My Alphas' Dark Desires-Chapter 148: Call in Sick

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Chapter 148

~Valerie’s POV~

No... No... No...

Tears kept streaming down my cheeks, and my head was pounding. My chest felt tight, like something heavy had settled inside it overnight and refused to move.

I sat in bed, clutching the blanket like a shield, the remnants of my dream still burning behind my eyes.

The lava. The screams. The flames that didn’t hurt me, but devoured everything else.

It was too real, too loud and too familiar. For more than thirty minutes, I sat there, not doing anything much but just letting the memories of the dream rake through my mind.

Suddenly, a sharp buzz pulled me out of the haze, and my phone lit up on the nightstand. I reached for it with trembling fingers.

It was a message from my cousin, Solstice.

Solstice: Hey... Are you okay? I just... I don’t know. I have this irky feeling that you’re not alright. Shall I come over? Text me back when you get this.

I stared at the message for a long second. My lips parted, but no sound came out. How did she know? I never told anyone, nor did I sleep in her room or scream in my dream.

But somehow, whenever something was bothering me, Solstice always knew. Before I could respond, another notification popped up from an unknown number.

I frowned and clicked on it.

’I felt something from the bond. Valerie, tell me you are not still hurting. – Kai.’

My breath caught as my mind was instantly transported to her little time in the training arena and our kiss.

Kai.

I hadn’t had a mate before, but it made me feel warmly embraced when he said that.

He felt it. The ache in my chest, the weight, the fear and somehow, just knowing he noticed—knowing he cared—made my throat tighten all over again.

A part of me wanted to go to him, crawl into the space between his arms, and just rest there. Astra even purred within me to leave my room now and visit him, and I would have given in and added another message, not come in.

Dristan: I just arrived back at school. Can’t wait to see you. I’ll come find you later."

I stared at the message. Not because it was unexpected, but because my heart didn’t react the way it usually did.

And deep down, something told me it was because of that dream. And right now, I couldn’t do anything about it, nor did I know what it meant.

The flames still clung to my skin, even in waking, as I padded my way to the bathroom and back. The smell of smoke still filled my senses, and the sight of their faces as they fell.

I didn’t want to see any of them.

I set my phone down and pulled the covers up over my head, letting the darkness smother me a little longer.

I could still hear my own scream ringing through the dream. Could still feel the moment I realised I was the very thing I’d been running from.

I shut my eyes and inhaled. I wasn’t going to school today. I couldn’t face any of them—not with this storm still inside me.

So I did the only thing that made sense.

I grabbed my phone again, opened the PSA Student Portal, and filled in the short form.

Excuse for Absence: Illness

Duration: One day

I hovered over the "Submit" button for a second... then hit it.

Call in sick.

That was the story today. Because if I had to look one more person in the eye and pretend I wasn’t cracking from the inside out—

I wouldn’t survive it.

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~Xander’s POV~

The classroom was empty.

Not just in the physical sense—no students, no murmurs of gossip, no scratching pens—but empty in that strange, weighted way that happened only when you carried too much in your head and the silence just... echoed it back louder.

I sat by the window, one leg propped over the other, arms loosely crossed over my chest. The late morning sun bled through the glass panes, spilling pale golden light across the empty desks.

I should’ve been at training. Or somewhere pretending to care. Instead, I was here. Thinking.

Her face came back to me easily, too easily.

Valerie.

I recalled that day... the day her mates had angered her. The way her voice cracked—not loud, but quiet enough that it cut sharper.

"You don’t even know me," she’d said. "None of them do. Yet they are all trying to claim a girl they haven’t even asked a single question about. Do I like tea? Do I hate peaches? What makes me cry? You just want me because of fate."

I remembered watching her, the anger in her eyes and the fire in her voice. But beneath all that was hurt.

She wanted to be seen. To be loved, not possessed. Not claimed like some object. And I hadn’t blamed her then or now.

I leaned forward, resting my elbows on the desk and staring out the window at nothing in particular.

"You think about her a lot."

Zila’s voice—always sleek, always perceptive—curled in my head like smoke.

"She’s hard not to think about," I murmured under my breath.

The dragon inside me chuckled in a low, unbothered rumble. "What is it, then? You like her?"

I didn’t answer right away. Instead, I let my fingers trace random lines across the wooden surface of the desk.

"When she’s near me, my chest feels... alive. Like something is awake that’s been asleep a long time," I admitted. "But when she’s not near, it beats even harder. It’s like the distance makes it worse. I hate it. And I crave it."

"So you’re in love with her."

I smirked. "That’s a big word, Zila."

"A true word."

I leaned back in the chair, my head tilted toward the ceiling. "I can only answer that if it’s true that she isn’t who we think she is." ƒree𝑤ebnσvel.com

"And if she isn’t?" Zila asked more seriously now. "If she turns out not to be your sister? Not your blood?"

A slow, smooth smile dangerously spread across my lips. "Then I’ll go for her myself."

There was no hesitation. No second-guessing it. If Valerie Nightshade wasn’t tied to me by blood... then she was tied to me by something deeper.

And I was ready to find out exactly what.