The Human Among Wolves (Aurora) novel Chapter 212

Chapter 212

“What do you think?” Mira asked, her voice pulling me out of the tangle of my own thoughts.

I blinked, refocusing, and turned toward her–and for a second, I forgot what I was even supposed to be thinking about.

Mira looked stunning.

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She spun lightly in place, the soft pink fabric of her long dress flowing around her ankles like a whispered breeze. The color suited

her perfectly–warm, sweet, and quietly elegant. Her hair was styled alf up, half down, the top braids woven with tiny silver beads

that caught the light every time she moved. Loose curls framed her ce, softening her sharp cheekbones.

And her makeup… Mira always had a gentle hand with it, but tonigh it was something else entirely. Soft shimmer on her eyelids, a

hint of blush, glossy lips. She looked like she’d stepped straight out of a storybook.

“You look…” I started, then stopped, because the word pretty felt like an insult next to what I was seeing.

She raised a brow. “If you say ‘fine, I’m kicking you.”

I snorted, shaking my head. “No. You look beautiful, Mira. Really. Like… unfairly beautiful.”

Her face lit up in that sweet, bashful way she had–like compliments made her glow from the inside out. She smoothed her hands down the sides of her dress, the fabric shimmering faintly.

“Thank you,” she murmured, biting back a smile, “It means more coming from you than it does from these two gremlins.”

“HEY,” Riven and Lira chorused from opposite corners of the room.

I couldn’t help laughing. The room was chaotic–hair products, shimmer sprays, open makeup bags tossed across beds–but warm. Familiar, Comforting. Like everything inside me wasn’t quietly falling apart.

Mira stepped closer, reaching out to gently fix a stray strand of my hair that had fallen forward.

“And what about you?” she asked softly. “You okay?”

I opened my mouth to say yes–to lie, like I’d been doing for days–at the words stuck somewhere in my throat.

Instead, I only managed a small nod and an even smaller smile before turning back toward the dress hanging on the wardrobe door.

It really was beautiful.

A deep, midnight blue that shifted in the light, almost like it held it own quiet glow. The fabric skimmed down in a long, elegant line, soft enough to move with the slightest turn of my body. And th sleeves–god, the sleeves–were made of the thinnest silk, sheer and delicate, brushing against my skin like cool water whenever I touched them.

I ran my fingers over the material, tracing the gentle drape of it. The color made my skin look warmer, my hair darker, my eyes brighter. It was the kind of dress people wrote about, the kind of thing I never would’ve chosen for myself.

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Chapter 212

But the girls had.

Lira said it made me look like royalty.

Riven insisted it made my “mysterious brooding energy finally make sense.”

Mira claimed it was the only dress that made me “look like how Z-

She’d stopped herself there.

They all did whenever his name slipped too close.

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I swallowed and smoothed the bodice again, pretending my chest didn’t tighten.

The silk sleeves shimmered softly under the lamplight, floating like they weren’t entirely tethered to the rest of the dress at all.

It really suits you. Mira murmured from behind me, voice gentler this time, less teasing.

I didn’t turn around right away. I just kept touching the fabric, letting it distract me, letting it anchor me.

“Yeah.” I said quietly, though the word came out thinner than I’d meant. “It’s… really pretty.”

And for a moment, with the silk cool beneath my fingertips and the room humming with warmth behind me, I let myself pretend that tonight was simple–that it was just a dance, just a dress, just a night with my friends.

Even though nothing inside me felt simple at all.

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