Alpha Xander's Undoing Chasing my Unknown Mate Back novel Chapter 77

Chapter 77

Chapter 77

*Rory*

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The sun came up mean and thin, a rind of light that did nothing for the cold inside my bones.

I woke in Xander’s bed to the scrape of a chair leg and the soft tear of paper.

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For a second I couldn’t place the shape at the edge of the room-broad shoulders, bent head, the familiar slope of his back as he leaned over the desk.

Then the ember at my throat pulsed, slow and stubborn, and everything fell back into the pattern of the last two days: thirst that tasted like metal, skin that felt a size too small, the world pricked through with runes only I could hear humming.

Solstice.

The word sat heavy on my tongue, ash and iron. Zerina lifted her head inside me-not a lunge, not a demand. Just there. Awake. Watching.

Xander turned when I pushed up on my elbows. He didn’t say good morning. He crossed the room in three strides and pressed the back of his hand to my cheek like he needed proof I was still cooling. The fever had burned down to a simmer, but it wasn’t gone. The seal Durnham dragged me into had left heat under my skin that water and rest couldn’t touch.

“How long was I out?” I asked.

“Couple hours,” he said. “You kept trying to stand even in your sleep.” His mouth quirked, a ghost of a smile. “I told you to take a day off from being the bravest person in the building. You told me to shut up.”

“That sounds like me,” I murmured, and my voice came out rougher than I meant. “Any news?”

“Varra’s still insisting Solstice goes forward,” he said, careful, as if the sentence itself had edges. “Rana’s posted a schedule that lets students sit out anything ritual adjacent. Durnham’s still missing.”

Zerina’s growl pressed against the inside of my ribs, low and cold. Not fear. A promise.

I swung my legs over the edge of the mattress. I was wearing one of Xander’s old shirts again, neck torn where the mark sat. The fabric fell soft against my thighs. The floor was cold. It felt good on the soles of my feet, real in a way the air wasn’t.

“I need to bathe,” I said.

He nodded, “I drew it already. Room temp. Salt in the water. Dhara’s recipe.”

He could have carried me. Instead he stood close enough to catch me if I tipped. I didn’t. I shuffled to the bathroom on my own, peeled the shirt off, and eased into the tub. The first touch made me hiss. The second made everything in me sigh.

Salt closed around me like a hand. The heat in my skin didn’t leave; it softened. I leaned my head back against the cool rim and stared at the ceiling, counting cracks like stars. Zerina drifted closer, silently. I let her. For

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Chapter 77

the first time since the chamber, she didn’t try to take more.

We were both tired of fighting inside our own skin.

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When I came out, wrapped in one of his towels and smelling like salt and rosemary, he was sitting on the floor with his back against the bed, elbows propped on his knees, a book open on his thighs. Not a Codex, not Ritual Geometry. A slim, slate volume without a title-his copy of old oaths. He closed it when he saw me and rose slowly, like he was reminding himself not to move too fast around a wounded thing.

He didn’t ask if I could manage. He didn’t make it a performance. He just came close and steadied his hands at my waist as I climbed back into the bed, then knelt to dry my feet with that same ridiculous care he used on the night he bandaged the burns. Something in my throat loosened at the sight of it, the way gentleness can surprise you more than pain.

He kept one of my heels cupped in his palm and looked up. “Head?”

“Better,” I lied.

He didn’t call me on it. He set my foot down, rose, and reached for the jar we’d stolen from the infirmary with Rana’s blessing. Salve that smelled like cedar and smoke. He unscrewed the lid and tipped his chin at me. “May I?”

I tugged the collar aside. He smoothed the balm along the edge of the mark, careful not to press too hard where the skin still pulsed. The medicine had a sting to it that made my eyes water, then a cool that seeped in slow. His thumb followed, light as breath.

“I can do it,” I said, because some stubborn part of me still needed to prove I could.

“I know,” he said, because some steady part of him knew when to ignore me.

We didn’t speak for a while. The room held us, quiet and warm. The Academy shuffled in the halls like a creature trying to stretch around a bruise. In the distance, I heard voices rising and falling. Not chanting. Not yet. Just people trying to make their day sit right on their shoulders.

My head found his shoulder without me deciding. He took the hint and crawled into the bed beside me, stretching long, pulling the covers over both of us like he could tuck the day away too. I tucked my cold toes under his shin and listened to his heartbeat climb and settle.

“You’re fraying,” he said finally. Not a question. Not a reprimand. A diagnosis offered with both hands.

“I’m holding,” I said. And I was. But every hour felt like a finger prying at a thread, testing the seam.

“I know,” he said. His mouth brushed my hairline. “If I could put you in a pocket and carry you past tonight without anyone seeing, I would.”

“I wouldn’t fit,” I said, and he huffed something that wanted to be a laugh.

The ember at my throat throbbed once. Zerina hummed back. The two beats didn’t match. I felt too many rhythms at once-mine, hers, the academy’s, the moon’s slow wheel turning toward us.

“I keep thinking about Eden,” I said, the words floating up before I could decide whether to let them. “What if

13:16 Wed, Sep 17

Chapter 77

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