Page 162 of Ensnared by the Pack: The Complete Series (Destined Realms #3)

KNOX

Audrey collapsed onto her hands and knees and threw up. Her green dress and pale skin were soaked with blood as if someone had thrown a bucket of it on her, making it hard to tell at a distance how badly she was hurt.

Surely not all of it was hers! But the beautiful gift Bishop had given her to wear when she met the delegates and aides from the alliance was ripped to shreds, so she couldn’t have gotten through the fight unscathed.

I’d found her just in time to watch her brandish a fence post, scream, and rush toward two grimalkins like a wild woman. Her alpha power had poured off her in great, destructive waves, nearly flattening me in my wolf form into submission, and I could feel her determination and rage pounding through our mating bond. But I knew none of it would affect the grimalkins. They weren’t wolf shifters and our power only affected those of our kind.

My heart had clenched with fear, and my wolf seized control of our body, shoving me so far back into our consciousness it felt like I was looking at the horrific scene in front of me from the end of a long tunnel.

With a ferocious wildness that verged on going feral, my wolf raced toward them even while knowing he wasn’t going be fast enough to save her. Except instead of attacking, the grimalkins turned tail, their eyes wide with fear, and bolted toward me. I tensed, but they didn’t even look at me. They kept running down the street as if their life depended on it.

My wolf rushed us to Audrey’s side, shifted into our human form, and curled protectively around her, clutching her to our chest as she heaved again and spat bile and breakfast onto the ground.

Her pounding power and burning rage shattered into body-shaking horror as her adrenaline vanished and her breath turned into short, sharp gasps, making my wolf growl with rage. Our mate was sick and trembling and those grimalkins were still alive. He needed to tear them apart to ensure her safety… but he also couldn’t let her go.

Mine, he snarled over and over again.

Mine and I’d failed her. I hadn’t been here to protect her. She’d had to face those two grimalkins?—

No, three. A dead grimalkin lay on the other side of the courtyard near the torn-up corpse of one of our packmates. She’d had to deal with three grimalkins and watch that massacre.

And while both my wolf and I recognized that our mate was powerful, she was still soft and sensitive. She shouldn’t have had to face those monsters. I should have been by her side the whole time, not slinking through the shadows, unable to keep her in sight all the time because of the crowded market.

“Audrey,” a female called from behind me.

My wolf jerked us around, snarling and baring our human teeth at Quinn as she rushed out of Jaxon’s smithy — and my wolf didn’t stop snarling when we recognized the woman.

I heaved against my wolf’s control, terrified the need to protect our mate would consume both of us and send us into feralness. With the stress of almost losing Bishop so strong in my wolf’s memory, it was impossible to keep hold of our base instincts.

Mine.

Mine mine mine.

“Knox, it’s okay,” Audrey gasped, her small body still trembling in my arms.

“It’s not okay,” my wolf growled between clenched teeth.

Must protect. Mine.

More footsteps pounded on the ground behind me. More people. More danger.

And while my wolf recognized that the mix of human and wolf steps meant pack and not more grimalkins, it didn’t calm him. He raged within my human skin, desperate to shift and take his proper form but also desperate to keep holding her, something we could only do with human arms.

Must protect. Always.

“Knox,” she murmured, her voice weak and shaky, making my feralness surge.

She wasn’t well. She needed protection. She’d thrown up and that meant something was wrong. Even her emotions were hard to feel, and it wasn’t because my wolf was a primal beast walking the edge of becoming a mindless animal and only understood basic emotions. No, she was blocking us out.

The realization squeezed around my heart.

She was blocking us out.

Which meant she was hiding something, and with everything I knew about her, it was some kind of injury or weakness.

My wolf wrenched our attention to the road as Nova, two medics, and three hunters in their wolf form raced toward us.

My snarl deepened despite knowing Nova would help.

“Is she hurt?” Nova asked while still a good ten feet away.

“Yes,” my wolf growled.

