Page 12 of Ensnared by the Pack: The Complete Series (Destined Realms #3)

BISHOP

Knox stood in the doorway in his human form, water dripping from his hair and down his naked body into a puddle at his feet. His gaze locked on the woman and for a second his expression was ragged and filled with desperate heartbreak before vanishing behind a mask of anger.

“You’re a fucking asshole,” he snarled, his fear picking up and his eyes jumping over the walls of the small shed.

“And we need to eat and talk about what we’re going to do with the woman.” Cyrus gave a pointed look at the third bowl of oatmeal by his knee.

Knox trembled for a moment, still fighting Cyrus’s command, then dropped to the floor beside me and picked up his breakfast.

“We’re not going to do anything.” Knox shoveled a large spoonful into his mouth and dutifully chewed and swallowed, glaring at Cyrus the whole time. “The second we get home, I’m going to ask Whil if she can break the bond.”

“The bond is already set.” I could feel it even through the mental shield he’d put up preventing me from fully connecting with him with our twin bond. He’d frozen the mating bond — not just blocked it like our bond — cutting himself off from the woman as fully as he could. But it didn’t matter what he did, he couldn’t sever it.

Cyrus frowned. “Do you think Whil can break it?”

“She’s a sorcerer. She’s figured out how to take the water leaking from Airmed’s resting place and turn it into a healing elixir. If she can’t break the bond outright, then some god has empowered water or sap or a flower or something that can.” Knox’s gaze flickered to the woman and he angrily ate another spoonful of bland oatmeal. “I don’t care how long it takes. I won’t be trapped in a bond.”

It sounded like he’d spent more than just the short time he’d been outside thinking about this. Had he thought about asking Whil to break our twin bond?

My wolf snarled at that. Knox was ours. Just like our mate would be — and I wasn’t going to think about the fact that we’d always thought Knox and I would share a mate because of that.

We shared a bond very few did, and my wolf and I would fight with everything we had to keep it. We were two halves of the same soul, more than just brothers. We wouldn’t allow him to force the pain and emptiness of a broken bond onto us, and we didn’t want him to force that on the woman, either. She was in enough pain already.

“Breaking the bond will hurt both of you,” I pointed out, even though it didn’t need pointing out. Everyone knew breaking a bond — which as far as we knew could only be done through death — was devastating for the surviving member. And that was why not everyone spoke the vows to awaken the magic for a mating bond. Not because they didn’t love their mate, but because our world was dangerous and warriors often didn’t want their mates to suffer if something happened to them.

“I won’t be trapped,” Knox insisted as if that explained everything. And perhaps it did. He’d been trapped in the dark in that cave-in for days when we were kids and he’d never been the same since. The hint of panic I felt through our muted bond was the same panic he felt surrounded by too many people, in a crowded room or, hell, even just spending too much time in a small room. To him they were the same as being trapped under all that rubble.

Still— “She should have a say in the matter, too.” It wasn’t just him who was going to suffer the effects of their broken bond.

“No,” Cyrus said, shocking me. “Knox tried to refute her. He has every right to break the bond whether it hurts her or not. He shouldn’t have to be stuck with a mate he doesn’t want.”

Well, when put that way…

“No one should be stuck in a loveless mating.” Cyrus’s gaze drifted to the woman and his wolf rose to the surface, but I couldn’t tell if it was anger at the situation with Knox or his situation and the possibility that, as the oldest, he was going to have to mate with someone he didn’t really love for the sake of the pack. “Besides, we don’t know anything about this woman. She could be cruel and selfish. She’s weak, maybe she ended up almost dead in Darkweald because she was trying to become more powerful in an unnatural way.”

“You think she had something to do with the lightning?” Knox asked, his attention locked on his meal, his fear starting to seep stronger through our connection even though he’d only been in the shed for a handful of minutes.

“I first thought no, but trying to get Tzanagoth’s power would explain why she was in the forest.” Cyrus sighed and pushed a damp lock of hair that had come loose from his braid out of his eyes. “We won’t know until she wakes and we have no idea when that will be.”

“Even then,” Knox growled, finishing his meal and storming back to the door. “I don’t care if she’s a goddess of absolute goodness. I’m breaking our bond.”