Chapter 140

I didn’t get to an it. Wondon gestured, and the wolves who’d been holding Dane back appeared as if from nowhere and grabbed him.

“No!” No one listened to me. They dragged him away. I ran out after them. Our time was up. Dane was about to die.

I ran to the pillar faster than the wolves who dragged Dane and put myself in front of it.

“Move, girl,” Esther snarled. “This is happening the way it was always meant to.”

“I don’t care how it was meant to happen,” I said, drawing myself to my full height and glaring down at her, using everything I’d learned about being an ice queen in billionaire boardrooms over the last five years.

For once, Esther actually shrank back. She looked small, her hair lank, her skin papery. In that moment, I saw what an old woman she had become. Or maybe she’d always been this old, this fragile, and only fear had made her appear stronger than I was.

“The moon has risen. The ritual has to be performed now,” Waylon snarled. “Get out of my way. There’s no time.” He had his knife out. The ritual. He was right; we were running out of time.

What would happen if I ran out the clock? If the moon passed its highest point and started to set, we’d lose our chance. If that happened… then what? The shadows wouldn’t disappear. There would still be attacks. Everyone would still be in danger. But Dane would live, and he’d gotten us through danger before.

Maybe I could throw off the ritual, save him, and we could figure something else out. I could call Evander’s father, my uncle Winston. He was a scholar of magic; he might know something.

Waylon moved forward threateningly. At his side, so did Esther. I faced them alone, the monsters of my childhood. Dane was held by a half dozen wolves behind him. Trajan was protecting my children.

I had the magic the goddess gave me, but it seemed to be for healing. Not a weapon I could use against people with wolves. What I wouldn’t have given to have it be a weapon, like Evelyn’s.

“Are you there?” I reached out to the guardian with its smoky, thick magic. “Can you help me?”

“I can do nothing until I’m freed,” it answered. “The only thing that can break my chains is the magic in his blood.”

“But you said I could have him!” I protested.

All that mattered is that Dane lived. Everything else could be figured out later.

The guardian didn’t answer. Had it lied to me?

Waylon took another step toward me. He might be old and skinny, but he still had a wolf when I didn’t. If he got ahold of me, he could toss me to the side with ease. I had to surprise him.

Instead of waiting for him to charge me, I lunged at him with clawed fingers.

“What the—?” He lifted his hands to protect his face.

But I wasn’t going for his face. At the last minute, I dropped my hands and took the knife out of his belt.

“You want someone with Dane’s blood?” I asked, stepping back so I pressed against the stone. It was cold at my back. I could almost feel the guardian inside it, like a mountain lion poised on a cliff above an unsuspecting deer, ready to pounce.

I held the knife and pointed the blade at myself. “Well, I carried his child. I had his children.”

I’d read somewhere that mothers and children could exchange blood through the umbilical cord. If I spilled some, would it be enough? There was no way it could be. But maybe it would weaken the guardian’s chains enough that he could break them himself, and no one would have to die.

After all, I had other magic from the goddess, didn’t I? Magic that let me heal. Maybe that could magnify whatever chain-breaking magic from Dane that might still be in me.

“No!” Dane shouted. “Aurora, what are you doing?”

I didn’t know. I only knew I was desperate, and I hoped to the goddess Trajan was making sure the children weren’t looking.

“What I have to,” I said.

I lifted the dagger, ready to plunge it into me.

There was a roar. A flash of silver power.

The wolves who’d held Dane went flying. A lycan with charcoal gray fur and gold eyes surged forward. Dane. I thought he would stop and fight Waylon.

He didn’t. He shoved the other Alpha out of the way and moved to me. He gripped my hand that held the knife.

“We can figure something out,” I said. I didn’t realize I was crying until that moment. “It doesn’t have to be this way.”

Dane’s golden wolf’s eyes were filled with sadness. “Yes, it does. Otherwise, you, the children, and the pack will be in danger forever. I won’t let that happen.”

Then he snatched the dagger from my grasp, pushed me from my place in front of the stone, and drove the blade of the knife into his own heart.