Alpha Xander's Undoing Chasing my Unknown Mate Back novel Chapter 73

Chapter 73

Chapter 73

*Rory*

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I woke to the soft insistence of breath against my collarbone and the ache of heat under my skin. Xander had fallen asleep half-curled around me, one arm banded at my waist like his body had made a promise before his mind did. I lay still and counted heartbeats-his, steady; mine, not. The ember at my throat pulsed again, small and stubborn, as if to remind me it wasn’t done with me. The taste of ash lingered on my tongue.

Mona was a dark shape in the chair near the window, blanket thrown over her shoulders, boots on the floor. She must have sensed me watching because she grunted without opening her eyes. “If you say you’re getting up, I’m going to staple you to that mattress.”

“I don’t think that’s a real medical protocol,” I croaked.

“Then I’ll invent it.” She shoved the blanket off, stood, and crossed to the bed. In the early light her face looked raw-care worn thin, worry gone brittle at the edges. She perched on the mattress and pressed the back of her fingers gently to my cheek. “Fever’s down. Color’s… not murderous. I’ll take it.”

Dharra sat on the rug, spine straight against the side of the dresser, the strip of parchment stretched taut over her knees like a map. Her hands were still wrapped, fresh linen today, the angry blisters hidden. Runes glowed and faded along the parchment’s slanted edge-faint as moth-wings, wicked as barbed wire.

“How long was I out?” I asked.

“Off and on,” Mona said. “A few hours at a time. We kept you drinking. You cursed at us twice. It was poetic.”

I pulled a face. “Sorry.”

“You can apologize to my nerves after the Solstice,” she said, but the smile she tried had no bite. “Drink.”

She passed me a cup. Water tasted like ash at first and then like air. Somewhere in the night, it seemed, I was moved back to Xander’s humongous room with his extremely large and comfy bed. But my two best friends seemed to have followed.

Varra hadn’t come back since last night. Or, if she had, she’d done it quietly and left nothing but the clean bandages stacked on the dresser and a curt note on Xander’s desk in three exact lines: I am handling Durnham. Stay out of the east wing. Keep her hidden until nightfall. It wasn’t signed. It didn’t have to be.

“She’s only telling half the truth,” I said, staring at the note. “She knows more than she’s saying.”

Mona followed my gaze, then snorted. “Welcome to the Azure Crest Academy.”

The ember ticked again. Zerina stirred with it-thin, fragmented, as if she were speaking from another room and the door kept slamming shut between us.

He keyed us to the turning,’ she said, ‘a thread of sound through smoke. When the moon stands high, the binding will call.

“What does that mean?” I whispered.

13:15 Wed, Sep 17

Chapter 73

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Mona angled her head. “What?”

“Nothing,” I lied. I didn’t need her to hear the fear I hadn’t named yet. I needed her to do what she was already doing-turn her fear outward and make it useful.

She straightened, rolled her shoulders, and pulled her hair into a band like she was about to go to war.

“Okay,” she said briskly. “Here’s what’s going to happen. You’re going to stay here, in wolf-boy’s overcompensatingly expensive sheets, and you’re going to do nothing more strenuous than blink for the next few hours. Dharra and I are going to class.”

“Since when do you go to class?” I asked, and it came out more tender than teasing.

“We’re not going to attend,” Mona said, eyes flashing. “We’re going to not attend very loudly.”

Dharra looked up from the parchment.

“Quietly,” she corrected. “But together.” She set the strip down like it might break the floor. “We’ll start with The Gifts lectures. If a professor is on the Solstice schedule, we don’t go in. If they try to take attendance, we sit outside the doors, backs against the wall. If they ask why, we say we’re waiting for the Headmistress to address how a Council seal was used on a student.” Her eyes found mine. “We don’t say which student. We don’t give them your story to chew.”

Rumors didn’t need details. They never did. They just needed heat and clever mouths to carry them.

“You’re going to get in trouble,” I said.

Mona’s smile went sharp. “Probably.”

“Expulsion,” I said, hating how small my voice sounded. “Some of them will push for it.”

Mona leaned in until her forehead pressed lightly to mine. “You’ve already bled enough for this place,” she said, flat and fierce. “Let us take the cuts this time.”

The sentence slid under my skin and stayed.

“I should be with you,” I said anyway. “I should-”

“No,” they both said, at the same time.

Dharra’s hand floated over mine, hovering like touch might burn. “You stand when you can stand,” she said. “When you can’t, we stand.”

Xander shifted behind me, the mattress dipping as he sat up. His palm spread over my stomach, anchoring. “I’d nail your boots to the floor if I thought it would keep you out of this,” he muttered. “But I know you. So I’ll bargain. One hour. You don’t leave this room for one hour.”

I tipped my head back to look at him. “Thirty minutes.”

“Forty-five,” he countered.

13:15 Wed, Sep 17

Chapter 73

“Fine.” I sighed. “Forty-five.” I didn’t promise to mean it.

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