Alpha Xander's Undoing Chasing my Unknown Mate Back novel Chapter 80

Chapter 80

Chapter 80

*Rory*

White.

:

Not blank-the opposite. White like a struck match, like chalk shaken hard out of a fist.

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It stung my eyes and lay over the world like a sheet, and then it began to thin, burning down from the edges until the lines of the ritual field came back into focus.

Three rings.

Outer, carved with the four. Air, Earth, Water, Fire. Runes were cut so deep the grooves looked wet.

Students with gifts were being pulled towards it by an unseen force.

The moon was at its apex, bright, silver and full. The students moved-some more reluctant than some. The evident shock on some student’s faces when they saw how many of their friends were gifted. Some looked terrified. The ones who fought didn’t stand a chance.

So why did I think I did?

Some stood steady, some shaking in their knees.

In the center, the neutral ring waited for the unmarked: a blank band of stone with nothing on it but the moon’s light. And between them, the one I dreaded-the so-called accuracy ring. The one the Codex padded with polite words like “measure” and “inconclusive.” The place they kept wolves they did not understand.

I was being pulled to that ring

Not because I wanted to. Because the circle took one look at me and dragged.

The rest of the field organized itself in a low roar-wardens calling, teachers guiding, the layers of chant building like wind through pines. I could feel the Solstice settling into the stone, a vibration that matched the thud of my pulse.

Xander stopped at the boundary, jaw set, stubbornly staying by me.

A warden pointed him to the center ring. “Unmarked-inside.”

“I’ll stay right where I am,” he said in a tone that meant there was no room for discussion.

The man frowned. “Procedure-”

“Procedure can choke,” Xander said, not loud, just final.

He stepped into my ring. The chalk along the groove flickered, an offended hiss. The warden opened his mouth, then thought better. The Council was watching. Breaking a bond in front of them would make a mess no one wanted to mop up.

13:16 Wed, Sep 17

Chapter 80

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Xander crossed to the opposite side of me, a length away. He couldn’t touch me; the ring rejected the idea the way oil rejects water. But he stood there, hands loose at his sides, shoulders squared like he’d decided he would take whatever the circle threw at him and then ask for seconds.

The outer ring filled first. I recognized a few faces. A boy from North Wing swallowed and tried not to let the air move around his head. A girl from the Southern quarter stood barefoot, heel digging into the soil rune with her eyes closed like she could hear root growth. A pair of twins-water, maybe-held their hands just off one another’s wrists and pulled a small tide between them that never spilled.

The center ring held the rest, the ones who would go home tonight with their wolves unchanged and their lives blissfully simple. They were not simple people. Just lucky.

A girl lifted her chin and mouthed something that looked like ‘we have you’ across the rings. I wasn’t sure if she meant it. I wanted to believe it anyway.

The Council sat like stones on a riverbed.

Durnham lounged with his ankle on his knee and that thin smile that told me he liked the idea of blood on clean floors. Varra stood just below the dais, muscle ticking in her jaw, hands clasped too tightly to be prayer.

A sharp tone rang from the far side and the chant changed. It was time.

I set my feet the way we practiced. Soft knees. Weight forward. Chin level.

The bond tugged warm in my chest, a line strung between Xander and me. I went to it. I let my focus shift the way he’d taught me in the field-nothing flashy. Something tame, like breath fogging a window.

I offered the circle my steadier things: the exact sound the greenhouse glass made at night, the clove smell of damp wood, the feel of his thumb rubbing my jaw out of habit.

Zerina stood with me, not roaring, not hiding. Just…present.

The field answered. A low ripple passed through the rings, like an animal settling down onto its haunches. The outer rune marks flared and dimmed in slow, even breaths. A warden called, “Hold,” into a conch shell and the sound curled back over us, cool as river shade.

“Good,” Xander said, voice steady across the space between us. “Stay with me. Nothing has to be big. Let it measure what we choose.”

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