All Chapters of The Guardian's Mate: Chapter 91 - Chapter 100

Ethan POVAdrian chose the courtyard for it, which told me right away he wanted an audience.It was midmorning, the kind of lull between classes when half the school ended up passing through the same open space at once, and he was standing dead center of it when I came around the corner, arms loose at his sides, an easy, theatrical calm draped over him like he'd rehearsed the entrance. Students were already slowing down around him, drawn in the way people always are by someone who looks like they're about to make a scene."Ethan Blackwood," he called out, loud enough to carry across the whole courtyard, loud enough that there was no pretending this was a private conversation. "Just the man I was hoping to run into."I stopped a few feet away, keeping my expression carefully neutral even as every instinct in me went on alert. "Adrian.""I've been doing some thinking," he said, pacing a slow half circle, playing to the crowd that was steadily gathering, phones already coming out. "About

Sophia POVI found Damian sitting alone on the low wall outside the library, the same spot we'd talked before, though this time he wasn't waiting for me — or if he was, he was doing a good job of pretending otherwise, staring off toward the tree line with an expression I couldn't quite read."Hey," I said, hesitating a step away.He glanced up, something guarded flickering across his face before he smoothed it into something more careful. "Hey. You okay? Ethan looked pretty shaken when he came to find you earlier.""I'm okay." I wasn't entirely sure that was true, but it was close enough for now. "It's a long story.""I've got time."I sat down on the wall a careful distance from him, the late afternoon sun slanting low and gold across the courtyard, everything quieter now that the chaos of Adrian's confrontation had settled into something more like an aftershock. I told him the short version — Adrian knowing about the bond, Ethan finally telling me the truth, the conversation that ha

Sophia POVI hadn't expected to see Lucas again, not after everything Ethan had told me about warning him off the school entirely. So when I stepped out of the library that evening and found him leaning against the far wall of the courtyard, half-hidden in shadow, my whole body went cold before he'd even said a word."Don't scream," he said, raising his hands slightly, like that would somehow reassure me. "I'm not here to hurt you. I'm breaking a promise just by standing here.""Then why are you?" I kept my distance, glancing around for anyone nearby, calculating how fast I could get back through the library doors if I needed to."Because I owe you a truth I probably should have given someone a long time ago." His voice was quieter than I remembered from the terminal, none of the theatrical menace he'd carried there. He looked tired, worn thin in a way that made him seem less like a threat and more like someone caught between forces bigger than himself. "Emma's transformation wasn't r

Ethan POVI should have noticed it sooner. Looking back, the signs had been there for weeks, small enough that I'd dismissed each one on its own instead of stacking them together into the shape they should have formed.It started with a discrepancy in the patrol logs — a route that had been marked covered when the security footage showed otherwise. I flagged it as an oversight the first time. The second time, I asked Connor to double-check the rotations. The third time, I stopped assuming it was carelessness."Someone's been altering the logs," Connor told me, standing in my study with a stack of printouts he'd cross-referenced against the security system himself. "Small changes. Nothing that would draw attention unless you were already looking. Times shifted by ten, fifteen minutes. Routes marked complete that the cameras show were skipped entirely.""Who has access to alter those logs?""Only senior Guardians," Connor said, and something in his voice told me he already suspected the

Sophia POVThe alarm went off during third period, a shrill, continuous wail that didn't match the drill schedule pinned to every classroom wall.I knew immediately it wasn't a drill. I could feel it in the air before the first scream echoed down the hallway — that same pressure shift I'd learned to recognize whenever something supernatural crossed too close, except this time it wasn't a single presence. It was dozens, converging on the campus from every direction at once, the atmosphere growing so thick and charged it felt like the walls themselves were straining against it."Everyone stay calm," Mr. Larry said, though his own voice betrayed the same fear rippling through the classroom, his hand already reaching for the emergency lockdown switch by the door. "Under your desks, away from the windows—"The windows exploded inward before he finished the sentence.Frost crawled across the shattered glass in an instant, spreading in intricate, deliberate patterns across the floor and wall