Chapter 141

AURORA

“DA.1”

It was too late. The knife sunk into his chest. He grunted in pain and fell to his knees. I went to my knees as well. I gripped the hilt of the dagger, but taking it out now wouldn’t do anything. He fell forward onto his hands. Blood from the wound dripped onto the ground at the base of the stone.

I was sobbing; I couldn’t stop myself. Dane turned his head to look at me once with those piercing eyes. In his dying moments, they flickered from brown to his wolf’s gold.

“This is going to take way too long,” Waylon moved forward, bent down, and ripped the knife from Dane’s chest.

“Ah!” Dane yelled.

“NO!” I lurched forward and put my hand over his chest to try to stem the hot, red flow of his blood. It coated my hands and dripped through my fingers.

“Dane, hold on…” I tried to reach for the healing gift of the goddess. I could feel him dying the way I’d felt Evander dying.

But this was happening so much faster. I only had seconds before he was gone. Then, Dane’s arms seemed to lose their strength. He fell to the ground face down, blood still pouring from his chest.

All around me, I felt the smoky magic gather. I felt it drinking in his power. I thought I heard it whisper…

I gripped Dane’s shredded shirt and tried to turn him over. I couldn’t. He was too big. Too heavy.

“No, no, no, no! Dane!”

Desperate, I put my hands on his back, my fingers sliding across the ridges and planes of his muscles, searching for contact with his skin. I had to touch his skin.

There! My bloody hand found a hole near his shirt collar and slipped inside. Just one finger in contact with his broad back. As fast as I could, I reached for the river of cool healing magic that ran through my veins.

Like I had with Evander, I pushed it into him, tried to fill him with it. Unlike Evander, Dane took one last, shaking breath. Then he didn’t breathe again.

“NO!” It seemed like that was the only word I remembered how to say. Even though I could feel that his life was gone, I kept trying. Kept pushing.

I didn’t notice the earth had begun to tremble around me. I didn’t notice that, overhead, the bands of symbols on the stone had begun to glow a dull, pulsing red, as if the stone was filled with magma.

My throat felt scratchy and thick, as if my lungs were filling with smoke. My head pounded. My vision flickered like there was fire burning at the edges of my vision, but instead of heat, all I felt was cold. Cold. So cold.

“Momma!” I heard each of the twins shout. The sound came as if from a distance.

Good. I didn’t want them to see this. They shouldn’t see any of it. They would grow up as scarred and damaged as I had. All I’d ever wanted was to shelter them from that.

Yessssss, the voice of the guardian whispered again.

I looked up. My vision still wavered.

The lines of symbols around the stone flickered, and then… they disappeared.

There was a sound like the scream of metal twisting, bending, breaking. Then there was the rattle of chains falling to the ground. It felt so final, that sound.

The shaking of the earth grew more intense. I looked over at the Blue Ridge wolves. Trajan was with them, one twin in each of his arms. They all looked so afraid.

The walls of the ravine were beginning to crumble. It looked like they might fall and collapse on us all. In my grief and rage, I reached out to them. A silver glow flowed from my hands and surrounded them just as a massive overhang of rock overhead collapsed.

It plummeted straight for my children. But it bounced off the silver light. The stones crashed to the ground with a sound like thunder. Dust rose.

“Run!” I shouted at the Blue Ridge wolves, filling my voice with command. My eyes met Trajan’s. “Run,” I repeated.

To my surprise, they did. They turned and ran. All of them except Evelyn and the group of female rogues.

Instead of running, they shifted. “We aren’t leaving here without Dane and Aurora,” Evelyn snarled.

Waylon Reed might have started to say something, but I couldn’t be sure. Because at that moment, the stone column cracked. A figure stepped out from its center. Tall and lean, with a mane of black hair and eyes like blue flames.

Those eyes fell on me, and I tasted smoke.

“Aurora,” he said, and his voice was smooth and rich as chocolate. “My priestess. My queen. Come to me.”

I didn’t want to leave Dane, but a strange power filled my limbs. Without meaning to, I rose and walked to the man who had just stepped from the stone.