Chapter 285. Confrontation with Shane

Aurora’s POV

The wind had started to pick up again as I made my way back to the packhouse, rustling the trees like they were whispering secrets I wasn’t ready to hear. My boots thudded softly against the path, weighed down by the silence in my chest. My heart was knotted, tangled between guilt and the ache of knowing something precious was slipping through my fingers.

The bond I’d been trying to forge with my half-siblings—fragile, new, and already bruised—was unraveling faster than I could sew it back together. And a part of me knew, just knew, that Shane had played a part in it, whether he meant to or not.

That’s when I saw him.

Shane was just ahead, walking down the same trail, laughing at something the boy next to him—one of the younger pack warriors, I think his name was Milo—had said. He looked lighter than I felt. That only made my jaw clench harder.

“Shane,” I called, my voice harsher than I expected it to.

He turned mid-step, eyebr