Mated to Her Alpha Instructor (Eileen and Regis) novel Chapter 23

Chapter 23

Eileen

I left the dormitory then, my bag slung over my shoulder, and made my way toward the main gates where the pages waited. The campus was quieter than usual, most students already gone or preparing to leave. The air smelled of pine and approaching autumn, tig and clean.

Three hours later, I stepped off the public carriage at the edge of Wylde territory just after noon, my canvas bag heavy against my shoulder. The familiar scent of pine and damp earth should have been comforting, but instead it made my stomers cytes with something that felt uncomfortably close to dread.

The house looked the same as always–a modest timber structure with three small windows facing the road, the paint peeling slightly

around the doorframe. I could see smoke curling from the chimney, which meant someone was home, and as I pushed open the door. 1 found Gareth sprawled across the sofa, flipping through a magazine with the kind of casual indifference that only a sixteen–year–old who’d never had to work for anything could manage.

He glanced up when I entered, his expression flickering with recognition before settling back into boredom. Oh. You’re back.” He turned a page without sitting up. “You’re late. Lunch was hours ago–didn’t save you anything.”

Inside, the air was stale and cold. I set my bag on the bed and looked around at the bare walls, the threadbare blanket, the rickety desk that had been mine since childhood. Everything was exactly as I’d left it, and yet it felt even more suffocating now, as if the roum had shrunk in my absence.

I sat down heavily on the edge of the mattress, pressing my palms against my knees, and tried to tell myself that this was only for less than three days. I could endure it.

But even as I thought it, exhaustion rolled over me in a wave so sudden and overwhelming that I barely had time to kick off my shoes before I collapsed sideways onto the bed. My eyes closed almost immediately, and I sank into a deep, dreamless sleep that felt less like rest and more like my body simply giving up.