.

Her eyes were still shut, but her brow furrowed. Her lips parted. Her fingers–limp a moment ago–curled slightly against my chest.

And then the temperature dropped.

The wind changed.

Not just around us. In us.

A deep rumble vibrated through the stone beneath our feet. Not a growl. Not thunder. Something else. Something older.

Her breath caught.

And then she screamed.

Her body convulsed, and I barely caught her before she hit the ground. I dropped to my knees, holding her as she writhed–pain etched across her face, her limbs jerking, skin burning hot beneath my touch.

“No,” I choked. “Rory–stay with me.”

But it wasn’t Rory anymore.

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Chapter 47

Not entirely.

:

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Her eyes snapped open–and they were silver. Not moonlit or bright or beautiful. Blazing. Silver like steel dragged through fire. Her mouth opened wide as she gasped, and steam coiled from her lips like smoke escaping a furnace.

And then her skin started to glow.

Faintly at first. Then brighter.

A symbol burned at the base of her throat–flickering like it had a heartbeat of its own.

And suddenly I knew.

She wasn’t shifting.

Zerina was.

I scrambled back just as her spine arched. Bones cracked. A roar tore through her chest–not human, not wolf. Something in between. Something ancient. The sound blasted through the still night like a war cry.

Her clothes tore.

Light seared across her skin.

And then she was gone.

Replaced by a form that didn’t belong to any pack, any bloodline, any textbook ever written.

Zerina stood before me–no longer a blur of dream or memory. She was real. Alive.

Her body was lean and tall, her fur a swirling pattern of white and molten gray, her paws sparking embers where they touched the earth. Her eyes burned silver with slashes of black through them, like galaxies had cracked open inside her skull. Her tail flicked once–and the ground singed where it landed.

And every instinct in me screamed: Alpha. Dangerous. Other.

But I didn’t move.

I couldn’t.

Because she turned to me–and for one second–I saw Rory in her.

The protectiveness.

The fury.

The wild grief.

It wasn’t just that she moved. It was how.

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Chapter 47

Like vengeance had found a heartbeat.

Like the fire she carried inside had finally found its shape.

And then–she launched.

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The air cracked as Zerina lunged forward, her limbs slicing through the dark like blades forged in flame. Two figures emerged from the tree line, cloaked in black, their silhouettes melting from shadow like phantoms. They were masked, nimble, armed with sleek blades glinting with sedative sheen–Z3. I knew it even before the scent hit me. It was them. The same kind that attacked her in her dorm. That tried to sedate her in front of aristocrats.

Only this time… she wasn’t defenseless.

Zerina didn’t growl or hesitate.

She struck like lightning.

The first man didn’t even see her coming. She hit him mid–sprint with a brutal crack that sent his weapon flying. Her jaws clamped around his throat, not with desperation–but with purpose. Her fangs ignited the moment they sank into his flesh, and fire poured from her mouth like holy wrath. The scream that burst from him was short. Just one.

Then there was nothing left but blackened ash, collapsing in on itself in the shape of a man who had come to kill and met something far older than death.

The second figure faltered. He tried to backpedal, stumbling on a tree root as the glowing beast turned toward him, blood and flame still dripping from her maw.

He ran.

She was faster.

Zerina blurred across the ground in a streak of white and ember. She leapt, landed on his back, and brought him to the earth like the gods themselves had cast him down. He screamed louder than the first–but only because she wanted him to. Her claws raked down his spine, searing through leather and bone. When he flipped to fight back, her paw slammed down on his face–and burned.

He didn’t scream after that.

He didn’t get the chance.

The forest lit up with her fury. Orange flared in the night like a rising sun. Trees hissed. Smoke spiraled through the canopy. The clearing glowed with the heat of her rage, and even 1–Alpha–born, trained for war- stood frozen.

Because she wasn’t a wolf.

She was a weapon.

And when she turned back to me, her chest heaving, fur streaked with soot and blood, I realized,

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Chapter 47

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She wasn’t shifting back.

Not immediately.

Not like before.

:

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More footsteps echoed through the forest behind us. Men shouting. The slam of estate doors flinging open. Searchlights arced through the trees. The low buzz of alarm spells being triggered.

“They heard,” I muttered, forcing my feet to move. “They saw.”

That meant only one thing.

We had to run.

“Zerina,” I said carefully, stepping into her line of sight, hands raised like I was approaching a feral animal.

Her ears flattened. Her body crouched low, defensive. Smoke hissed from her fur, curling around her like a shroud.

“Rory,” I added, voice lower now. “I know you’re in there. You’re not gone. I know it’s still you.”

She growled–not out of malice, but confusion. Her head jerked, muscles spasming like she was fighting something inside herself. Her eyes, bright with silver light, shimmered. I saw flickers behind them–fear, pain, recognition.

“I need you to come back,” I whispered. “Don’t leave me. Don’t disappear again.”

For a second, the wind itself paused.

Then–her body trembled. Violently.

Her paws slipped as though the ground beneath her no longer held her weight. Her eyes fluttered, a shiver rolled through her spine, and the embers along her ribs began to dim.

Her form–solid and terrifying only seconds ago–shimmered like a mirage. Like heat waves on stone. The fur receded. Bones cracked. Her body sagged.

And then she collapsed.

I was already moving.

I caught her before she hit the scorched grass, and this time, it was Rory.

Naked. Burned. Soaked in sweat.

And shaking.

I dropped to my knees, heart crashing against my ribs like it wanted to burst through my chest. I wrapped my coat around her, tucking it tight, hiding her from the cold and from the dozens of eyes I could already feel pushing toward us through the trees.

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