The Human Among Wolves (Aurora) novel Chapter 364

Chapter 364

Aurora

They escorted me backstage and left me there.

Just… left me.

The echo of their footsteps disappeared down the corridor, swallowed by the hum of distant voices. The heavy door clicked

shut behind them, sealing me inside the dim, narrow space that smelled faintly of dust, perfume, and fear soaked into the

walls.

The room was empty.

No chairs.

No windows.

No other girls.

–

The ones who had been sold before me were gone already – taken by whoever bought them, disappearing through whatever

exit this place used to funnel bodies out like merchandise.

Buyers.

The word twisted something inside me, sharp and nauseating. I tried to swallow the bitterness creeping up my throat, but it

sat there stubbornly, burning at the edges.

From beyond the door, the muffled voice of the auctioneer continued his performance-smooth, practiced, disturbingly

cheerful.

Another name.

Another girl.

Another bid.

I wrapped my arms around myself, my breath trembling out in uneven bursts. The stage lights no longer blinded me, but the

darkness here felt worse. Heavier. Because I was waiting… for him.

For the man who had just bought me like I was nothing more than an object.

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The silence around me thickened until I could hear my own heartbeat, fast and unsteady. I tried to focus. Tried to breathe.

Tried to think.

But then-

A sharp, sudden burn slashed across my wrist.

“Ah-!” I gasped, clutching it instinctively.

The mark.

The carved, seared stamp they’d branded into my skin days ago suddenly felt like it was on fire. Heat spread up my forearm,

crawling beneath my skin like molten metal. My knees buckled and I braced myself against the wall, teeth sinking into my lip

to keep from crying out again.

The burn worsened.

Not warm.

Not tingling.

Burning.

Violent and alive.

Like something within it had awakened.

The pain shot up toward my elbow, then my shoulder, then deeper-like it wasn’t just in my body but under it. Through it.

“My-my wolf-” I whispered, panic scraping my throat raw.

Still nothing.

Still silent.

But the mark didn’t care.

It pulsed once-hard enough to steal my breath.

Then again.

And again.

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Chapter 364

Each wave stronger than the last, like a heartbeat that wasn’t mine.

I pressed my back to the wall, sliding down until I was sitting on the cold floor, clutching my wrist with my shaking hand.

“What is happening?” I whispered to no one, my voice breaking on the last word.

The burn intensified, and for the first time since the day they locked me inside that cell, I felt genuinely terrified of what lay

ahead-not just of the buyer, not of the auction, not of the king-

But of what they’d done to me.

I curled forward, forehead nearly touching my knees as a low, shaky breath escaped me. The pain didn’t stop. It didn’t ease. It

throbbed beneath my skin like something alive, like something responding to something beyond this room.

Or someone.

My fingers dug into the floor, the concrete cold against my palms.

“Please,” I whispered to myself—to my wolf, to the universe, to anything that could hear me. “Please just… stop.”

It didn’t.

The mark pulsed again, a vicious twist of heat that shot all the way to my shoulder, making my vision blur.

I squeezed my eyes shut.

But the darkness didn’t help.

If anything, it made everything sharper.

Because now I wasn’t in a cell where time didn’t exist.

Now I wasn’t surrounded by rows of girls who were terrified just like me.

Now it wasn’t the masked man dragging me or the old woman ordering me around.

Now-

Now it was silence.

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