Chapter 21 AURORA

Dane lifted a hand and carefully traced the place where three pages had been torn from the book. The surrounding pages were splotched with an old, rust-colored liquid. Blood.

I had flipped through this book hundreds of times, trying to figure that out myself. But I thought I knew.

“The Reeds gave me this book because they said it was full of old scribbles. They didn’t think it was important. I don’t remember much about when they gave it to me because I was young.” That was only part of the reason. So much of my life before marrying Dane was lost to me. “But I think I remember Esther Reed saying she tore them out.”

Now I touched the torn places. The book had been written hundreds of years ago. Someone might have been able to translate it, if it was written in a language. Instead, it was written in a code made of strange symbols.

“As I got older, I discovered the symbols were revealing themselves to me. It’s an old gift that runs in our pack, my grandmother says—a gift of magical interpretation. From what I’ve been able to read, the pages beforehand describe the setup for a ceremony. The pages are the ceremony itself.”

“A ceremony?” Dane asked.

I nodded. “The ceremony is to reveal the moon goddess’s chosen.”

“Why would Esther Reed take these pages if she couldn’t read the book and didn’t know how important they are?” Dane asked.

“I don’t know. I spent almost twenty-two years thinking I was their biological daughter. Everything they ever told me was a lie.” Except that I couldn’t trust the Montagues. I did remember them saying that. Over and over again.

Then they made me Dane’s wife and tried to control him through me. But he’d won, in the end. He’d driven them into the shadows in the deepest parts of the forest. Then I’d freed him from me, too.

“Do you think she kept them?” Dane asked. He leaned close, looking over my shoulder. It would have been easy to lay my head on his shoulder and relax against him. Goddess, I hated that part of me still wanted so badly to do that.

I laughed without humor. “Probably. Esther keeps everything. She’s always been a hoarder.”

Dane rubbed his chin. It was a familiar gesture—one he made when he was deep in thought. “The old Reed pack house is on my land.”

I remembered. He’d chased them out in a raid a year after our forced marriage. It had been the win that turned the tide of the pack war against the Reeds.

After that was the first time he went to the Council asking to end our marriage, and the first time the Council had forbidden it.

“What are you saying?” I asked, dread rising in the pit of my stomach.

I hadn’t been back to the place I’d been raised since they poisoned me with silver and left me for Dane to find.

I never intended to go back.

“I’m saying we need to search the house,” Dane said.

I snapped the book closed. “We don’t. The book will guide us to the relic’s location. That’s all we need.”

“Then why is this ceremony in here?” he asked.

I hesitated. Dane and I hadn’t had a civil conversation this long…ever. It was strange. I wasn’t sure how I felt about it. “The chosen is required to undo the magical locks that keep the relic safe. But I believe we can figure it out.”

At least, we could if my grandmother was right, and the prophecy on the first page of the book spoke of me being the chosen. In the few years I’d known her, she’d never been wrong.

And if there was no need to find the chosen, there was no need for me to face my past and visit my abandoned childhood home.

But Dane shook his head. “My grandfather knows a little about messing with ancient magic. One thing is certain, you do everything required, or people die. We need to go into the Reed pack house and find those pages.”

My heart chilled at his words. “No, we don’t.”

Dane stalked toward me suddenly, all the rage and threat he’d been missing back in his voice. “Yes. We do. And we will. Meet me there the day after tomorrow.”

The next night, I dreamed of the night my family killed my wolf. The night I met Dane.

Everything hurt. My veins were on fire. I crawled through the forest. Inside, my wolf had curled up into a tiny corner of my mind, whimpering and crying.

“It’s all right,” I told her. “Please hang on. Please, don’t leave me!”

Even in the dream, my childhood was no more than a dark shadow, but I knew my wolf was the reason I had survived. I knew we had to keep living.

I fell to the ground, face down.

“Help…please…” My voice was so weak I could barely form the words. Even as I called out, I despaired.

No one would come for me. No one ever had.

Then there was a warm hand on my face. “Shh. What’s your name?”

His voice was kind. And there was something…my wolf…she reached for him….

And in that moment, she died.

I didn’t know what happened after that, only that he was carrying me. His heartbeat was steady against my ear.

Safe, it seemed to say. Safe, safe, safe.

But it had been wrong. Instead of curling into his chest, I started to cry.

DANE

I woke in a cold sweat from the dream. My clock read 2 am.

I hated that fucking dream.

Every time I had it, I woke up feeling like a knife had been twisted in my heart. Like I was in love with the woman who’d ruined everything.

Like I should protect her, even now.

In a way, I was. That’s why I’d sent my sister Piper and my best pack warriors.

As if my name summoned her, my phone started to ring. It was Piper’s name. I answered.

“Piper?”

“Dane,” she sounded panicked. “The Reeds are here. Broken Forest wolves have us surrounded. They want Aurora.”