Alpha Xander's Undoing Chasing my Unknown Mate Back novel Chapter 75

Chapter 75

Chapter 75

*Rory*

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Mona looked over her shoulder, made a little chop with her hand, and the sitting shifted into something more deliberate. Books came out-not to read, but to serve as weights for signs.

Phones lit with messages. Dhara sank down beside the wall again, closed her eyes, and laid her palm on the stone between her knees.

The whispering spread, a low tide. Imprisonment. Binding. Forbidden circles. Council seals. No one said my name. But I felt it moving through the bodies anyway, the way heat moves through water.

Zerina rumbled, not with anger but with… recognition. ‘Pack,’ she said, the word a little warped.

A first year edged up to me like I might bite. “Is it true?” she blurted, then flinched. “Sorry. I mean-did they -did someone really-”

“I don’t know what you’ve heard,” I said. The lie tasted like metal. “But you deserve to be safe here. That’s not

a rumor.”

She nodded, eyes huge. “My sister’s gifted,” she whispered. “Water. She hides it. I… thank you. For what you guys are doing.” She scurried away, cheeks red.

I noticed that a lot of persons appreciated what Mona and Dharra were doing.

However, there were definitely a few who were still against gifted wolves, and would have loved for the ritual to go on so they could tell the Venatorum who to target.

The bad thing about this entire thing now was that they all knew I was gifted with something. They just might not know what.

And that still put a bounty on my head.

Xander leaned down until his mouth brushed my ear. “Ten minutes,” he said. “You can have two more.”

I should have argued. Instead I nodded, because my knees were starting to buzz and the world kept trying to wash to white at the edges. I wanted to stay until the bell. I wanted to stand until someone tried to move me. I wanted a lot of things my body wasn’t ready to give.

“Go,” Mona said, softer than I expected. “We’ve got this.”

“You’ll call if-”

“If the building catches fire?” She arched a brow. “You’ll be the first to know.”

Dharra’s eyes opened. “The earth approves,” she murmured. “But she’s worried. The runes… hum louder today.”

“How much time?” I asked.

13:15 Wed, Sep 17

Chapter 75

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She didn’t answer. She didn’t have to.

Xander’s hand closed around mine. We moved back through the corridor, past faces turned to us like flowers tracking light. When we reached the stair, a trio of junior prefects tried to block our way, chins up, shiny green sashes across their chests. One opened her mouth to recite a rule. Xander looked at her like a cliff looks at waves. She swallowed the rule and moved aside.

Back in his room, my legs gave. He caught me, swore softly, and put me in the bed like I weighed more than a grudge and less than a promise.

“Progress,” he said.

“It’s something,” I said.

“It’s more than something.” He sat beside me, palm against my ankle, warmth seeping through the blanket. “You should have seen Keld’s face when Vallin told him to discipline him. I’d frame it if I could.”

“You are not framing Vallin’s face,” I said, but it made me smile, small and sore.

A knock at the door. Matt slipped in, hair damp like he’d run through rain we didn’t have.

“Half the seniors are sitting out Ritual Geometry in Vallin’s class,” he reported. “Rana’s letting them camp in her classroom. Keld’s frothing. The headmistress sent an all-campus: ‘Classes continue. Solstice remains scheduled. Administration is investigating rumors.’ Which means, you know, nothing and everything.”

“Faculty split?” Xander asked.

Matt nodded. “In half. Maybe thirds. Rana’s with the students. Vallin is… Vallin. Keld and the martial block want bodies in their seats. Two from the archives are pretending this isn’t happening. The rest are in their offices pretending not to take sides.”

“And Durnham?” I asked.

“Gone,” Matt said. “If he’s on campus, he’s smoke.”

The ember at my throat pulsed like it heard his name and chose disgust. I rubbed at the mark without thinking. Heat answered, not pain-awareness. Dharra’s parchment flashed in my mind, runes humming. Two days had become one and a half by lunchtime. I could feel the counting inside my bones.

Mona returned in the afternoon with a gash on her knuckle and a smile like cracked glass. “You should see the dining hall,” she said, dropping onto the bed. “Half the school’s eating on the floor. It’s a little culty, but in a kind of charming way.”

“Any threats?” Xander asked.

“Four,” Mona said cheerfully. “Two real, two bark. Rana absorbed one. Vallin stood in a doorway for the other and just… stared. Keld backed off.”

“Vallin’s going to get himself fired,” Matt muttered.

“Maybe he wants to,” Mona said. “Maybe he’s tired of thinking he can control how this place behaves.”

13:15 Wed, Sep 17

Chapter 75

“Or maybe he’s playing a longer game than any of us see,” Xander said.

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I watched them talk around me-my people, my line-and felt something settle in my chest that wasn’t peace but was close to it. I hadn’t asked them to do this. I would have told them not to. They did it anyway. Quietly. Together.

The sun sagged, and the Academy shifted into its evening rhythm, slower.

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