Chapter 24 AURORA

It was a long drive through the night to the home where I’d grown up. In the years since Dane had driven out the Reeds, several trees had fallen across the old gravel road. About a mile away, I had to get out and walk.

I knew from my faded memories that the forest at night used to be a place I loved, a place that felt familiar to me, a place I called home. When I had my wolf, I was one of the creatures that ruled the night.

Even so, there were places wolves didn’t dare to go, places ruled by ancient, evil things.

Now that I didn’t have a wolf, the whole forest felt more like that. There was only a sliver of a moon. Even though I was on a road, the trees leaned over it, twining their branches together, making it so dark I couldn’t see my feet or the path.

I could have used a flashlight, but sometimes it was safer to move through the dark than to draw attention with a light.

There were noises in the forest, too.

People who aren’t used to the woods think of it as a quiet place, but it isn’t. There are always sounds: animals moving, the wind blowing the leaves, the sudden crack of old, dead branches falling from trees.

I ignored them all, keeping my eyes forward as I made my way toward memories I wanted desperately to leave sleeping.

But I couldn’t, not if I ever wanted to take charge of my own life, not if I ever wanted to create a world where my children and I and everyone else I loved could be safe.

I hadn’t taken more than twenty steps when I realized where I was. This road used to mark one of the borders between Reed and Montague land.

This was where the Reeds had dumped me the night they’d killed my wolf with silver, the night I’d met Dane.

I turned from the road like I was under a spell. Yes, this was the flat place I’d dragged myself through the ditch.

A few more steps, and I found the oak with gnarled roots that I’d used like handholds to drag myself along.

A few more, and here were the half-buried boulders that had cut into my hands and bruised my knees as I crawled.

The trees parted, and I stepped into the faint moonlight.

The wall was still there. It was so old; it had probably been built by a homesteader hundreds of years ago. It was covered in vines and moss.

There was something to this place, a magic that lingered. It tasted like destiny, like fate.

“Aurora. What the hell are you doing here?”

Dane stood on the wall, the moon shining over his broad shoulders, his naked chest. He must have run here as a wolf.

I gasped and tried to turn and run into the shadows, but it was too late.

He caught me before I ran three steps. His big hand wrapped around my wrist like a manacle of iron, and he jerked me back toward him.

“You may be under my protection,” he growled, “and you may have been welcome at the gala, but you of all people should know that trespassing on my land without permission means death.”

DANE

Of course, she was here. I’d told her to stay in her house, for her own safety. So, of course, she’d have to prove she didn’t have to obey me.

But as I looked down at her, her pale coloring making her practically glow in the light of the moon, I couldn’t help wondering why she’d come here.

I came to this place when my dreams were troubled, like they had been tonight.

Because I’d dreamed of her, of an alternate life, where she was never a Reed. Or where there was peace, and she and I had been mated in a treaty instead of as the climax of a night of death.

Then I’d dreamed of Evelyn, pregnant with my child. Except when she gave birth to my son, he wasn’t mine. He was shrouded in shadow. He cried, and when I tried to pick him up, he screamed for someone else.

“Dane, please. Let me go,” Aurora whispered, snapping me back into the present. “There are things I need to do, things I need to face alone.”

Anger rose in me. I’d thought we were finally finding common ground as something like business partners, but even after all this time, and with everything that was at stake, every word from her mouth was a lie.

“I heard your car. You’re headed for Reed land. Where are you going, Ann? To join them? To let them in on the secrets you shared with me? Or have they been in on the secrets all along? Maybe you called them to your house tonight, yourself, and the only reason it turned hostile is because my wolves were there. Maybe you’ve been double-crossing me all along.”

“No!” She tried to tug her wrist free, but I refused to let go. She smacked an open palm against my chest. My skin stung and burned, but I didn’t budge.

“What am I supposed to believe, when you’re prowling around out here by yourself?”

“I was going to the old pack house! Those pages—”

I tugged her closer. “You said we didn’t need them. Now you claim you want to get them alone? Were you just trying to throw me off? What’s on those pages you don’t want me to see?”