Alpha Xander's Undoing Chasing my Unknown Mate Back novel Chapter 125

Chapter 125

Rory

erina’s voice came in whispers at first.

Not from within me this time–but from the world itself.

as in the wind that cut across the courtyard, in the low hum that rolled through the trees at dusk. It threaded through the like an echo from another lifetime.

ne home.

The words weren’t sound, yet I felt them beneath my skin, thrumming through bone. The moment I heard them, I knew

sctly where she meant.

The Solstice ruins.

By the time I reached the ridge, the night was already silver. The moon hung low, full and heavy, spilling light across the old stone circle where everything had once ended–and where, I now realized, it was meant to begin again.

The air shimmered faintly above the stones, as though the world was exhaling. My pulse quickened, every step toward the circle heavier than the last.

“Rory?”

Xander’s voice cut through the silence. He was behind me, his presence steady as always. I didn’t turn. I couldn’t.

“She’s calling me,” I said quietly.

He didn’t ask who. He already knew.

I stepped into the circle. The moment my foot crossed the boundary, the temperature dropped. Moonlight pooled against the stones, tracing old carvings that hadn’t glowed since that night months ago–the night of fire and chaos and everything

I’d lost.

Zerina’s voice trembled through the wind. Balance calls. The door, that breaks must heal where it opened.

I closed my eyes. “I’m not ready.”

You are what’s ready, she replied.

The air thickened. Light bled upward from the stones like molten silver. Every rune, every fracture in the rock, came alive with pale fire. My breath hitched. The world tilted.

“Rory-”

Xander started toward me, but I lifted a hand, more out of instinct than will. “It’s okay.”

I wasn’t sure it was.

The energy hit like a wave. It wasn’t gentle. It never was. The first surge ripped through me so hard my knees buckled, and the sound that left my mouth was half gasp, half cry. The power tasted metallic, sharp and bright, filling every hollow place

that had been left since Zerina went silent.

The bond.

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I felt it before I saw it–threads of gold, fraying at the edges, reweaving themselves with violent urgency. Each pulse sent sparks bursting behind my eyes, each breath a fight between agony and release.

It burned, gods, it burned. But beneath the pain was something else–recognition. The familiar pulse of us.

Zerina’s presence flooded back, not as a whisper this time, but as light roaring through my veins.

Balance, child of dawn. What was torn, now mends. What was lost, now remembers.

I choked on a sob, gripping the stone nearest to me. My vision blurred. The golden light reached for something beyond me, stretching, searching.

And then-

Xander.

The energy found him instantly. I felt his breath catch behind me, felt the invisible pull snap into place between us like a bowstring drawn tight.

He stumbled forward, his hands catching my arms. “Rory–what’s happening?”

I couldn’t answer. The air itself trembled around us, heat and cold colliding, light splintering in every direction. The runes on the ground pulsed gold, then white, then a color I didn’t have a name for.

I could feel him through it. Every beat of his heart. Every wound he’d ever carried. Every unspoken word we’d left to rot between us. The bond wasn’t quiet–it was deafening.

My back arched, the light pouring out of me now instead of in. “Xander!”

“I’m here,” he breathed, pulling me close, holding me through the storm. “I’ve got you.”

The words anchored me, but the energy didn’t slow. It tore through both of us, every pulse laced with a pain that felt too much like memory. The night of the Solstice. The screams. The fire. The loss.

And yet, through it all, there was love. Pure and relentless. The kind that refused to die even when everything else had.

I clung to him, trembling, half crying, half laughing. “It’s her–it’s Zerina. She’s back–she’s-”

The light surged again, exploding outward in a blinding wave that sent wind tearing through the clearing. The moon flared white–hot above us.

And then, silence.

The light sank. The air steadied. I collapsed against Xander’s chest, gasping. My body felt like it had been pulled apart and stitched back together with fire. My skin still glowed faintly, golden threads spidering across my arms and fading into my

veins.

He was breathing hard too, his grip iron–tight around me.

“Rory.” His voice cracked–barely a whisper.

I looked up at him through tears. “I feel it.”

His thumb brushed my cheek. “The bond?”

I nodded, unable to speak. My chest burned where the mark had once been cold. It pulsed again, warm and alive, syncing

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with his heartbeat under my hand.

The relief hit me like a flood. I broke down completely, sobs shaking through me as I buried my face in his chest. He didn’t say anything. He didn’t need to. He just held me until the tears slowed, his lips pressed to my temple, his breath unsteady.

When I finally looked up again, the moon had dimmed to its usual glow, the stones still faintly warm beneath us.

“She’s not chaos,” I whispered. “Zerina… she’s balance. She always was.”

Xander’s eyes softened. “And so are you.”

I let out a shaky laugh through the remnants of tears. “That’s not how it felt.”

He smiled, brushing his knuckles along my jaw. “Balance doesn’t mean stillness, Rory. It means surviving both sides.”

The wind picked up again, gentler this time, carrying the faint scent of rain and ash and something new–something alive.

For the first time since the Solstice, the silence didn’t ache. It hummed.

I leaned into him, my hand still over his heart, feeling our bond pulse in perfect rhythm. The golden glow between us flickered once more before fading into the night.

“Welcome back,” he murmured, kissing my hair.

“I was never really gone,” I said softly. “I was just learning how to return.”

And somewhere, faint but certain, Zerina’s voice rippled through me like sunlight through glass.

Balance restored.