The Human Among Wolves (Aurora) novel Chapter 406

Chapter 406

Aurora

For a moment Zayn didn’t move at all.

He simply stared at me from across the room, the firelight flickering across his face while the weight of what I had just said seemed to settle slowly into the

silence between us, like he was trying to decide whether the words made sense or whether I had completely lost my mind.

Then it hit again.

Harder.

The sensation slammed into my chest without warning, sharp and violent enough that my breath caught in my throat as my fingers instinctively curled

against the fabric of the hoodic.

It wasn’t my pain.

That was the strangest part.

My body reacted to it the same way it would react to an injury, my muscles tightening, my lungs struggling to pull in air, but somewhere deep inside I knew with absolute certainty that the pain did not belong to me.

It belonged to him.

“Oh-” I gasped quietly.

Zayn was moving before I could say anything else.

“What is it?” he asked quickly, stepping toward me.

My hand pressed harder against my ribs.

“He’s hurt,” I said again, my voice lower now, more certain.

Zayn’s eyes darkened.

“How do you know that?”

Another pulse tore through my chest.

This one carried more than pain.

It carried violence.

Adrenaline.

A burst of something raw and furious that made my heart stutter.

My head lifted slowly.

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“He’s fighting,” I whispered,

Zayn froze.

“You don’t know that.”

“I do.”

“How?”

“Because-”

The band pulsed again.

Stronger.

My breath left me in a sharp gasp as my body bent forward instinctively, my palm flattening against my sternum as if I could somehow steady whatever

invisible force was moving through me.

The room blurred for a second.

Not fully.

Not enough to lose control.

But enough that something strange slipped through the edges of my vision.

A flash.

Glass shattering.

Snow swirling through broken windows.

The metallic smell of blood.

My eyes snapped open again.

The living room returned.

The couch beneath me.

The fire burning in the hearth.

Zayn standing directly in front of me, his hands gripping my shoulders.

“Aurora.”

I blinked rapidly.

“What the hell was that?”

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“What did you see?” he asked immediately.

“I didn’t see anything,” I said automatically.

But even as the words left my mouth I knew they weren’t entirely true.

“I felt it.” I corrected quietly.

The sensation pulsed again.

Fainter this time.

But still there.

Still alive.

Zayn dragged a hand slowly through his hair.

“That shouldn’t be possible from this distance.”

“Well it is ”

The room fell quiet again.

For a few seconds neither of us spoke.

Then the bond surged again.

This time the reaction inside my body was immediate.

My back straightened suddenly as a strange heat rushed through my chest, spreading through my ribs and down my spine like something inside me had been

jolted awake.

The glass on the coffee table cracked.

The sharp sound echoed through the room.

Zayn’s head snapped toward it instantly.

Then back to me.

“Aurora,” he said carefully.

I hadn’t even realized what had happened.

My eyes dropped to the table.

The crack running through the glass spread slowly across the surface like a spiderweb.

“That wasn’t me,” I said quietly.

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“Yes it was.”

Another pulse rippled through the bond.

The lights flickered.

Zayn swore under his breath.

“Okay.”

“What okay?”

“That’s your magic reacting.”

“To what?”

“The bond.”

My stomach twisted.

“That’s not comforting.”

“I didn’t say it was.”

The sensation surged again.

This time it wasn’t pain.

It was rage.

Pure, violent fury that didn’t belong in my body but flooded through my yeins anyway, making my fingers curl into fists as my wolf stirred deep inside my

chest.

A low sound escaped me before I realized it.

Not quite a growl.

But close enough.

Zayn heard it.

His expression tightened.

“That’s not good.”

“No kidding.”

He crouched in front of me again.

“Look at me.”

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PP

I forced my eyes back to his.

“Focus on my voice,” he said.

“What exactly are you feeling?”

I tried to concentrate.

The bond pulsed again.

Weaker now.

Like distant echoes.

“Pain,” I said slowly.

“Adrenaline. Rage. Movement.”

Zayn’s jaw tightened.

“That means the bond is active.”

“I thought you said it already was.”

“Not like this.”

Another flicker of something passed through my chest.

This time it carried a strange sense of momentum.

Like something had shifted.

Like the fight was changing.

I inhaled slowly.

“He’s still fighting.”

Zayn stood up abruptly.

His entire posture had changed.

The tired tension he had carried earlier was gone now, replaced by something sharper and far more alert.

“If you can feel him,” he said slowly, thinking out loud now, “then the bond is acting like a conduit.”

1 frowned slightly.

“A what?”

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“A connection.”

PP

“That’s what a bond is.”

“Yes, but normally it doesn’t transmit physical sensations from thousands of miles away.”

Another pulse flickered through my chest.

“We’re not exactly normal right now,” I muttered.

Zayn stopped pacing suddenly.

“Close your eyes.”

“What?”

“Just do it.”

1 hesitated.

J

Then I did.

The moment my eyes shut, the sensation became clearer.

The bond pulsed again.

This time I didn’t resist it.

I focused on it.

On the strange thread pulling through my chest.

For a second nothing happened.

Then-

Glass again.

Snow.

The sound of something heavy crashing into a wall.

A deep, furious snarl that didn’t belong to me.

My eyes snapped open.

Zayn was watching me carefully.

“What did you see?”

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“Fragments,” I said quietly.

“What kind of fragments?”

“A fight.”

His shoulders stiffened.

“Anything else?”

“Snow. Blood.”

I hesitated.

“And… claws.”

Zayn exhaled slowly.

“So he shifted.”

Another pulse flickered through the bond.

Still alive.

Still fighting.

“I think so.”

Silence fell again.

Then I said quietly,