Chapter 19 AURORA

“My blood?” I backed toward where I thought the door was. “Why?”

The temperature in the room was dropping. The air was getting frigid. There was a scent like wet stone and something rotting deep beneath the earth.

“There are two,” the puppet of Violet Mannering said in a whispery voice. Her head hung at a strange angle, like it couldn’t support itself. “The sage and the sentinel. The priestess and the knight. The wise one and the warrior. Their blood together is the key.”

My brows furrowed. Trajan backed up so he was right in front of me. Whatever this creature was, it wasn’t acting like a vampire, and I had no idea what it was talking about.

I reached into my pocket. It would have been stupid to walk into the home of a vampire unprepared, but I had no idea if the blessed water in the vial in my pocket would work on this thing.

Blessed water didn’t have to come from a church – it could come from anyone pure who worshipped greater spirits. We’d found a green witch living in a cottage not too far from us, and she’d been more than happy to provide.

“Let us leave,” I commanded. I pulled the vial from my pocket. In front of me, I saw Trajan’s claws elongate. His body grew, the seams of his clothes popping as he started to take his lycan form.

“There are two!” the thing screamed.

It flew at us.

I lifted the vial of blessed water and threw it right in the creature’s face.

It shrieked in pain. Steam burst from it as it fell backwards.

The other shadows wavered. The darkness lifted for just a moment, just long enough for me to see the door.

“Run!” I shouted at Trajan.

I grabbed for the doorknob and tried to open it.

It was locked.

Behind me, the thing started to laugh.

DANE

When I pulled up to the abandoned mansion, Aurora’s car was outside.

It was empty.

“Shit!” I jumped out of my own car and ran to the door. It takes some wolves time to transform. It makes them clumsy, vulnerable for a few seconds.

I threw off my shoes and shifted while I ran.

By the time I got to the door, I had fully taken my lycan shape: huge, muscled, with claws that could gut another wolf with one swipe.

As I reached the door, I heard Aurora’s muffled shout from the other side. Disgusting waves of corrupt magic oozed out of the house.

“It won’t open!” I heard her yell. Her voice was tight and controlled, terse instead of terrified.

The doorknob shook, like someone was trying to turn it from the other side, but whatever magic was in the house had locked it.

There was a simple solution to that.

The door couldn’t be locked if there was no door.

“Back up!” I roared.

I didn’t have time to wait and wonder if she would listen. I grabbed the doorknob, smashed my claws into the rotting wood to get a handhold, and ripped the thing off its hinges.

The wood screamed and creaked. Then it crumbled in my hands.

On the other side, I saw Aurora, pale and disheveled. Trajan was behind her fighting… something. Something that looked like pure darkness, something that raised a primal rage in me, an instinct to fight like I’d never known.

“Get outside,” I growled.

For once in her life, Aurora immediately obeyed.

I strode to where Trajan was fighting for his life and attacked.

Power gathered around me, something like my Alpha magic, but more. I concentrated it, using it to swipe and claw.

I didn’t expect this darkness to feel solid, but it did. And when I hit it, it tore, shredded, bled.

It screamed, then it shrank back.

I grabbed Trajan and shoved him toward the door. He ran, and I followed.

We made it outside. He kept going, all the way to Aurora, who grabbed him and immediately started tending his wounds.

I faced the house, waiting for the darkness to surge through the door, to come after us.

It didn’t.

The night was still and quiet.

“Get in the car,” I commanded Aurora as I moved to the driver’s side of her car. “And get him in.”

She didn’t argue, just tossed me the keys and got in the back seat with Trajan.

I shifted back into my human form and drove us to her house. I helped Trajan inside and shouted for Celia, one of the older warriors I’d sent with Piper to guard this place. She was a healer.

The way Aurora hovered over his bed, fussing over him, made feelings of ugly jealousy rise inside me. I shoved them down.

There was no room for that, not when I was going to marry Evelyn.

The door to Trajan’s room creaked. A small clear voice said, “They said Uncle Trajan is hurt!”

That voice gripped my heart in a fist like steel. Slowly, I turned.

There were two children standing in the doorway: a little boy with blond hair and brown eyes, and a little girl with black hair and eyes of pale lilac.

The children from my vision.

My children.