Alpha Xander's Undoing Chasing my Unknown Mate Back novel Chapter 66

Chapter 66

Chapter 66

*Rory*

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Everything in me went still. Not dramatic. It was a quiet stop, the kind that means the engine’s already on fire.

“Define missing,” Xander said, menace flattening the syllables.

“She didn’t come back to our room last night,” Dharra said, speaking quickly. “I thought she crashed in the library or got caught up with one of her playthings. But she wasn’t in there, or she would have come in before breakfast. Not in the dining hall this morning. Her phone is off. And-” Dharra glanced over her shoulder like the walls might lean in. “There’s something wrong with the earth on the east side. The ground there feels…. scraped. Like someone dragged a heavy idea across it.”

“Dragged,” Xander repeated, and something dark slid under the word.

I felt sick. “You tried to follow her trail?”

“I did,” Dharra said. “At dawn. It’s messy. Like static. The last clean imprint is near the faculty building. After that-noise.” She swallowed. “Like a rune humming too loud.”

Vallin. Durnham. The archive. Every corridor we’d walked in the last week assembled in my head like a map, and there were too many red circles on it.

“Could she be with Matt?” I asked, already shaking my head because of course she would have texted if she

was.

“I checked,” Dharra said. “He’s been with the first-years all morning, babysitting their panic. He hasn’t seen her since last night.”

Xander’s jaw worked. “When did you realize?”

“Thirty minutes ago,” Dharra said. “I went to Varra’s office on my way here, but she’s not there. Her assistant says she’s ‘in council consult’ and can’t be disturbed.”

“Which means she can be disturbed,” Xander snapped, “just not by us.”

I pressed my fingers hard to my temples like I could force my mind into a shape that could think around fear. Vallin’s offer. Durnham’s permanent ghost in the hall. Mona’s laugh in the faculty archive, her fingers on my sleeve when I said I’m scared and she said good, be loud about it and make fear move over.

“She wouldn’t just disappear,” I said. “Not without telling us. Not now.” The circle diagram flashed behind my eyes like a promise I didn’t want. “Who knew she was working against the ritual?”

“Everyone with eyes and half a brain,” Dharra muttered. “But I don’t think this is about her organizing.” She looked at me carefully, the way she does when she’s trying to decide if the earth will forgive her for being honest. “I think this is about you.”

Xander’s hand found mine and gripped it.

“Which means it’s about me,” he said flatly. “And about whoever thinks they can touch what’s mine and not

Chapter 66

pay for the privilege.”

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“Don’t go alpha on me,” Dharra said. “Go smart. If Durnham is involved, he’ll have cover. If Vallin is—”

“He’s not,” I said too fast, because I didn’t know, because I didn’t want to know. Vallin had offered me a door and told me the floor might fall out from under it. That wasn’t mercy, but it wasn’t a trap either. Was it?

Dharra looked like she was about to argue, then shut her mouth so hard her teeth clicked. “I can’t ask the earth to tell me everything. What I have is a privilege. She’s not at my beck and call. She’s told me some things but not enough,” she said instead. “So whatever they used to move Mona, I don’t know.”

Xander pivoted toward me. “We’re not going to Vallin,” he said. “Not yet.”

“We were supposed to-”

“I know,” he said. “Change of plan. We find Mona. Then we talk to anyone else.”

“Where do we even start?” My voice came out thin around the edges.

“Where she was last seen,” Dharra said. “The faculty building. And-Rory?”

“What?”

Dhara’s eyes flicked to my throat, then back up. “Hold tight to yourself. I have a feeling about today. It isn’t friendly.”

A chill crawled right down my spine and sat there.

“Let’s go,” Xander said, already moving, already calculating which corridors he could take at speed without pulling eyes, which doors would open for him, which he would break if they didn’t.

I followed, Dhara on my other side, the three of us a line cutting the academy’s morning like a blade across parchment. We hit the main stairwell and took the steps fast, my hand sliding along the worn groove where generations had done the same in a hurry. The closer we got to the building, the colder the air felt, like we were walking into the shadow of a cloud that wasn’t outside.

We rounded the last corner-and stopped.

The faculty building was empty. Too empty.

Even the usual scatter of first-years late to class was gone. The fountain in the center had been shut off, its basin still. And on the flagstones leading toward the faculty wing was a scatter of black powder, thin as soot, making a dotted line that vanished at the archway.

Dharra crouched, touched a fingertip to it, and hissed.

“Ritual ash,” she said. “Old. But reawakened.”

My stomach turned. “What does that even mean?”

“It means,” Xander said, eyes gone flat and dangerous, “someone used a circle where there shouldn’t be one.”

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Chapter 66

“And dragged someone through it,” Dharra finished quietly.

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I swallowed hard enough to hurt. The wind lifted in the corridor and fell again, like breath choking in a throat. For a second-just a second-I thought I heard Mona laugh. It came from the archway. It didn’t sound like her at all.

I took a step forward.

“Rory,” Xander warned, like my name was a leash and he was tugging it.

But the ash brightened under my shoe, just a fraction-like an ember remembering itself-and the mark at my throat pulsed once in answer.

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