Chapter 50

DANE

I felt the floor crumble. Acting on pure instinct, I grabbed Aurora, pulling her into me and rolling so that she was on top of me as we fell.

“Dane!” she screamed.

I knew I had no time, but I transformed. The lycan body could take more abuse than this one.

The dark surrounded us. I was half-transformed by the time we hit the ground.

My back and ribs exploded in pain, but I kept my arms wrapped around her, kept her head tucked protectively against my chest.

I couldn’t breathe. The wind had been knocked out of me. She fought for me to let go, and I finally did.

“Goddess! Dane!” She knelt beside me. She’d managed to keep her phone in her hand, and its light swept over me as she searched for injuries.

I could tell I’d cracked a few ribs, and I didn’t even want to think about my spine. But I could still feel all my limbs, so that was a good sign.

I finished the shift all the way into a wolf. Then slowly, achingly, I turned back into a man. The shift popped the seams of my clothes, but they were intact enough to wear.

Aurora sat back as I shifted. When I was fully human again, she leaned forward and touched my head, my face, my chest. “Are you all right? Is anything broken? Did the shift–?”

“It healed me well enough,” I said. My voice was gruff. My body still ached, especially my head, but it was nothing I couldn’t handle.

Aurora stood up and flashed her phone around. “Trajan! Archer!”

I reached out for my beta with my mind. He was sore but answered. We fell pretty far. I think we’re in some kind of sub-basement. It’s strange.

“They’re alive,” I told her. To Archer, I said, Find a way back up and meet us.

Yes, Alpha.

I rose, wincing at a few aches and strained muscles that hadn’t been able to heal. Aurora was still shining the light around a bit wildly.

It was strange to see her like this when she’d been so calm, so collected since returning. If I listened with my wolf’s ears, I could hear her heart beating, the way her breath fluttered in and out of her chest.

“Come here,” I said. I grabbed the hand that held her phone. “In this state, you’re likely to fling this against a wall and shatter it. Then you wouldn’t have any light at all.”

“I–”

I ignored her protests, gently took the phone from her hand, and shined it along her face and body. “Are you injured?”

“No,” she said. Then she hesitated and added, “Thank you for that.”

“If I hadn’t done it, Trajan would have,” I said. Seeing no injuries, I handed back her phone.

“Maybe he would have,” she said. “But you were faster.”

I grunted. I didn’t want either of us reading into my actions more than strictly necessary. “Alpha powers. That’s all. Come on. We need to try and find our way back upstairs. Do you recognize where we are?”

She glanced around, her pale brows drawing together. “It’s hard to say. There’s a lot of debris from the fall.”

She flashed the phone around some more, then lifted it to look at the place we’d fallen through. Muttering to herself, she said, “I think it’s this way.”

Then she led me into the dark.

The room we’d fallen into was large and open. From the few boxes we saw around, it seemed to have been used mostly for storage.

It took a few minutes, but we found the door. It was stuck. I kicked it open.

It burst into splinters, and we moved through into another part of the basement. Eventually, we found a set of stone stairs, but they didn’t lead all the way up, only halfway.

“Is there another set of stairs?” I asked.

“Yes,” she said. She had a determined look on her face. “But these are the ones we want.”

We followed them up to a single door that opened into a bare stone room with no windows. “Why did we come up here?” I asked. “There’s only one room. We’re looking for your childhood bedroom, not some dismal storage area.”

She looked up at me with a raised brow. “Dane…this was my room.”

Shock rocked me to my core, because this wasn’t a room.

It was a prison cell.

How could she have grown up here?

How could anyone who had any kind of heart keep a child in this place? This darkness?

“Is this a joke?” I asked.

She frowned and shook her head. “No, Dane. I told you. The Reeds abused me. Used me.”

She glanced around the stone room, then took a few steps inside.

She turned back to me and lifted her arms. The ceiling was so low she could touch it. In one corner of the room there was a sad little cot and a rickety wooden table next to it.

“Do you believe me now?” she asked.