Aelira’s expression softened. She looked at me, a spark of the familiar warmth I remembered from the Archives passing through her eyes.
“I told you the history would find you eventually, Selene.”
“You knew,” I whispered. “Back at the Archives. You knew everything.”
“I knew enough to wait,” she said.
Goran grunted, stepping past us to stand beside Aelira. He turned his somber stare towards one of the dark archways on the left.
“You can bring him in,” he rumbled.
I frowned. “Bring who?”
Two figures emerged from the shadows. A woman and a man. They were young, lean, and moved with a fluid, dangerous grace. The woman had striking silver hair; the man’s was pitch black. But their faces were almost identical—a similar sharp jaw, the same high cheekbones, and eyes of piercing, identical green.
Twins.
But it was the man walking between them who made my heart stop.
Dane.
He stepped into the light, battered and furious. In his leather jacket and jeans, he looked entirely out of place in the ancient magical bunker.
“Dane?” I choked out.
He spotted me, and the tension in his shoulders vanished. “Selene.”
I crossed the distance in three strides, grabbing his arm just to make sure he was real.
“How are you here?” I demanded. “I told you to go home. I told you to stay away.”
“I didn’t trust him,” Dane said, glaring at Riven. “So I followed. I parked the car three streets away and doubled back on foot to watch the perimeter.”
He gestured to the twins flanking him.
“I was tracking you fine until these two materialised out of nowhere. No sound, no scent. I was crouching by the hedgerow near the gate when they grabbed me.”
The man with black hair grinned. It was a feral expression. “You were loud for a wolf. We heard you dragging your feet from the end of the lane.”
“I’m injured,” Dane snapped.
“You’re lucky,” Goran corrected from the centre of the room. “I smelled a pup at the door. I told them to retrieve you before Korenth’s sweepers found your scent.”
Another door opened, revealing a woman. She was tall, with light blonde hair and a face that radiated a calm, potent warmth.
She ignored the strange company, her eyes locking onto us—cataloguing the dirt on my face, the tension in Riven’s jaw, and the way Dane favoured his back. She carried a tray laden with mugs and a steaming teapot, the china rattling softly as she set it down on the nearest stone table.
“You’re hurt,” she stated.
She moved to Riven first. He flinched as she reached out, clearly not recognising her, but she didn’t touch him. She just hovered her hand over his side, where the knife went in days ago.
“It’s healed,” Riven said stiffly, eyeing her with suspicion. He knew Goran and Aelira, but this woman was a stranger to him.
“It’s knitted,” she corrected gently. “There is a difference.”
She turned to Dane, her brow furrowing. The calm warmth in her eyes vanished, replaced by sharp, clinical alarm.
“But you…” She stepped towards him.
