Alpha Xander's Undoing Chasing my Unknown Mate Back novel Chapter 56

Chapter 56

Chapter 56

*Rory*

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That night, I couldn’t sleep. The bond buzzed in the back of my head like static, restless and sharp. Xander had stayed behind in class for a council debrief and hadn’t checked in since dinner. He’d said he’d find met later, but the sun had set long ago.

I wandered.

And by some cruel or fated twist, I ended up in the one place I wasn’t supposed to be.

Vallin’s office.

It was locked, of course. But I’d learned a few things from Matt when it came to breaking into places I shouldn’t.

It clicked open on the second try.

The room smelled of sage and smoke. The fire had long since died in the hearth, but I could feel the warmth of old magic clinging to the walls. Books lined every surface. Scrolls. Mismatched artifacts. A skull with a rune carved down the center sat on the shelf beside a jar of dried lavender.

Creepy. Even by Vallin standards.

I wasn’t looking for anything specific. Just answers. Clarity. Proof I wasn’t going insane.

But what I found instead made my stomach drop.

A drawer in the far corner-locked, shielded, and buried under a decoy illusion. I wouldn’t have seen it if the room hadn’t rippled for a second, like something inside me had tugged on the Aether surrounding it.

I whispered a soft word Zerina seemed to press into my mind.

The lock shattered like glass.

Inside were files. Dozens of them. Sealed envelopes, stamped reports, photographs of wolves in mid-shift or in testing chambers I didn’t recognize. Bloodwork data. Genetics.

And names.

Most of the pages were labeled with “GIFT MARKER TESTING.”

Then I saw it.

Eden Steele.

My throat closed.

The file was thin, like they hadn’t needed much to draw their conclusions. Her bloodwork was highlighted in

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Chapter 56

red. Under the comments section, someone had written:

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Potential gifted signature detected. Further testing denied. Candidate deceased before confirmation.

I sank to the floor, the file crumpling in my hands. “They tested her,” I breathed. “Without her consent.”

“She didn’t even know,” a voice whispered behind me.

I jerked upright.

Lilith stood in the doorway, face pale, eyes flicking to the folder in my hands.

“She was terrified,” Lilith continued. “Before she died, she started acting strange. Paranoid. She thought someone was watching her. I thought she was imagining it.”

I shook my head. “She wasn’t.”

“She never told me about this,” Lilith said, her voice brittle.

“She probably couldn’t,” I murmured. “It says here she was denied further testing. Which means someone shut it down.”

Lilith stepped forward, scanning the drawer. Her fingers sifted through the stack.

Then froze.

“What?” I asked.

She lifted a file slowly.

My name was printed across the top.

Aurora Steele.

No date. No test results.

Just one phrase stamped across the front in red:

CLASSIFIED BY ORDER OF ALPHA STEELE.

I didn’t speak. Couldn’t.

Lilith handed it to me like it might explode.

I turned it over. No seal. No way to open it. Not without authorization or fire strong enough to burn through council wards. I could feel the pulse of it-dormant and dangerous. Whatever was inside this file wasn’t just sensitive. It was meant to stay buried.

My father had done this.

He’d blocked access to my records. Covered them up.

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Chapter 56

Because he knew.

:

He’d known since the moment I turned 16 and got my wolf.

Maybe even before.

“I can’t breathe,” I said.

Lilith grabbed my shoulders. “Rory-hey. Look at me.”

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I didn’t trust Lilith. Not for a second. Not after what she pulled at the aristocrat meeting, and the very fact that she knew I was here-or had other reasons for coming here.

But I would’ve been lying if I said I didn’t appreciate the distraction.

“I thought the medicine was to help me,” I whispered. “I thought it was to keep the sickness from getting

worse.”

“It was,” Lilith said. “But not the sickness you thought. He was drugging you to keep your gift asleep. Your father knew what you’d be, and he was trying to keep you alive.”

“Don’t tell me that you think this was an act of love. Poisoning me instead of talking to me?”

“I cant tell you what to feel, Rory. I just know what I know from Eden’s point of view. You thought she hated you, but she didn’t. She was just scared for you because she knew. She always knew.”

“And you think that’s love too, right? How she treated me?”

Lilith shrugged. “Your family has a weird way of showing love then.”

I sat down hard, the file slipping from my fingers.

“My mother,” I choked. “She died before I even knew her, and my father always said I had her illness. She was the same, wasn’t she? The Venatorum killed her, didn’t they? That’s why Dad drugged me. He said my sickness would kill me just like it killed my mother. He didn’t mean my actual body. He meant it would cause

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