Alpha Xander's Undoing Chasing my Unknown Mate Back novel Chapter 59

Chapter 59

Chapter 59

*Rory*

I slept well for the first time in a week.

T

Xander decided to walk me to class. He held my hand the entire time. Firm. Solid. Protective.

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We didn’t speak. We didn’t need to. I matched my steps to his, and for once they were not the steps of a girl dragged or a boy chasing. They were even.

We rounded the last turn before the stairwell to the lecture theaters. When the bell shattered the quiet, and the chime of the intercom coming on followed.

“Students and faculty,” Headmistress Varra’s voice rolled along the corridor-calm, amplified, carefully controlled. “By order of the Council and in accordance with the Festival Codex, the Solstice Moon will be observed on this campus one week from tonight.”

She then went ahead to explain what that was in very precise detail. My heart sunk at each word. It was basically forcing gifts out of wolves with ancient magic and a ritual. Apparently, it was a ritual that used to be done in days of old by the first council, to evoke gifts out of young wolves so they could training them appropriately.

I had a feeling the training wasn’t the motive for this.

Varra continued. “At moonrise, all enrolled students will undergo the Gift-Assessment Ritual in the lower quadrangle. Attendance is compulsory. Preparatory readings and guidelines will be distributed in The Gifts class with Professor Vallin.”

The speakers clicked off.

Of course. Of-freaking-course.

stopped because my body didn’t know what else to do. The hand that wasn’t holding Xander’s curled reflexively, nails half-mooning my palm. Compulsory. The word tasted metallic, like I’d bitten my lip and swallowed blood.

Xander’s fingers tightened around mine. Not enough to hurt. Enough to say I’m here, I’m not letting go. I felt the pulse under his skin-hot, steady, a counterbeat to the sudden racing of my own.

“All students,” I repeated. The words scraped my throat on the way out. “Compulsory.”

“Varra bent,” he said, voice low, threaded with something that sounded like equal parts fury and grim satisfaction. “The Council pushed. The Solstice gives them cover. They’ve wanted a campus-wide assessment for months. Now they can pretend it’s ‘needed. Every gifted wolf who was hiding will be found out. Including

Dharra.”

He met my eyes with a troubled look that made me shiver. It was troubled. And worried and… guilt?

“Including you,” he added softly.

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Chapter 59

“If I go through with it—”

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“They’ll know,” he finished. He didn’t dress it up in kindness or false hope. “Maybe not what. But enough.”

“And if I don’t?” My mouth felt dry. “They’ll know that too.”

“They knew our fathers are hiding something from that aristocrat meeting. They’re doing this because of me, aren’t they? They know my dad is protecting me, they know your dad is protecting the alliance and they know we’re mates. They have reason to doubt all three of you.”

Silence laid itself between us. Not empty-full of all the things neither of us was willing to name where the walls could hear.

Zerina stood in my head. Not to pull the reins from me. Not this time. Just there…cool attention, quiet watchfulness. She was worried. But she wouldn’t admit it.

“We have a week,” I said. It surprised me, how steady I sounded. As if the air itself had stopped trying to shove me off balance. “To learn enough that I’m not walking into that circle blind.”

Xander’s gaze cut toward the tall windows, where the last light bled out of the sky in bands of bruised violet.

“We’ll use every hour,” he said. He didn’t make it pretty. He made it practical. “Starting now.”

I nodded, and we started walking again. Our joined hands swung once, an ordinary movement that felt like a promise.

A group of seniors passed us, talking about the same thing I had in mind. Could they really force this?

I wondered the same thing. This was the 21st Century. We had rights.

One of the guys from the group seemed to be drowning in nerves. No doubt he was gifted too, and while the academy deemed gifted wolves ‘special’ instead of something that need to be feared, we all knew that there were still a few students who had something against the gifted, and might just call the Venatorum.

And no one wanted the Venatorum coming after them.

Raine was so powerful that she took out the entire female dorm, and not even her could defend herself.

A pair of instructors paused at the landing above and pretended not to be whispering.

We reached the stairwell where the stone was worn in the center of each step by decades of feet. I paused with one hand on the cold wall, looked up at Xander, and felt the consequence of our choice settle into my bones.

Fear didn’t leave; it simply moved-rearranged itself to make room for something steadier. Not courage, exactly.

Something older. The same thing that had pushed me to pull aside a veil of memory in the archives and watch my sister write warnings to a future she hoped she’d never see.

The same thing that had made me say ‘Fine. Mark me.’ And open my throat to the bite that bound me to the boy now looking at me like he would burn the world rather than let it swallow me.

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Chapter 59

“Okay,” I said. “What do we do first?”

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“First?” He scanned the landing below, then tugged me gently away from the stair. “We get you off the main corridors before people start putting together the fact that its you they really want.”

We took a lesser-used passage along the inner wall. My mind tried to race ahead-gift-assessment ritual, moonrise, compulsory-but Xander’s hand anchored me in the near and the now.

At the first door marked RESTRICTED-FACULTY ARCHIVES he stopped, listened, then fished a key from the inside breast pocket of his jacket. I arched a brow.

“You shouldn’t have that,” I said.

“I shouldn’t have a lot of things.” The lock turned with a quiet click. “Perks of being the soon-to-be Alpha whose father donates half a library wing every three years.”

“Modest.”

“Effective.” He eased the door open and ushered me inside.

The faculty archive was a long, narrow room lined with glass-fronted cases and cabinets that smelled faintly of lemon oil and old paper.

Here, the academy kept copies of ceremonial texts for events just like this one, along with the kind of “testings” Professor Vallin liked to quote and misquote depending on his mood.

Xander moved like he’d already been here today. Maybe he had. He went to a cabinet, slid the glass aside, and drew out a slim, slate-colored volume stamped in silver foil: FESTIVAL CODEX-ANNOTATED.

He passed it to me, then took a second book for himself: RITUAL GEOMETRIES: THEORY & PRACTICE.

“The Codex,” he said, nodding at my book, “covers traditional practices. The geometries book covers the circle itself—the shapes, runes, and those stuff. If we understand what they think they’re measuring, we can control what we show.”

“Control,” I echoed, flipping the Codex open. “You make it sound simple.”

“Nothing about you is simple.” His mouth tipped, not quite a smile. “But a circle is a circle. It has rules. Even the ones meant to trap you.”

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