Alpha Xander's Undoing Chasing my Unknown Mate Back novel Chapter 90

Chapter 90

Chapter 90

*Xander*

“They moved her that way,” I said.

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Dhara tipped her chin. “The ground agrees,” she said. “Drag and boot scuff. Small steps. Someone was walking chained. They did not carry her.”

I closed my eyes for a second because the image made my stomach turn. When I opened them, Matt had already stripped a bandage roll from his kit. He caught my right hand with a grip that did not invite argument and wrapped my wrist while I glared at him.

“Save it,” he said. “You need the hand.”

I did not thank him. He did not need me to.

Mona moved to the iron plate and set her palm on it. “Still warm,” she said. “He did not even have the decency to let the ashes cool.”

“Durnham,” I said, and that name was a blade I would carry until I put it into his throat.

“Likely,” Dhara said. “But do not give him all the credit. Some men think they are storms because they have umbrellas.”

Mona snorted, but it had no humor in it. “We are going, right? Because I am not sleeping in here.”

“We are going,” I said. “We do not stop until the thread stops pulling.”

Azrien settled enough that I could stand without shaking. He was not calm. He never would be while she was missing. But he knew movement. Wolves understand a trail, and he pressed our spine toward the tunnel like he could crawl through rock.

We left the chamber. I did not look back at the chains. Mona did, and she muttered something I could not hear that sounded like a promise and a curse. Dhara marked the wall once with a quick, private sign that meant nothing to me and everything to her. Matt doused the torch for a count of five so our eyes could learn the dark ahead, then lit it again and handed it to Mona.

“Pace,” he said. “Dhara first, me next, Mona, then you. If we have to fight, you go through like a blade.”

“Like a blade,” I said, and the words came out too easy.

We followed the tunnel that sloped low and mean. Water slicked the left side, and the right side rose a few inches and gave us a narrow strip of dry footing. A nest of old roots broke through the ceiling and hung like ropes. One brushed my cheek, and I almost tore it down with my teeth. I kept walking.

The thread brightened and dimmed with each bend, like the cave was trying to throw it off. I learned its rhythm fast and matched it with my steps. Ahead. Left. Straight. Right. Each turn cut time off the distance, and the part of me that had broken against the wall knit itself into a hard line,

“If we miss her again,” Mona whispered, “I am going to stab the earth.”

13:21 Wed, Sep 17

Chapter 90

“You will dull your knife,” Dhara said.

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“Then I will sharpen it on Durnham’s bones,” she said, and that made my mouth twitch even though nothing about this was funny.

We hit another junction and paused. Dhara crouched to read the ground, and I did not wait for her answer because the thread pulled right hard enough to hurt, and I already knew.

“Right,” I said.

She checked the floor and nodded. “Right,” she agreed.

We ran then. Not full speed, because the cave would kill the careless, but fast enough that the torchlight shook and my bandaged wrist throbbed with each impact. Azrien kept pace without trying to rip me apart, and it felt like we had reached a truce: I would not shift; he would not chew through the ribs that kept him in.

The tunnel sloped up. The air changed. It tasted less like rock and more like outside. I smelled pine, faint enough that I could have imagined it if the thread had not leaped in my chest and dragged.

We burst into a narrow hall with a low slit where wind breathed. The floor showed clear signs now-boot prints, a scuff where someone had caught their toe, and a smear that could have been water but was not. It was the same dull red as the mark by the chain.

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