The Human Among Wolves (Aurora) novel Chapter 262

Chapter 262

By the time the northern woods welcome me back, the sun is already tilting west.

Seraphina is waiting when I return, eyes sharp, relief poorly hidden behind irritation.

“You’re late,” she says.

“I got delayed,” I reply, holding up the frostbloom.

She exhales and pulls me into a brief, tight embrace before stepping back. “You’re lucky.”

“I know.”

As night settles over the coven and the frostbloom is secured, I find myself staring east more than once.

Silver eyes.

Black fur.

A prince who looked at me like I was both a threat and a puzzle.

I tell myself it means nothing.

The woods, however, feel different now.

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And somewhere deep within them, I know Theron is thinking about me too.

I try to shake the feeling as the night settles fully around the coven, but it clings to me like smoke.

The fire pit crackles softly as Seraphina and the others work with the frostbloom, crushing petals, murmuring incantations, sealing the day’s panic away behind routine. I sit a little apart from them, back against the rough bark of an old pine, watching the sparks drift upward into the dark. Normally, this is where I feel most at ease. The woods hum in quiet recognition. The balance inside me

steadies.

Tonight, it doesn’t.

My thoughts keep pulling east, as if something there has tied a thin hread around my ribs and is tugging–gently, insistently.

I close my eyes and try to center myself. Fire settles. Water cools. Earth grounds. Air clears.

Still, silver eyes stare back at me from the darkness behind my lids.

A lycan prince.

Not just any wolf. I’ve crossed paths with wolves before–territorial, dangerous, predictable in their hatred. Theron was different. Controlled. Sharp. The kind of power that doesn’t need to announce itself because it knows the world will bend eventually.

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Chapter 262

And worse–he saw me.

Not just me, but what I am.

“All four,” I murmur under my breath.

Seraphina’s voice cuts through my thoughts. “You’re unusually quiet

1 open my eyes and look at her across the fire. “Long day.”

She studies me, gaze narrowing slightly.

“Did something happen out there?”

I consider lying. It would be easier. Safer. But Seraphina has never liked half–truths, and I’ve never been good at them.

“I ran into a wolf,” I say carefully. “A prince.”

That gets everyone’s attention.

“The eastern pack?” one of the elders asks.

“Yes.”

“And you’re standing here because…?” Seraphina prompts.

“Because he let me go.”

Silence follows. Heavy. Unsettled.

“They don’t show mercy,” someone mutters.

“I don’t think it was mercy,” I say slowly. “I think it was… curiosity.”

That earns me a few uneasy looks.

“Curiosity can be more dangerous than hatred,” Seraphina says.

“I know.”

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The meeting dissolves not long after, the urgency gone now that the frostbloom is secured and the wards reinforced. One by one,

the coven members retreat to their huts. The forest grows quieter, the kind of quiet that stretches instead of settles.

I remain by the dying fire long after the others leave.

The flames shrink, embers glowing red beneath ash. I trace slow patterns in the dirt with my fingers, grounding myself, letting earth

pull my thoughts downward. It helps–but not enough.

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Chapter 262

Because somewhere beyond the trees, beyond borders and old blood ends, Theron is awake.

I know it with the same certainty I know the elements. The same in inct that warned me before he ever spoke.

Enemies, he had said without saying it. Wolves and witches. The way things are supposed to be.

Yet the air had shifted between us. Just slightly. Enough to matter.

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I rise at last and turn toward my hut, the cold night brushing my ski. As I step inside and close the door behind me, I press a hand

to my chest, feeling the steady rhythm of my heart.

Balance has always been my strength.

But balance can be disrupted.

And for the first time in a very long while, I suspect that the eastern woods have just tilted something out of alignment.

Whatever this is–between a full elemental witch and a lycan prince it has already begun.

And I know, deep in my bones, that this was not our last meeting.

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