Chapter 99 AURORA

I cried out and pressed a hand over my chest. My heart slammed against my ribs in fear. The light cut off, contained, but it still hurt, still burned. “Ah!”

Cursed. That’s what the dream entity had said.

“Aurora!” Dane tried to pull me toward him.

I was cursed. Goddess, what if I hurt Dane?

I rolled away from him, my hand still pressed against my chest. I knew I wasn’t worthy to reach out to the moon goddess, but I prayed anyway.

Goddess, please, don’t let me hurt him. Let me contain this…

My palm tingled. The light pouring from beneath my hand changed. No longer purple and bruised, it shimmered silverly white, blue, and purple. A cool feeling like fresh water poured over the feverish burn of the wound.

I gasped and lifted my hand. “What…?”

The oozing light of the scar was gone. Instead, my palm glowed. That was the source of the new light. I’d seen those colors of light before…

Before I could grasp the memory, it faded, as did the light from my palm.

“Aurora?” Dane’s voice was rough in the dark, and it snapped my attention away from my hand and my scar.

I’d tried to move away from him, but he wasn’t having any of that. He knelt behind me on the mattress, his hands on my shoulders, my back pressed against him.

“Dane, I was trying to keep you safe,” I said. “That evil light. It looked like it was trying to get to you.”

He shifted and wrapped his arms around my waist. “You are never safer away from me.”

I closed my eyes at the ache caused by his words. Maybe because it was dark, I was bolder. Since his change of heart, I had mostly left our past unspoken, but that wasn’t healthy. What he and I needed was honesty.

So I said, “I still have trouble trusting that.”

“Of course,” he said. There was no irritation or anger in his voice, only complete understanding. “All I can ask for is time.”

I nodded, then lifted my hand to where his was on my shoulder and intertwined our fingers. He gripped mine tightly, then dropped a kiss on top of my head. “What just happened?”

I hesitated, staring at my palm. “I… don’t know. I was having a nightmare, and then my scar, and then…”

His thumbs kneaded small, comforting circles against my shoulders. “What was the nightmare about? Maybe that will explain why that scar you got from the shadow monster in the Reed’s pack house was acting up.”

I flinched. Only a few seconds ago, I had thought to myself that we needed honesty, but I still had one great secret from Dane.

That I hadn’t been a victim, but a willing participant in the near downfall of Blue Ridge all those years ago.

A weapon, they had called me. Hidden in plain sight.

Shame flooded me, threatening to drown me. Only my memory loss that night had saved Dane’s life.

At my core, I was a disgusting, evil thing. I didn’t deserve him or his love.

I closed my palm and let it drop into my lap. “Something… terrible. It was definitely a monster.”

It was the truth, even if it was a misleading truth. He would think I meant the monster who had scarred me, when the only monster I’d dreamed about was me.

Then I remembered the second part of the dream, and I tilted my head. It hadn’t felt anything like the first part. “Then I was somewhere else, floating in a sky of stars. Safe. And there was a voice…”

I trailed off again. The voice had told me I was cursed.

I opened my palm again, trying to picture the dream. It glimmered with a few specks of the iridescent light, and I gasped. Dane saw it, too.

“What is that?”

“I don’t know.” I touched my chest. “But my scar was burning, and the light from my hand stopped it.”

I bit my lip and swallowed a growl of frustration. What the hell was happening? None of it made sense.

Then I remembered something else and turned around to face Dane. “There was something else in the dream, about you and your grandfather, and something in your blood. Do you know what that means?”

Dane’s brow furrowed. “No. But we know what Remington said about the Reeds taking my blood in exchange for our children. And the last two times I spoke to my grandfather, he talked about me becoming a sacrifice.”

“That just brings up more questions, Dane. We need answers. My grandmother didn’t give us long. We’re running out of time. And now the twins are missing on top of it…”

I started to shake. Dane pulled me close. “Don’t undo all of the good sleep you just had by overwhelming yourself. One step at a time. The children first. Even Augusta won’t make you leave here without them.”

He pulled back. His eyes went to my chest and widened. “Aurora… look at your scar.”