Chapter 201 DANE
The air is thick and heavy tonight, weighed down by the storm brewing around us. The pack has been working nonstop, reinforcing defenses, and devising a strategy, but I don’t feel one inch better. Something’s wrong, and I just can’t put my finger on it.
Aurora is a beacon within the darkness, the new power welling inside her, alive and breathing now, as if a living thing unto itself—a thing of both wonder and surprise. But there is something behind her eyes that she has not shared.
I walked down some area, taken by an overriding feeling we’re being watched. Whispers hide upon the breeze as it stirs the leaves, just out of catch.
“Something’s not right,” I mutter lowly.
Trajan steps out of the darkness, his movements almost smooth.
“Dane,” he says, his tone neutral, almost too calm. “The eastern watch needs reinforcement. I’ve already sent a few of our best there.”
I narrowed my eyes, studying him. “Why weren’t those orders run through Aurora or me?”
“Trajan!” I scream, planting myself in his path.
He spins around, his face empty, no warmth, no fear that I’ve ever known. “Dane,” he says, his tone hollow. “You shouldn’t have come.”
“Snap out of it,” I plead, my voice filled with emotion. “This isn’t you. Fight it.”
His lips twist into a cold smile. “There is no fighting it. The Nameless owns me now.”
I clench my hold on my blade. “Then I’ll free you the hard way.”
We clash, his strikes exact and unending. Every blow hurts even more, remembering the bond that once lay between us.
“You can’t win,” he says, a near-pitying tone in his voice.
“Maybe not,” I reply, “but I’ll die trying.”
Meanwhile, the pack fights valiantly, but this will not hold against the weight of the Nameless. In the middle is Aurora—her usual light amongst the dark. She’s strained with every motion, and I can practically see the weight of her newly found strength draining her.
Warrick and Piper flank her, cutting through enemy after enemy in perfect sync with each other, as they are connected.
“We can’t hold them off forever,” Piper yells back, her voice barely above the chaos.