Alpha Xander's Undoing Chasing my Unknown Mate Back novel Chapter 57

Chapter 57

Chapter 57

*Rory*

…

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By the time the bell chimed the end of last period, I’d already decided I wasn’t going back to Xander’s dorm or to lunch or to anywhere that felt remotely safe. Safety was a lie with polished floors and polite smiles.

Safety was a lullaby for wolves who didn’t know what lived under their skin. The only thing I wanted was the truth, even if it hurt, even if it burned, even if it wasn’t the kind you could stitch back together after you heard

So I went to Professor Vallin.

I knew it wasn’t the safest choice, considering what I found in his office, or the fact that I didn’t even know if he knew I went into his office. For all I knew, I could be walking into my death. But, I didn’t let that stop me. It was either I died knowing nothing inevitably, or I died trying to know something.

His office door was ajar, a sliver of lamplight cutting a quiet blade across the corridor. The air in this corridor always felt older-colder, as if the stone remembered things students were meant to forget. I slid through and shut the door behind me, my fingers steady despite the thrum in my chest.

He didn’t startle. Of course he didn’t. He never did. Vallin stood at the high windows, hands folded behind his back like a statue at attention, the window’s reflection making a ghost of him in the glass. Beyond him, sunset bruised the sky to orange.

For a second I saw double-his shape, then mine behind it-and I almost laughed because that was how everything felt now: two versions, overlapping, neither fully true unless I squinted.

“Miss Steele,” he said, eyes on the darkening grounds, as if he’d been expecting the view and me with equal certainty. “I wondered when you’d come.”

“Don’t do that,” I said, crossing the room. “Don’t make me a line in a prophecy you’ve already memorized.”

He looked over his shoulder then, one brow tilting. “Everyone is a line in a prophecy someone has already memorized. The difference is whether the speaker is competent.”

“Spare me the theatre.” My throat was dry. I swallowed it down. “You left me a scroll without instructions and asked if the dreams had begun again. You taught a lecture that sounded like a eulogy. You know more than you’re saying. So say it.”

I didn’t expect him to obey. He liked to lead people one question at a time until they arrived at the answer he’d put in their mouths. Instead, Vallin turned fully to face me, leaned back against the sill, and studied me in that careful, unblinking way that made me feel as if he was peeling back my skin to see the scaffolding underneath.

“You are not the first,” he said.

A chill slipped under my ribs. “Not the first what,”

“But,” he continued, and the word was a soft blade, “you may be the last.”

13:10 Wed, Sep 17

Chapter 57

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The silence after that was somehow louder than the courtyard bells. I forced breath into my lungs. “That’s not

an answer.”

“It’s the only one anyone has managed to prove,” he said, not unkindly, which made it worse. “The line you carry manifests every few centuries. Longer, sometimes-when the world is quiet. Shorter when wolves forget to listen for thunder. It is not an element, not the way your classmates recite them. Not like Raine was, or your friend, Dhara. It is a misalignment. A correction. The old scrolls called it Chaos because they were poets before they were cowards.”

My nails bit my palms. “And how does it end?”

“In ruin,” he said simply. “Always.”

The room tilted. It wasn’t dramatic-no cinematic drop, no breathless collapse. Just a slow slide inside me, like the floor had leaned a degree and asked me to notice. “You’re wrong,” I said. “I’m not… that.”

His mouth ticked, not quite a smile. “Sure. What you found in my office last night-”

“You knew?”—was answer enough,” he said, not evening taking a breath. “The testings… and I’m sure you came to the revelation about your family. It ends the same way your mother’s did. The same way Eden’s did.”

My eyes stung as I struggled to get air into my lungs. “There must be a way.”

‘Rory?’ I felt a familiar tug on one of the new bonds in my head. This one was warm and fuzzy, the one I shared with Xander. Zerina was uncharacteristically quiet.

‘I’m fine,’ I lied, although I knew Xander wouldn’t fall for that.

‘Where are you? Why are you scared?’

‘I’m with a professor. I’m okay, promise.’

If he was going to kill me, he would have already because he clearly knew that I broke into his office.

I shut the link off from Xander before he could interject. I knew it wouldn’t last long, especially now that he’s worried.

A spark went off in my head-Zerina bristling like static in a storm. I steadied her with a touch at the edge of our bond, not muzzling, not now, just… easing.

“You think I’m going to burn the world down because a book said so?”

“I think,” Vallin said, “that you’re already looking at the match. I don’t think anything. They think so, and that’s why they kill.”

“Who is they? The Venatorum? Are they the ones who killed Eden?”

His gaze flicked to my hands, to the center of my chest where, if he could see what I felt, a faint warmth pulsed in time with my heart.

“I also think the Academy and the Council are less… agile than you are. They treat patterns like gods. When

13:10 Wed, Sep 17

Chapter 57

:

:)))

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patterns don’t hold, they panic.”

“So test me,” I snapped. “Or don’t. But stop circling and tell me what you want from me.”

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