Chapter 160

AURORA

I knew Evander was home early, but I didn’t expect to see him waiting for me. I stood by the door, saying goodbye to guests. Dane’s quick entrance and exit had unsettled everyone, and I was smoothing many ruffled feathers.

“Luna?”

I glanced up in surprise. “Evander. You should be resting.”

“I know, but there are things I need to tell you.”

You could tell me through the pack bond, I said.

I can, but this is important enough that I wanted to be face to face. Besides, telling you sooner wouldn’t have helped. Tonight had to happen.

I gave him a brief nod, keeping my expression cool and polite even though my heartbeat picked up at the idea that he would have news.

Once the guests were gone, I met Evander in my personal sitting room. I’d taken over Dane’s old rooms. It was bittersweet, because it made me feel close to him, but it also reminded me of him every second of every day.

I had food served and made sure Evander was eating before I sat down. “What do you have to tell me?”

“My team and I are closing in on the location of the entrance to the Nameless’s lair. I’ve narrowed it down to an area of just a few square miles in the mountains.”

I swallowed, my heart beating rapidly again. “That’s timely, because your father has been working hard on the relic.”

I looked my cousin over. He used to be vibrant, lively, and energetic enough to keep up with the twins. While I had no doubts about his ability to keep up—Evander had proved to be the deadliest wolf working for me outside of Trajan, these days—he looked tired and worn. He’d never fully recovered from what the Reeds had done. I understood that.

I put my hand over his and squeezed, then told him to get some rest. “I want you to stay as long as Dane does. With the shadow wolves so near our land, I need all my best fighters at home.”

Some emotion passed over Evander’s face, but it was gone before I could read it. “Yes, Luna.”

“Aurora,” I said. “I’m still just your cousin.”

I pulled him into a hug. He seemed to need it because he hugged me back tightly. Then he left to get ready for bed.

That night, I dreamed.

I dreamed many nights–as Luna of so many wolves and a chosen of the goddess, I tried to be close to her and listen to her advice. Tonight was different, though. The dream didn’t have the touch of the moon goddess. At least, not exactly.

I was in a forest. My skin itched, but when I tried to scratch it, my fingers were like claws and I cut myself and bled. I gasped and pulled my hands away, turning them back and forth… but they looked normal. I wiped my brow, which felt hot and cold, like I had a fever or silver poisoning.

Something moved in the trees, just beyond where I could make it out. It was ghostly silver. I wasn’t sure if it was hunting me, or just watching, or maybe even beckoning me… but I felt like I knew it.

I had to see it.

Run.

My body leaped into a wild sprint, pelting through the trees before I even realized what I was doing.

I should have been afraid of tripping, of hurting my bare feet. Instead I lifted my chin into the wind created by my passing. The feverish shivers tingled through me, but they weren’t as strong as the joy I felt.

I ran, and everywhere my bare feet hit cool moss or dirt or dry leaves, the earth and I were one. I breathed, pulling the sweet-scented air of the summer forest into my lungs, and the air and I were one.

My muscles burned with the good burn of exercise when one had been still for too long. I stretched myself, the trees flashing by, the silver shadow ahead, always ahead.

Because I wasn’t running from it, I was running toward it.

The woods were turning from golden sunlit day to silver moonlit night, and somehow I still ran, and somehow I was more alive and freer than I had been in so long.

I would catch up to the thing soon. I would catch it, and then the fever plaguing my body would break, and I would finally—

The scream of alarms shocked me out of my dream.

I sat bolt upright in bed. My sheets were twisted around me, soaked in sweat. The hot/cold fever feeling of the dream lingered, but I pushed the sensation away.

What’s happening? I put out to the pack.

Luna, said Camila, one of the former female rogues who now made up my inner circle of spies, bodyguards, attendants, and advisors. It’s the shadow wolves. They’ve returned, and they’re attacking.