Page 119 of A Dusk Of Stars

“Easy,” I hear her say, and the volume makes me lift my palms to my ears.

I blink the blur away and see she’s standing right in front of me, looking as she did before I went to visit my wolf. It's just that now, my senses are sharper than ever.

“Anna?” I see her hand on my upper arm even before she reaches out to squeeze it. “Is everything alright?”

I nod, even though I don’t think it is. While my senses are all heightened to the point of being unbearable, my emotions are all so dull, I’m wondering if I’m feeling anything at all. The combination is making me feel trapped in a slow motion right in the middle of heavy gunfire.

There’s the pain as well. My eyes dart to the blood on my chest where my heart is. It makes me realize her moon stone’s worked. My eyebrows raise, lazily. “What do I do about this?” I ask in a hollow voice.

“Nothing,” Serra says, making me look up in confusion. “As long as you have it inside you, you’ll be good.” She moves for her desk, adding, “Although, I should still treat it for you. Take a seat, please.”

I do as she says and keep watching her rummaging through her desk with my hands limp in my lap.

It makes my throat tighten, when Warsaw crosses my mind.

It only gets tighter when I remember the way my wolf froze.

When it comes back to me, what Serra told me about Bane… It triggers an avalanche of memories in the form of images, smells, words and whole sentences being spoken.

I don’t linger on any of them, until…

“It’s all improv, Novak,” he told me, just last night. “You need to get people to think they’re on the verge of getting what they desire most in this world.”

I let out a scoff, but my teeth are gritting. The anger I’m feeling is helpless — because no, I won’t be getting revenge. But it’s still there, powerful and desperate for me to act.

Right now, when I’m struggling feeling anything at all, it’s strangely soothing.

It snaps me out of it, when I feel a sharp pain on my chest and look down to see Serra dabbing some kind of ointment on it. “I think that’s enough,” I tell her, and I move to get up.

“Where do you think you’re going?” she asks as she gets out of my way.

“Out of here,” I say as I start for the door. I stop midstep, realizing there are a couple of things that will need clarification. I turn to face her with determination in my eyes. “I don’t want you to say anything to either Lorcan or…” Bitterness floods my mouth. “Bane,” I force myself to say.

Then I pause, thinking. “Actually… Why don’t you let him know he won’t be training me anymore.”

“What reason should I give?”

I blow out a bitter laugh. “Tell him it’s proving not to be a good fit.”

She nods.

“And Serra?” She nudges me to go on. “I wantyouto take that role on.”

She gives me another nod, but as I turn to walk away again, she says, “The magnitude of this… I think it’s going to happen soon.”

“I’ll be ready,” I say, and I leave her office, headed straight for the gym with the intention to learn to shift. Not two weeks from now. Not tomorrow.

Today.

Chapter 33

After spending hours in the gym trying to force myself to shift to no avail, I’m sitting in Ahearn’s class, watching the rest of the shifters running around in shifted forms, trying not to succumb to petty jealousy.

More than anything else, trying not to think about Bane and what I’d learned about him, although I’ll have to at some point.

I’ll have to go through everything that happened, trying to figure out what it is that he did to try to stop me from awakening his powers.

Was it his eyes?

---