“You’ve seen. They’re okay. You’re okay. Let go.”
His eyes track across the clearing one more time—Callum helping Derek stand, Kari sitting silent beside Elena, Benstanding watch at the perimeter with his back to Harper. His pack. Broken and bleeding and choosing each other anyway.
“Good,” he breathes. “That’s good.”
His weight goes slack against me. His eyes close.
“Dane?” I grip him tighter. “Dane!”
But his pulse is there—steady now, stronger than before. He’s not dying.
He’s just done.
I lower him to the ground carefully, keeping his head in my lap. Around us, the pack keeps moving, keeps healing. Lyanna appears at my side, her hands already glowing with soft light as she assesses him.
“He’ll be all right,” she says quietly. “His body just needs time to catch up with what his heart demanded.”
I brush hair from his forehead, watching his face finally relax into something like peace.
“Stubborn bastard,” I whisper.
But I’m smiling when I say it.
Chapter 41
Dane
Iwake with a violent gasp. Air scrapes down my throat like sandpaper. My lungs expand, each breath a stabbing reminder that I’m alive when I shouldn’t be.
The ceiling comes into focus first: wooden beams, familiar. Ash Hollow infirmary. Not the Fade. Not the clearing.
The clearing.
Fragments surface—Nova’s arms around me, the taste of blood in my mouth, forcing myself upright when my body screamed to stay down. Caleb’s steady gaze. My pack moving through the aftermath, choosing each other. Ben catching Harper when she fell, then pulling away like she burned him. Callum helping Derek stand.
Then nothing.
“You passed out.” Nova’s voice comes from my right. I turn my head—too fast, the room tilts—and find her sitting in a chair beside the bed. Dark circles under her eyes. Clothes still stained with blood. Mine or hers, I can’t tell. Her face is gaunt, hollowed with exhaustion. Blood still streaks her temple.
“Lyanna said your body gave out after the clearing. You’ve been down for six hours.”
Six hours. I try to sit up and immediately regret it. Pain lances through my chest, sharp and absolute.
“Don’t.” Nova’s hand presses my shoulder back down. “Do you remember anything?”
Fragments. Her voice, breaking on my name. Warmth spreading through my chest where there should have been nothing. The taste of magic—not Faelan’s cold precision, but something ancient and fierce.
“You restarted my heart,” I say. Not a question.
Her jaw tightens. “You died, Dane. You don’t get to pretend that’s nothing.”
Quiet voices outside. Footsteps. A door closing somewhere down the hall. The crackle of a fire. Normal sounds. Real sounds. The smell of antiseptic and bitter herbs.
“The pack.” My voice is raw, barely audible. I try again. “Where’s everyone?”
Nova rises from the chair, stepping closer. “They made it,” she says. “Most of them.”
Most. Not all. The word cuts deeper than whatever tore through my chest.
