Chapter 132

Aurora slumped to the ground so fast I nearly didn't catch her. Evelyn and Camila moved forward.

“What’s wrong with her?” Evelyn demanded.

“It’s the stone,” Camila’s dark eyes were sharp. “It’s this place. She must be very sensitive to magic for it to affect her this deeply.”

“Magic seems to follow wherever she goes,” I growled. I knelt and laid her on the ground with her upper body cradled in my arms. “She said the stone was calling her.”

Both women turned to give narrow-eyed looks to the stone. Which felt ridiculous to me. It was cold and unmoving. Except for the bands of symbols carved around it, it didn’t look like anything more than a large rock.

Then again, if Aurora was sensitive to magic, I was the opposite. I always had been. Often, power that affected others washed through or over me.

“The ceremony hasn’t even started yet,” Evelyn muttered. “And I don’t see the Reeds. I don’t like any of this, Dane. Aurora is the one who knows the ceremony, and it’s going to take all three of us to do whatever it is that needs to be done.”

I touched Aurora’s cheek. Her eyes flickered back and forth behind closed eyelids, as if she was having a nightmare.

“Aurora,” I said. I touched her cheek. I hadn’t been this close to her in days, and it woke a craving in me. Not to claim her, just to be near her. I felt more complete when she was close. I felt stronger, more like myself.

I called her name a second time, and she didn’t respond. I was getting more and more…

Aurora, wake up, I said into her mind.

For an instant, I felt something. I caught the image of silvery fur and lilac eyes. The feeling of connection was so strong it felt like an electric shock, and I pulled back.

What the hell?

When I tried to touch her mind again, there was nothing there. Like trying to touch mist.

“How do you expect to open the stone and retrieve the relic if you murder one of the goddess’s chosen before she can open it?”

Waylon and Ether Reed stepped out of the darkness on the far side of the stone. Behind them, I could see the glowing eyes of at least two dozen other wolves.

Waylon was in his lycan form. Esther was human. She smirked at Aurora on the ground. “Is this how an Alpha who is supposed to be a hero treats our little girl?”

“I never said I was a goddess-damned hero,” I growled. I rose, lifting Aurora in my arms as I did.

“She always thought so, though,” Esther gave Aurora’s unconscious form a pitying look. “We tried to tell her she was wrong. It’s too bad she isn’t awake to hear it out of your own mouth.”

Waylon sauntered forward. My eyes darted between him, his wife, and the wolves behind him. I drew Aurora closer to my chest.

I narrowed my eyes at Esther. I felt the moment Evelyn stepped up beside me. The moment Archer and Trajan took their places behind me and to either side. Behind them, the mysterious female rogues and the rest of the wolves I’d brought from my pack.

“Do you know what’s happening to her?” I asked the Broken Forest wolves.

Esther’s smile grew. “She’s learning about her destiny.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“Him. We spent her whole life trying to prepare her for him. Then you did something. You tried to take her from us.”

“I didn’t do anything,” I growled. “You’re the ones who poisoned her with silver and then beat her within an inch of her life so that she lost her wolf.”

Waylon gave a humorless laugh. “Maybe we did take it a little far. It had to be believable though, didn’t it? We had to make you believe she was weak. That she needed you to be her big, strong protector.”

“Bats was never weak. She was always the strongest of us all,” said Esther. “Once we have the relic, she’ll remember that. Once she meets him, and finally has her fated mate.”

I couldn’t comprehend the things they were saying. I held Aurora in my arms, but it was like they were talking about someone a thousand miles away. The words echoed through me.

Fated mate.

“She doesn’t have a wolf,” I said. “Even if she had a fated mate, she’ll never know now.”

“He can take care of that. He can bring her wolf back,” said Esther. Her eyes gleamed with a fanatic light. “Then she can finally finish what she was supposed to do to you years ago.”

“What was she supposed to do?” Evelyn asked. She had her hands folded across her chest. She almost looked ridiculous standing there, facing off with some of the evilest wolves I’d ever known, her belly big and round.

Waylon smirked. “Once she was pregnant with this bastard’s children, she was supposed to kill him. And believe me when I say this, boy: she was thirsty to spill your blood.”