“I’m fine,” Audrey said even though she was too pale. “Zavier and Jaxon are inside.”

“No,” my wolf barked, my power snapping and freezing everyone in place.

A mix of hot emotions flashed through our mating bond too fast for me to recognize any of them, and Audrey shook her head.

“Zavier and Jaxon first,” she insisted.

But my wolf wouldn’t release them from our power. He needed them to ensure Audrey’s safety… but he also didn’t want any of them closer.

The dueling emotions roared within us. Must protect. Must help. Must keep safe. Must care for her.

Fur rippled down my arms and across my cheeks, and my face started to shift, my mouth and nose extending into a snout.

Audrey shook in my arms even while I could sense through our bond that she was trying to get ahold of herself and not set me off.

“Knox,” she murmured as she turned into my embrace and pressed her face against my neck. She drew in a deep breath and the comfort she felt from my scent rolled through our mating bond. “You have to let them do their job. Zavier is hurt.”

A whisper of fear bled through a crack she’d formed in the block between us, and my chest tightened with both my and my wolf’s emotions.

Still ten feet away, Nova and her team trembled in my control.

Safe. I had to keep Audrey safe.

“Please, Knox.” A whisper of Audrey’s alpha power teased over our skin, not with a demand for my submission but a reassurance that she was strong enough to wait.

My wolf’s hold on our body trembled. I surged my consciousness forward, seized control, and released Nova and her team.

“Iris check out Audrey,” Nova said, making eye contact with me.

I gave her a tight nod, shoved my nose against the top of Audrey’s head, and huffed her scent like an addict in a desperate attempt to stay in control and not rip Iris’s throat out.

“Cora with me,” Nova finished as she, Cora, and Quinn rushed toward Jaxon’s smithy.

“Zavier, Jaxon, and Finn all need medical attention,” Audrey said. “I can wait. Iris, go with Nova.”

My wolf surged, but Audrey’s power grew stronger as well, pushing him back and urging me to calm the fuck down.

“You’re hurt.” She threw up for fuck’s sake. Something was wrong with her.

“Nova, go,” Audrey said, her voice stronger. “I’ve got Knox.”

Nova and the medics hurried inside while the three hunters stood guard, watching the narrow road and the destroyed vender stalls. Nova immediately rushed to the back of the building— with Quinn at her side — while Iris and Cora split in opposite directions. Children started to cry and Audrey leaped to her feet.

Blood rolled down her thigh from three deep gashes, and my wolf saw red and surged forward.

“No.” He seized her wrist and slammed our power into her, freezing her in place.

“Knox!”

Before she could counter with her own power, he tore the ruined dress from her body and pulled her close to examine her. She had thin cuts on her cheeks and arms, most that had stopped bleeding, a deep slice against her ribs, more on her calf, and half a dozen shallow ones across her back like she’d narrowly escaped the grimalkin’s claws.

But before we could drag her to the ground and lick her wounds, Nova yelled to two of the hunters for help. They hurried inside, then the first hunter, Brody, carried out Jaxon, still in his wolf form. He was awake, but his panting was too fast and he’d already bled through the bandages they’d wrapped around him, while Iris, the medic, helped Finn — in his human form — limp into the courtyard. Rough bandages wrapped around my Watch Commander’s torso and one thigh, and he too was still bleeding.

A second later, Quinn, her face wet with tears despite her forced calm expression along with fifteen children hurried out followed by Nova and Wade who carried Zavier. He hung limp in Wade’s arms, blood dripping from the bandages they’d wrapped around his wolf form, and Audrey’s power surged against mine, breaking my hold on her.

“Zavier,” she cried out, even as my wolf in our human body pounced on her and pulled her into my arms.

“Stop moving. You’re hurt,” he snarled.

“I’m fine.”

“You’re not.” I tugged her off her feet and clutched her to my chest.

“If she can stand, she’s good enough to get to the hospital,” Nova snapped at me. “Come on, we can’t waste time.”