The Human Among Wolves Chapter 48

Aurora

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’t 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.

I blinked, disoriented, and glanced at the clock on Zayn’s wall. 2:10 p.m. 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.

I 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.

“Right,” I breathed out, already standing. “I’ll be down in a minute. Sorry.”

I hung up quickly before she could say more, shoving the phone back into my pocket. My pulse was still racing when I looked at Zayn. His eyes met mine, calm but knowing, as though he already understood.

“I’m sorry,” I told him. “I have to go. Family thing. We’ll continue tomorrow?”

He gave a single nod, the faintest flicker of disappointment crossing his features before he smoothed it away. “Yeah. Tomorrow.”

I nodded, though the word felt heavier than it should have. Without another word, I hurried to the door, pulling it open and slipping out into the hallway. The cool air outside his dorm prickled against my skin, reminding me just how little I had prepared for this meeting. Jeans and a plain t-shirt—casual, thoughtless. Not exactly how I wanted to show up after weeks of silence and unanswered questions with my parents.

Still, there was no time to go back to my dorm, no time to change or fix myself up. I took the stairs quickly, every step echoing louder than I wanted, my heart caught somewhere between the grimoire upstairs and the family waiting outside.

By the time I reached the ground floor, my nerves were humming louder than my footsteps. I shoved my phone into my back pocket and slipped out of the main doors, the late afternoon sun already dipping toward the horizon. The courtyard was still dotted with students wandering in pairs, laughing, carrying bags from town, but my eyes went straight to the gates.

There they were.

The car—a sleek black sedan I knew as well as I knew my own hands—sat parked just beyond the gates. My father was behind the wheel, his posture straight and controlled even from a distance, one hand resting on the steering wheel, the other elbow propped near the window. He hadn’t seen me yet.

My mother—Isobelle—was waiting just outside the car, leaning lightly against the passenger-side door. Her arms were folded across her chest, but when she spotted me, she immediately straightened, her face softening with relief.

For a moment, I slowed my pace, nerves tangling with guilt in my stomach. I hadn’t seen them since… since everything. Since the truth about who I really was came crashing down and shattered the fragile sense of belonging I thought I had.

And now, here they were, waiting for me like nothing had changed.

I forced my legs to keep moving, crossing the courtyard until the wrought-iron gates loomed in front of me. As I stepped through, my mother’s smile deepened, though there was worry in her eyes too—the kind of worry she always tried to hide from me but never quite managed.

“Aurora,” she said softly, her voice almost breaking on my name. She reached out as if to touch me, then hesitated, her hand hovering in the air between us.

I stopped in front of her, shifting the strap of my bag on my shoulder, feeling suddenly too aware of my plain jeans and t-shirt, too underdressed, too unprepared. “Hey,” I managed, my voice small.

Behind us, the car engine gave a soft hum, and I could see my father glance at me briefly through the windshield before his gaze returned to the road ahead.

“Come on, honey,” Isobelle said gently, lowering her hand but giving me an encouraging nod toward the car. “We’ll talk over lunch. Okay?”

I swallowed, forcing myself to nod even though my chest felt tight. With one last glance at the academy looming behind me, I followed her to the car.