Chapter 125

Dane

There was more to the memory, but it faded just as I tried to reach for it. The birthmark made light. Something had blocked me from remembering that. I shouldn’t be surprised. Aurora could hardly remember any of her time with the Reeds, even though she’d been with them her entire life.

I used to think she was lying. Then I thought it was trauma. But now, knowing there were things I’d forgotten, too, I didn’t think I could say that anymore. They’d done something to repress my memories of the kidnapping, and hers of her whole life.

I cursed and snarled. Damn the Council for not letting me wipe them out when I took over as Alpha. I blinked and shook myself, looking around for Evelyn. She was gone.

Chapter 125

She’d dropped that bomb on me and just left. My fingers elongated into claws. For eight years, she’d lied to me. She let me build my life around her. She let me ruin my relationship with Aurora. I should tear her apart.

But she was also carrying my child… if it even was my child. The foundation of our relationship was a lie. It wasn’t hard to believe she’d lie about other things. But if I wasn’t the father, who was? Who was allowing Evelyn to parade around, telling people she was pregnant with my child when they knew it was theirs?

My fangs elongated at the thought of that. Whoever the father was, he’d better pray to the goddess that Evelyn had lied to him, too. Because nothing in heaven or on earth would save him if I found out who he was and that he’d tricked me willingly.

I finally pushed away from the wall, but I didn’t go after Evelyn. There would be time for her. Time to think. To decide what to do with the child—which was, after all, innocent. Time to hunt her down and take her out if that’s what it came to.

But how and why would a woman like that become the chosen of the goddess? And why would she be put in charge of guarding Aurora?

Chapter 125

It made no sense. One thing she’d said was right, though.

I think it’s time the women in your life stopped keeping secrets from you. I’d given Aurora enough time to come clean about Coleridge. It was time to figure out what was going on between her and the Fall Line Alpha once and for all.

Aurora

Hello, precious thing. What are you doing right now? Thinking of me?

My gut clenched at the sound of Holden’s voice in my head. Celia and I had finished cleaning Evander’s wounds and changing his clothes and sheets, so he wasn’t lying in drying blood anymore. I pushed my younger cousin’s hair back from his face. “Wake up, Evander. Please. What am I going to tell Uncle Winston?”

Evander’s uncle was one of my favorites, even though I knew he was Grandma Augusta’s least favorite child. He didn’t want power; he wasn’t ruthless or strategic. He was a scholar who specialized in magic.

Chapter 125

Evander didn’t take after his dad—their relationship was basically if the absent-minded college professor was somehow the father of the star quarterback—but they loved each other, and I loved both of them.

Aurora, Holden’s voice echoed in my mind again, and this time there was a trickle of power in the words, which sounded like they were spoken through gritted teeth. Answer me.

My throat closed as I automatically fought the compulsion. I must have made a sound because Celia, the middle-aged healer, looked at me in alarm. “Are you all right, Luma-heir? Are you choking on something?”

I shook my head no and said in my mind, I’m tending my cousin. He was wounded searching for my children. The strangled feeling immediately disappeared, and I sucked in a rush of air, cooling my burning lungs.

That’s better. I like it when my mate is responsive, Holden purred. I wanted to snap back that I wasn’t his mate. The magic he’d used to bind me wasn’t normal. It wasn’t natural wolf magic. It was something else. Something created by that strange, hooded figure. Something that tasted like the shadows.

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What about the rest? Holden asked with that violating caress of power. Were you thinking of me?

No, I snapped. I was thinking of my cousin and making sure he’s all right. And I was thinking of Piper. Was she all right? I didn’t know why she had been moved out of the infirmary. I hoped that meant she was doing well.

And I was thinking Dane. I was always thinking of Dane. And my children. They were with the Reeds, Evander had said. But I couldn’t get him to wake up and tell me the rest, and Dane had brushed me off so carelessly.

I shook myself. Of course, he had. His sister had been unconscious for so long, it made sense. I needed to get a grip on myself. Trajan once told me he couldn’t believe how cool and collected I was all the time, but the only reason he thought so was because I didn’t have my wolf. He couldn’t ever see what was inside my head.

Cool and collected was a veneer. A mask. An act. I was unsure so much of the time. These days, the mask felt like the only thing holding me together.

Chapter 125

Celia finished with Evander, and I moved back to tuck the covers in around him. Then the door to the infirmary slammed open and Dane strode in. He had his phone in his hand. “I’ve waited long enough, Aurora. Explain this.”