Alpha Xander's Undoing Chasing my Unknown Mate Back novel Chapter 71

Chapter 71

Chapter 71

*Rory*

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The hidden door opened with a creak like the building exhaling. Varra emerged, and behind her-

“Mona,” I breathed.

She was there. Pale. Shaking. The bright slash of her mouth too colorless.

Runes were inked along her wrists in two tight bracelets; they darkened as she crossed the threshold and then flaked off like so much old paint, the spell that had muzzled her dying in the air.

She stumbled, caught herself, then caught sight of me and forgot how to stand still. “Are you insane,” she demanded, voice wrecked and relieved. “I told you not to follow.”

“You left me a note,” I managed. “You know what that does to a person.”

“Yeah,” she muttered, sliding down beside me, palm hovering an inch from my cheek like she wanted to touch but didn’t trust what might hurt. “Makes them do the stupid thing anyway. Do you know how much I had to bribe to get you that note? And you ignore it anyway.”

“Well we both got out and you’re saved,” I manege to say, but felt myself slipping.

Mona snorted. “Barely! You should have left me. Durnham would have gotten suck of me sooner or later.”

“No one can handle the Mona charm too long,” Dharra retorted.

Varra stood over us, her face carved from fury and something that looked like shame. “I will handle Durnham,” she said.

Xander lifted his head, eyes lethal. “Define handle.”

“I will see him removed from this campus and stripped of whatever permission he believes he holds,” Varra replied. She looked at the ruined circle like it offended her soul. “What happened here will not be repeated.”

I stared up at her, heat still throbbing under my skin, breath still catching on the edges of pain. “You didn’t

know.”

It wasn’t a question. It felt like swallowing a stone.

Her jaw tightened. “If I had, this room would be ash.”

“Forgive me if I don’t place my neck on your trust,” Xander said, all Alpha and no grace.

“Don’t,” Mona said sharply, then coughed. “Not here. Not right now.”

Dharra rose slowly, the parchment clutched in her hand. She looked from the strip to the fractured runes and back again, then lifted her eyes to Varra. “This isn’t just a rogue vice headmaster,” she said quietly. “It shouldn’t be possible for him to access Council extraction seals alone.”

13:14 Wed, Sep 17

Chapter 71

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Varra’s mouth flattened. “No,” she said. “It shouldn’t.”

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“So either someone lent him a key.” Dharra’s gaze flicked to the air where Durnham’s had vanished. “Or someone is in his pocket.”

The idea hung there. It tasted like old coins.

Varra’s eyes found mine. Whatever she saw there made her voice gentler. “We are done here for tonight. All of you-back to your rooms. Quietly. No detours. I will call you when it is safe to talk. If someone is helping Durnham, then he will have allies and eyes. Rory, stay with your former roommates.”

“I’m not leaving her alone,” Xander said.

“You will not,” Varra said. “She will not be alone.”

Mona slid her fingers through mine and squeezed. “You’re stuck with us, idiot,” she murmured, and her voice shook just enough to prove she meant it.

The room tilted. The edges of it went soft like chalk rubbed thin. I pressed my lips together, furious at my own weakness, furious at a body that had held through the worst of it only to try and fold now.

“Hey.” Xander’s forehead touched mine. “Don’t fight the fall. I’ve got you.”

I wanted to argue. I wanted to make a speech about not fainting in front of enemies. Then Varra moved and the light hit the broken circle in a way that made every nerve along my spine hum with leftover heat, and speech wasn’t an option.

“Do you trust me to handle Durnham?” she asked.

I met her eyes. They were steady. Honest, maybe. But people who can open walls don’t need to lie with their eyes to close doors.

“I don’t know,” I whispered.

It was the best I could do.

She nodded once, as if that answer was better than a pretty lie. “Then trust that I’m angrier about this than you are.”

I might have smiled at that on another day.

Xander rose with me in his arms, the motion so practiced it might as well have been a habit. My head tell against his shoulder, heat from his skin bleeding some of the shaking out of mine. Dharra fell into step on one side, helping Mona as she walked-to weak from exhaustion and maybe hunger. Varra stayed ahead like a blade clearing a path. We moved through the ruined geometry and the crack in the wall and out into a corridor that felt too cool after the furnace we’d left.

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