Chapter 79

AURORA

Yesterday, all I wanted was to hear Dane knock on my door. Today, I dreaded it.

“I don’t know what to do,” I whispered, standing in my bedroom and looking out over the training ground, but this time, my gaze was fixed on the forest beyond.

“What do you want to do?” Trajan asked.

I looked over my shoulder at my second, trying to keep the tears welling in my eyes from spilling onto my cheeks. “I want last night to never have happened. I want none of this to ever have happened.”

My bodyguard and hopefully future beta gave me a sympathetic smile. He came over and gave me a hug. It made me remember Holden hugging me last night, and I couldn’t help but pull away.

“I didn’t think he liked me that way. I don’t know how I could have let myself get drunk enough to sleep with him.”

Trajan frowned. “You usually don’t drink. Did he give you alcohol?”

I sat in an armchair near the window and pinched the bridge of my nose. “I wanted some. Yesterday… no, every day since we came here… it’s all been a mess, Trajan. Dane was right about that.”

I leaned forward and rubbed my face in my hands. “If what we were doing wasn’t so important, I would be so tempted to take the twins and disappear again.”

My words were light, but I felt nothing inside but agony.

I was so close to having Dane. I wanted him. He wanted me. And now I had messed up this badly?

I’ve always wanted you, Aurora. If you think I’m going to give you up to Montague so easily after this, you’re mistaken.

Goddess, why? I had never wanted Holden that way, no matter how handsome he was. I thought he was a friend. Was it possible he’d been waiting for this?

The thought planted a seed of fear in my stomach. Holden was my strongest ally outside of the rest of my pack, which was thousands of miles away. “Things were easy between us as friends, but Holden has very real power over us here, Trajan. I feel like I’m playing chess and I’ve just found out I don’t even know which pieces are on the board.”

Trajan growled, angry and low. “What are you going to do?”

I straightened. “The only thing I can. I have to tell Dane.”

“You want to find the powerful Alpha who possibly thinks you tried to murder his grandfather yesterday and tell him you spent last night drunkenly fucking the wolf he sees as his biggest rival?”

“What else can I do? If I lie and he finds out, everything will be so much worse.” I took an unsteady breath and rose. I had done so much to develop poise over the last few years. I would need all of that when I went to speak to Dane.

I could only hope that he was in a good mood.

DANE

My grandfather lingered in his weakened state for the rest of the day and through the night. I don’t know what it was—some instinct from my wolf, unexplainable in words—that kept me by his side. Thank the Goddess. Because just before dawn the next morning, he died.

I was in the chair next to his bed when he woke with a gasp. He half-sat up. “Dane!”

“I’m here.” I took his hand. He looked at me, and only then did I see that the black veins had spread to his eyes and to the insides of his lips when he spoke.

He started to whisper something I couldn’t hear. I leaned close and did my best to make out his words.

“What’s coming… require everything… blood…”

“I didn’t understand,” I said, pulling back to look at him.

He gasped. His breath wheezed in his chest.

“Celia!” I called out loud and through the pack bond.

I’m coming, Alpha!

She was on her way, but I knew she wouldn’t be soon enough. Even if she was, I knew, as well, that there was nothing she would be able to do. This curse had been slowly killing him for too long. What Aurora had done had finished him.

But what had she done? She said she had a dream. Could it be that simple? Or was I letting my desperation to trust her get the better of me? Maybe I was blinding myself to things that should be obvious.

My grandfather finally spoke again. “What’s coming… Dane… will require your blood. You… sacrifice. Don’t… not worth… your life…”

He gave my hand a final squeeze. Then he breathed his last, and