Chapter 38 DANE

I reached for my grandfather, but it was as if the shadows attacking him were solid. They smashed into my chest like a giant’s fist, throwing me back.

It reminded me of the day Aurora thought she was meeting with vampires, but instead, it was something else. Darker and older.

But I’d shredded the creatures in that house. This, whatever it was, slammed me backward without effort.

My back cracked into a tree, and a shock of pain went through my torso.

We’re under attack in the woods! I sent the alert through the pack bond, sending pictures and impressions of the thing we faced.

Instantly, wolves were transforming. Pack members were running for us.

I felt for Evelyn. She was a member of the Hundred Lakes Pack, which meant she wasn’t part of the Blue Ridge Pack network yet. Thankfully, as an Alpha, I could still speak to her when I needed to.

Evelyn, go inside. We’re under attack.

Attack? she repeated. But I’m the chosen.

Get in the house! I snarled. You’re pregnant with my child!

I cut off the conversation, which had happened in bare seconds, as the shadows pinned me to the tree.

It released me, and I fell to the ground in a crouch. My wolf was snapping and snarling at this…enemy. This evil that dared enter my territory.

My body rippled and grew, my teeth and claws growing, my clothes ripping as I took on my lycan form.

I attacked. I tore at the shadows. My grandfather choked and gagged. His lips were taking on a blue tinge as the vines held him aloft, his feet kicking inches above the earth.

I shredded one vine, but another grew in its place. For each one I destroyed, another replaced it.

Finally, the pack arrived. They moved to attack the shadows, but more grew, pushing them back. Some of the vines turned to clawed hands and raked across them, leaving them with long, bloody gouges down their flanks.

“Dane!”

Evelyn ran from the forest. I turned toward her in horror, my mouth open to command her to turn around and stay in the house like I commanded.

Then she lifted her hands. They were transformed so her fingers were long and elegant, tipped with white claws. She held them up, and a swirl of moonlight grew between her fingers.

With a sudden movement, she flipped her palms away from her body and shoved the energy. It shot toward the vines holding my grandfather and exploded in a silent flash of light beneath them.

There was a sound like insects screeching, and half the vines withered. Evelyn gathered another swirl of light and shot it out again.

The vines were still growing, but slower now. The awful, oppressive feeling of the shadows wasn’t so strong.

“Now!” I roared at my wolves. “Help her!”

They attacked, and so did I.

At last, with a few more bursts of light, the shadows screamed and shrank back into the ground.

But before they disappeared entirely, one of the vines drew back. It sharpened on one end like a spear.

Then it plunged into his chest.

The shadows disappeared.

My grandfather dropped.

And he lay still.

I ran forward.

He couldn’t die. I needed him still. He and Piper were all the family I had left. I put my hand to his neck.

There was a pulse. A weak one, but it was there. I tore his shirt, looking for the place the shadow had stabbed into him. There was no blood, no puncture wound, but over his heart, there was a blackened circle with sickly purple and black tendrils spreading from it, as if it were poison that was being spread through his body even as I watched.

My grandfather took a gasping breath. His eyes flew open. He looked from me to Aurora. Only then did I realize she was kneeling across from me, holding his hand.

He squeezed her fingers, then grabbed my arm. “You two… ceremony… not what you think…”

Then he fell unconscious.

“Evelyn!” I called. If anyone could save him, it had to be the "chosen."

She ran over to me and knelt at my grandfather’s side.

“Do something!” I commanded.

Evelyn held up her hands. They were raw and red and covered in blisters, like she’d burned them. They shook, and I could tell she was in pain. “I…Dane, I don’t think this magic works that way. What I did, that’s a weapon. I can’t heal him.”

“Can you burn this out of him?” I asked, pulling my grandfather’s shirt aside to reveal the blackened spot.

“Maybe. But Dane…I don’t know what I’m doing. I could kill him!”

“This will kill him if we don’t do something,” Aurora said. “You have the power of the goddess, Evelyn. She chose you. She did that for a reason. You must try.”

Evelyn stared at her with wide eyes. For a moment, I thought she’d make some snarky remark. The two of them had never worked together. They’d never even said a kind word to each other. Now, Evelyn seemed to take inspiration from Aurora’s faith in her.

She nodded and placed her hands on my grandfather’s chest.

Light gathered again, silver and sparkling. Evelyn let out a hiss of breath. There was a flash where her palms pressed into his skin. He moaned but didn’t regain consciousness.

When she pulled away, his skin was burned and red…but the tendrils were faded. They weren’t growing anymore.

If she hadn’t been able to cure him, she seemed to at least have stopped the shadow’s poison from spreading.

“Call the healers!” I roared at the pack. “Get him into the house!”

EVELYN

Dane was with his grandfather. I stood in the dark. My burned hands were wrapped in bandages.

I couldn’t get my brain around everything that had happened tonight. I was the chosen? Why? When had the goddess ever cared about me?

Out of the darkness, a figure emerged.

“You’re the chosen,” said Archer Fox, Dane’s beta. “What does it mean?”

“I don’t know,” I whispered, desperate and confused. I put my hand over my belly, where our child grew. “But if this magic hurts our baby…”

“We’ll figure it out.” He bent his head and kissed me.