Page 132 of Ensnared by the Pack: The Complete Series (Destined Realms #3)
AUDREY
We traveled all day, not stopping for lunch because Whil and I were the only ones who needed it and we ate in the cart. Bishop’s convulsions started increasing in severity and frequency by mid-morning, and I helped Whil pour another elixir into his mouth and held him steady until I was sure he’d swallowed it.
Tension filled the air and Knox’s worry churned with heavy dread inside me. It also didn’t help that the road, while wide enough for two carts to pass side by side, was boxed in with rock walls that grew taller and taller the farther we went, adding his claustrophobia to his fear of losing his brother.
No one said anything until just before sunset when we reached a tall, wide but shallow cavern in the rock big enough for half a dozen carts to mostly stay under the shelter of the rock overhang and four or five more beyond it. At the back, protected from the elements on three sides sat a squat stone building with a metal door and two windows framed by metal shutters.
“This is our stop for the night,” Cyrus said, pushing the cart halfway to the building and securing the front two wheels with a nifty locking system that involved the lock on the wheel and a wire running up to a locking handle built into the push bar.
Behind me, Deacon shifted back into his human form and shut a large metal gate, securing the enormous alcove from outside threats while Whil grabbed one of her waterproof packs and hopped off the back of the cart.
“This is a major road,” she said, answering my unspoken question about why there was a house and a protected shelter beside the road when there wasn’t anything or anyone else around. “There are three shelters along it before it comes out of the mountains.”
I nodded my understanding and turned my attention back to the house. It was guaranteed shelter and it had a chimney, which meant not sleeping outside in the slightly cool summer night. And while it was easily twice as big as the patrol shed between Stonehaven and Anakar, nothing would be big enough for Knox the stay the entire night.
“Knox, Bishop, and I aren’t staying in there,” I said. It would tear Knox up having to fight his claustrophobia and his need to stay with his twin at the same time, and I wasn’t going to allow that.
“Of course not,” Cyrus said, pointing ten feet away to a scorched hole in the ground edged by fist-sized rocks. “We’ll make camp here. Whil and Deacon can stay inside if they want.”
“Nah,” Deacon said at the same time Whil replied, “I’m staying with Bishop in case anything changes.”
“Do you think something will?” I asked, suddenly not wanting to leave Bishop’s side, not even to just hop off the cart despite knowing I needed to move so Knox could carry him closer to the fire pit to keep him from getting cold during the night.
Pushing past that urge, I shifted to the edge of the cart to hop off.
“Stop!” Cyrus barked with a snap of power.
My pulse lurched and my muscles twitched, his power freezing me in place and sending a blast of instinctual fear racing through my body.
I squeezed my eyes shut, fighting my reaction before Knox lost it.
Cyrus apologized… maybe. He’s not going to hurt me. He’s not Sterling.
But damn, none of that, no matter how logical, could break a lifetime of conditioning, and I couldn’t completely get rid of my concern.
“Nova said to stay off your feet for two days,” he said as he hurried to my side. His voice was almost as gruff as Knox’s, and his power softly stuttered as if he were trying to hold it in but couldn’t, not completely, giving me a sense that he wasn’t angry with me.
Without warning, he picked me up, and our eyes locked, my plain brown to his deep, dark mossy green, and my breath caught in my throat.
The fantasy of him holding me as if I were precious and slowly pushing into me rushed through me, heating my cheeks, and for a second, the fantasy felt like so much more than just a dream. It felt real, like a memory I couldn’t quite grasp, slipping between my mental fingers as I desperately tried to cling to it while that thing in my soul that said I could trust Cyrus, had always said I could trust him, fluttered, a barely-there warmth around my heart.
His eyes widened as if he felt it, too, and something pulled between us, some strange magnetic force that made me want to bury myself in his arms and wrap myself in his warm earthy scent.
It had to be the stress of the situation. My soul needed steadying, and I couldn’t get that from Bishop or even Knox since my mates needed steadying more than I did. I was still wary of Cyrus… wasn’t I? One apology that I wasn’t even sure had happened didn’t make up for terrifying me and then leaving me afraid of him for days. The only reason I’d connected with him in any way was because I was desperate for a stable, emotional foundation.
