The Human Among Wolves (Aurora) novel Chapter 386

Chapter 386

The kind of silence that wasn’t calm or steady or accepting.

It was the silence of someone wounded.

Someone trying not to lash out again.

Someone trying, for once, to hold himself together because every part of him knew that one wrong word would destroy whatever thin,

fragile thread still connected us.

I didn’t look at him, but I could feel the change.

He turned away from me.

His body angled slightly toward the aisle, shoulder edging a few inches away, like he needed physical distance just to breathe. And the

more he tried to pull back, the more I felt it press into the space between us-the same ugly mixture of guilt and anger and fear that had

been clawing at him since the moment he walked into that blood-soaked room.

He didn’t look at me again.

Not once.

His fingers curled tightly against his thigh, knuckles white, jaw set as if clenching down on a thousand things he wanted to say but didn’t

dare to.

And I…

I mirrored him.

Arms folded.

Body angled away.

Eyes locked on the window, refusing to look at his reflection in the glass.

Two people sharing the same row.

Same air.

Same weight of trauma.

Same suffocating silence.

1/5

But we were galaxies apart.

The engines roared. The plane lifted.

And I felt it-the shift, the slide, that sinking heaviness of being carried away from Russia, away from blood and metal and fear-

But not away from him.

Not away from the one person I couldn’t outrun.

Minutes passed.

Maybe hours.

Time melted into white clouds and the low drone of the aircraft.

Every so often, I felt him glance at me.

A subtle shift of the air.

A ripple along the bond I didn’t want to acknowledge.

But he didn’t speak again.

Didn’t touch me.

Didn’t reach for me, even when turbulence jolted the plane and my breath caught involuntarily.

He sat there, stiff and silent, guilt wrapped so tightly around him it was almost suffocating the both of us.

At some point, I closed my eyes.

Not to sleep-sleep felt impossible-but to shut out the world for just a moment. To pretend, even for a second, that I wasn’t broken open in a thousand places.

But his voice-

the one I never wanted to hear again-

the one I still felt like a phantom in my chest-

played in my head like a cruel echo:

2/5

Do you even have a brain?

Every muscle in my body tightened.

And beside me, I felt it-

A flinch.

He hadn’t said a word.

Hadn’t turned.

Hadn’t moved.

But he flinched.

Because whatever bond tied us together-

whatever forced connection that stupid universe had stitched between us-

it wasn’t dead.

He had felt it.

He had felt me remembering.

My throat tightened painfully.

I didn’t look at him.

He didn’t look at me.

Two wounded animals sharing the same space, too hurt to reach, too afraid to speak, too broken to breathe the same air without bleeding.

When I opened my eyes again, the cabin lights had dimmed. The world outside the window was nothing but shadows and clouds.

And Zayn-

He was turned fully away now.

Arms crossed.

Head tilted back against the seat.

3/5

Pouting.

loud.

Actually pouting.

The mighty, terrifying, sharp-tongued prince looked like a kid who had been told he wasn’t allowed to talk.

And I hated that part of me noticed.

I hated even more that part of me wanted to reach out-

if only to hurt him.

The plane hummed quietly, carrying us through the night.

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