The Human Among Wolves (Aurora) novel Chapter 238

Chapter 238

Aurora

I looked at her and waited.

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The chamber felt impossibly quiet, like even the stone walls were holding their breath. My pulse thudded in my ears, slow and

heavy, each beat stretching the moment thinner and thinner.

“She’s…” the leader began, then paused.

That single hesitation made my stomach tighten.

“She’s in the eastern woods.”

For a second, the words didn’t land. They just hovered between us, unreal.

The east.

A hollow laugh almost slipped out of me before I could stop it. Great Of course. We were as far north as we could be without falling off the map, and she was on the complete opposite end..

I opened my mouth, already forming a response–something sharp, something frustrated–but she wasn’t finished.

“She’s where your father’s kingdom is.”

The sentence hit harder than the first.

It stopped me cold.

The air seemed to leave my lungs all at once, my thoughts stalling like they’d slammed into a wall. My chest felt tight, my body suddenly very aware of the space around me, of Zayn behind me, of the weight of everything I’d just learned.

“My father is… in the east?” I asked quietly.

The words sounded strange coming out of my mouth, like they didn’t quite belong to me yet.

She nodded once.

“Do you know anything about him?” I asked.

It was the one question that had been circling my thoughts since forever. Seraphina hadn’t been able to tell me much–she’d admitted she barely knew him at all–and I’d been holding on to the hope that the leader would know something. Anything.

She didn’t answer right away.

Her gaze drifted for a moment, unfocused, as if she were reaching back through years that didn’t quite belong to her. Then she

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Chapter 238

sighed, slow and measured.

“Not much,” she said at last.

The words settled heavily in my chest.

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After a brief pause, she continued, her voice quieter now. “I only know that he loved your mother very much.”

Something in the way she said it–so certain, so unembellished–made my throat tighten.

“When Cecilia disappeared,” the leader went on, “he didn’t know she was pregnant. She was going to tell him. She never got the

chance.”

My hands curled slowly at my sides.

“They took her before she could,” she said. “And after that… he tore half the world apart trying to find her.”

I could picture it without meaning to–rage, desperation, a king refusing to accept loss.

“But he never did,” the leader finished softly. “It was as if she had vanished from the world entirely.”

“What’s his name?” Zayn asked suddenly.

His voice cut through the silence, sharp and tense in a way that made me turn toward him immediately. The leader shifted her gaze to him at last, only briefly, as if even acknowledging him required effort.

“Theron Blackmoor,” she said.

The effect was instant.

Zayn stepped forward as far as the magic restraining him would allow, his body going rigid. I felt it before I fully understood it–a sudden shift, a crack in something solid inside him.

“Zayn?” I called softly.

He didn’t react.

It was like he hadn’t heard me at all.

“Are you…” His voice dropped, rough and unsteady. “Are you sure?”

The leader’s expression hardened, her eyes turning glacial. “Are you questioning me, boy?” she asked coldly, her tone making it clear she had no patience for doubt–especially from him.

Zayn swallowed hard. “My father was best friends with him.”

The words hit me like a blow.

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Chapter 238

“What did you just say?” I breathed, staring at him.

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He finally looked at me then, his face pale, eyes unfocused like he was staring through years of memories all at once. “He–he used to talk about him,” Zayn said, the words stumbling over each other. All the time. About how they drifted apart. About how things

changed.”

His voice broke. He squeezed his eyes shut, jaw tightening as if he were holding something back.

“That son of a bitch,” he muttered under his breath.

Then he opened his eyes again and looked straight at me.

“He…” Zayn dragged in a breath, his jaw tightening. “He kidnapped your mother.”

The words landed heavy, ugly, impossible to ignore.

“I’m fucking sure,” he went on, voice low and burning, “that Theron has no idea his best friend is behind it.

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