Which only made a part of me mourn the Cyrus I’d lost, the one who, when we were almost at the death god’s temple, had encouraged me to think about my future. Even the one who, after the spell to break my bond with Knox failed, had tried to convince me that being mated to Knox wasn’t the end of my world.
I wanted that Cyrus back.
Was that the real Cyrus or was the alpha who’d yelled at me in the arena been the real one?
His gaze dipped to my lips, turning my embarrassment at thinking about having sex with him into desire.
No! Bad, Audrey. I wasn’t supposed to want that from Cyrus. He’d made it perfectly clear he didn’t want me, and I was supposed to be happy with my strange fantasy despite that small, barely audible voice inside my head that said he was mine, too.
Stress. It was stress, God damn it.
I didn’t trust him.
But it was just so hard to remember that, not with his strong arms around me and him looking at me with a confusing mix of emotions that I couldn’t quite recognize but was certain none were anger or disgust.
Then he jerked his attention away, shattering the moment and leaving me strangely breathless while wondering if we’d really shared a moment or if it had all been in my head again.
He carried me to the fire pit, set me on the ground, and straightened, his stern in-control alpha mask firmly back in place.
“Deacon,” he growled before clearing his throat and making his voice sound more human. “Get enough wood from the shelter so Audrey can start a fire then go out and collect more in the forest. I’ll get us something to eat.”
Deacon raised an eyebrow at Cyrus, his lips quirking, but I couldn’t figure out what was so funny.
“I need the run,” Cyrus added before turning his back to me, pulling off his shirt, and stepping out of his pants, giving me a spectacular view of his powerful muscles and his amazing ass before he melted into his massive black wolf.
Whil opened the metal gate for him and he ran out, while Deacon pulled a pack from the cart, handed it to me, and went into the house.
A minute later, Whil had the blankets from the cart on the ground for Bishop, a pile of a few more blankets for the rest of us, and Deacon had returned from the house with an armful of wood, all while I sat there and watched, feeling selfish for not helping.
Except Cyrus hadn’t let me get off the cart by myself and I was sure neither Whil nor Deacon would let me get up and walk around.
And really, just thinking about moving made me exhausted. It didn’t matter that I’d sat in the cart all day. I’d barely gotten any sleep last night, an hour if I was lucky, and trying to keep it together to help Knox keep it together was beyond tiring.
Inside I was a screaming crying mess, clinging to myself with my mental fingernails while Knox’s emotions threatened to drown me, adding to my own fear and heartache and grief.
All I wanted was to hold Bishop tight and never let go. He was mine. He’d told me that he loved me and I hadn’t gotten a chance to tell him back.
I wanted that chance. I wanted to stop being so selfish by demanding that he court me and just mate with him. We belonged together and there was a chance he wouldn’t make it to the pool or that Whil’s spell at the pool wouldn’t work.
My throat tightened and tears burned my eyes, but I gritted my teeth and swallowed down my grief.
I had to stay strong and in control. Knox was counting on me. Through our bond, I could feel his grip on his human self weakening, and I could feel a fury that went beyond the most primal aspect of his wolf threatening to take over.
That was his true feral nature. It wasn’t just his wolf, it went deeper, rooted in fear and a need to protect his human soul, whatever the cost, even if that meant burying his human half inside his wolf forever.
I didn’t want Bishop to wake up to that, didn’t want him to find his brother fully feral without anyone able to get him back.
I sent more love and confidence to Knox, knowing he could still feel all my worries but hoping that by showing him that I was being brave, he and his wolf could control his fear. Then I made a fire in the fire pit and used the starter in my pack to start it.
Deacon left through the gate and shut it behind him. The latch that could be opened from either side — if you had an opposable thumb — clicked into place and for a second there was nerve-racking silence only disturbed by the crackling fire.
“So,” Whil said as she grabbed the second sturdy waterproof pack from the cart and sat beside me. “How are you doing?”
“I’m exhausted and sore.”
Knox huffed, worry for me and not just Bishop swirling into the mix of emotions coming through the bond.
“Stay awake for dinner. You’ll need your strength,” he growled.
