Chapter 162 AURORA

Thanks to Morwen, it was easy to pinpoint the places Dane’s shadows were attacking. Trajan, Evander, and the others hid in the forest in their wolf forms while I walked directly out to the barrier.

Dane stood on the other side of it. He didn’t have any of his werewolves with him, but the shadow wolves he commanded were at his side, spread out and attacking.

Before I even stepped into his view, it was like I could feel his eyes on me.

“Aurora,” he said as I came to a stop just on the inside of the barrier, inches from the snapping jaws of the wolves.

I shivered. I didn’t remember much about my few days under the Nameless’s control, but I remembered those wolves. I remembered using them to push Holden from a cliff and kill him. That winter it had snowed hard, and as far as I knew, his body still hadn’t been found. It would take a warm year to thaw the mountains that high up.

“Dane.” I pulled a polite smile onto my face, even though my body was reacting to the sight of him like it always did. Elevated heartbeat, heat through my body, unsteady breath. Every time I saw him, he was just so beautiful. So undeniably sexy. I thought I’d appreciated that before, but being deprived of him for two years magnified everything.

I eyed the wolves and the barrier between us. The magical trap the witches had built into my pendant wouldn’t work with the barrier between us – it had been created to keep magic from passing through. That meant I would have to step outside the barrier if I wanted to try and trap Dane.

Once we had him, we had a special cell set up in the dungeon below the packhouse. It had been made comfortable and was magic-proofed in every way we could think of to try and weaken the influence of the Nameless. I had no idea if it would work, but I desperately wanted to try.

“Why are you here attacking my barrier? And so alone?” I asked in a low voice.

The corner of Dane’s mouth ticked up in a ghost of a smile, and he gestured at his shadow wolves. “I’m no more alone than you are.”

“My backup is blood and bone,” I said. “Yours is nothing more than a trick of the light.”

Dane’s smile grew. “Is it? Then why don’t you step outside with me?”

I toyed with the pearl pendant, then stepped closer to the barrier. Dane was already standing right in front of it, and my movement brought me close enough that there were inches between us. Maybe it was an illusion, but I swore I could feel his warmth. The barrier didn’t stop the flow of air. It didn’t keep out heat or scent.

Dane’s nostrils subtly flared as I closed the distance between us, coming as close to the barrier as I dared. While the areas over the roads were made to pass through easily, the barrier here in the forest was different. A person could enter or exit, but unless they were unconscious, it was much harder to pull them through against their will. He might try to grab me, but the magic wouldn’t make it easy.

“I just want to speak with you,” I said, my voice low. “Earlier tonight…”

My gaze dropped to his lips. It might have seemed like I was seducing him on purpose, but I was the one who had been seduced years ago. I meant every word, every look. I ached for Dane. I wanted him back.

From the way his eyes darkened, something in him remembered, and something in him wanted me, too, despite the influence of the Nameless.

Dane dismissed his wolves.

Be careful, Luna, Trajan growled in my mind. I could feel his seething need to snatch me away from the barrier and carry me back to the packhouse, but though he might complain, Trajan had always respected my ability to make my own choices. That’s why he was my beta.

Be on guard, I replied. He wants me, Trajan, but he’s still so deep in the shadows.

Then I took a breath and stepped through the barrier.

The instant I did, my hand leaped to the pearl at my throat, and I unleashed my trap. Energy blasted from the necklace. It circled Dane, hardening the air around him as if he were stuck in gelatin.

But he moved too fast. Before he could freeze completely, he snatched me against his body and pressed one long claw against my throat.

By the time he was fully caught in the spell, I was, too.