The Human Among Wolves (Aurora) novel Chapter 62

Chapter 62

Aurora

90%

Zayn sighed and sat beside me again, taking the book from my lap and setting it on his own, his posture shifting into something focused, almost academic. He muttered under his breath as his eyes scanned the page, translating Latin into English with a fluency I could never hope to match. Every so often, his lips moved silently, sounding out the words, testing their meaning before putting them into speech.

I sat quietly beside him, watching the way his brow furrowed and the way his jaw tensed when he stumbled across phrases that

didn’t quite make sense. The grimoire seemed almost alive, its script shimmering faintly when he lingered too long, as if it didn’t

want to be read.

Zayn dragged a hand down his face and exhaled, his breath stirring the fragile parchment. “This is going to take forever.”

I gave a humorless laugh. “Forever might not even be enough.”

He shot me a look, sharp and steady, the kind that carried no room for doubt. “Then we start now.”

I nodded, though my chest felt tight. My fingers traced the margins of the current page, where faint notations–tiny, cramped letters

in faded ink–curled like vines in between the larger text. This wasn some simple book of spells. It was a labyrinth.

Zayn leaned in, muttering the Latin aloud, slow and careful, translating as he went. His voice was low, steady, and deliberate, every

word carrying weight. Protective wards. Banishing charms. Circle inscriptions. Nothing we needed, but each line pulled us deeper

into the book’s rhythm.

We turned another page. Then another. Hours stretched and blurred, the steady cadence of his voice filling the silence, the

grimoire’s faint, musty smell clinging to the air. I tried to follow, but the ancient script twisted and knotted in my vision, too dense,

too foreign.

At one point, I rubbed at my temples, groaning. “There are so many spells. How do we even know which one is the right one?”

Zayn paused, his finger still pressed against a line of Latin. “We’ll know. It’ll stand out–something designed to unlock or reveal.

Books like this… they don’t hide things without leaving a trail.”

“Or,” I muttered, “they hide them so well we never find them.”

He smirked faintly, though there was no humor in it. “Then we’ll go through every page until we do. A thousand, two thousand–I

don’t care. We’re not stopping.”

The certainty in his tone made my chest tighten. For a moment, I forgot about the weight of the secret written in that other book-

the one tied to me–and just focused on the fact that I wasn’t alone in this.

The sound of my phone vibrating in my pocket snapped me out of the haze I’d fallen into. My head jerked up, and for the first time

in what felt like hours, I tore my eyes away from the endless Latin sprawled across the grimoire’s pages.

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12:00 Thu, Jan 29 BBB.

Chapter 62

ས.90%–

I blinked, disoriented, and glanced at the clock on Zayn’s wall. 2:10m. My stomach dropped. Shit. I hadn’t even noticed the time passing–it felt like only minutes since we’d started.

Fumbling for my phone, I pulled it out of my pocket and saw the name flashing on the screen. Mom. My heart skipped a beat. I had

completely forgotten.

1 swiped to answer, pressing the phone to my ear. “Hello?” My voice came out a little rushed, a little guilty.

“Hey, hon,” her voice came through, warm but edged with impatience. “Where are you? We’re in front of the gates.”

I bit down on my lip, glancing helplessly back at the grimoire. The idea of stopping now, when Zayn and I had barely even scratched the surface, made something twist painfully in my chest. But I had no choice.

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