“I know,” I told him.
I had no doubt that if I dozed off, Cyrus would use his power to wake me and make me eat, something I’d rather do on my own. But that thought didn’t stop me from glancing at the blankets around Knox and Bishop and longing to just crawl under one and cling to my mates.
But food first!
I slapped my cheeks, forcing myself to stay awake and praying Cyrus caught something fast and it didn’t take long to cook.
“From what you told me of your bond, it makes sense that you’d be exhausted,” Whil said. “And I suspect it’s not going to get much better.”
“Swell.”
“You should get Deacon or Cyrus to help you once we leave the road. I doubt you’ll be able to keep Cyrus’s pace all day.” Whil huffed a soft laugh. “I’m not sure I’ll be able to, either, but time is of the essence here.”
As if to prove her point, Bishop groaned and his body went stiff, making my chest tighten. It wasn’t a full blown convulsion, but it was the sign that the elixir was starting to wear off again.
Whil had explained the last time we’d given him an elixir that it was only a stopgap. All of its power was going toward slowing the poison, which meant it couldn’t cure him — no amount of elixir would be able to remove it from his system — so there was no point in wasting an elixir by giving him more than one or two at a time. Even that wasn’t enough to completely slow the poison down, which meant we were going to have to be giving him more elixirs closer and closer together so he could make it to the pool.
“Knox, help hold him,” Whil said as she opened one of the packs, revealing that it was packed with elixir ampuls and lots of padding to ensure nothing broke.
Once Whil had given Bishop the elixir, we returned to an uncomfortable silence. It felt like everyone’s worries were pressing down on me which made me acutely aware of my worry that Whil’s block on the magical tether connecting me to Sterling had weakened. The last thing we needed right now was for me to go crazy.
“Whil.” I shivered with a sudden chill and added another log to the fire. “After dinner, would you be able to check your block?” Because if she checked it now, I was guaranteed to pass out just like the other times she’d checked.
Knox stiffened at that. “You think that asshole might be influencing you?”
I squeezed his hand in reassurance. “I think I’m under a lot of stress and want to make sure the situation can’t get worse.”
“I checked it a few days ago and it was fine,” Whil said. “But you’re right. Better safe than sorry.”
A few minutes later, Deacon returned with more firewood and Cyrus returned with a skinned and gutted animal the size of a large raccoon and a plucked and gutted bird the size of a chicken.
Just like when we’d been traveling north, I pretended our dinner hadn’t been alive when Cyrus had caught it even though I knew it was silly and that I should have been used to it by now what with all the camping I’d already done.
On top of that, I was supposed to be a predator and I’d probably have no problems with killing an animal in wolf form. But unless a miracle happened, I’d never be a wolf, and I doubted I’d get over the idea of killing something.
Cyrus put the bird on the same collapsible spit we’d used the last time and Deacon set the firewood nearby then dropped his kilt — giving me an eyeful and making me hope the fire wasn’t bright enough for everyone to see me blush. Then he shifted into his wolf and settled between Whil and Cyrus, resting his head in his paws and making me wonder if he was going to spend the night like that.
Which was a ridiculous thought. Why wouldn’t he? His wolf was more comfortable in the elements, and he wouldn’t need a blanket to keep the evening chill away… if there was much of a chill tonight. It was, after all, still summer and the temperature was still more or less comfortable.
Somehow, I managed to stay awake long enough to eat some dinner, then I snuggled in between Bishop and Knox and let Whil check the magical block in my head.
I knew I was supposed to close my eyes and just relax, but I couldn’t stop looking at Bishop while she worked. He was so pale, his skin nearly white against the black and red veins covering his body. Sweat slicked his brow and his breathing was quick and shallow, which I supposed was better than convulsing and not breathing at all, but not by much.
The memory of dancing with him, of the joy and freedom, of having him whirl me around and around until I was breathless, clawed up to the front of my mind. Again, my throat tightened and tears burned my eyes. I tried, but this time I couldn’t stop them from slowly leaking from my eyes.
He’d been so happy. The look in his eyes when he’d told me he loved me had stolen my breath, and he’d looked at me like I was amazing and beautiful, like I was the only woman in the world.