Page 166 of Ensnared by the Pack: The Complete Series (Destined Realms #3)
AUDREY
Molly tied the last bandage and handed me a loose shirt and pants — the pack’s version of hospital scrubs. She’d already checked me over with a glowing stone that would indicate if something was wrong with me other than my scrapes and bruises and found no explanation for my queasy stomach.
“Fear, anxiety, and shock,” she’d said. “Those grimalkins are terrifying, and Nova said there were three dead ones in Jaxon’s smithy. I’m surprised you aren’t in deeper shock right now. You should get ahold of me if your symptoms get worse. We’re too busy, and we don’t have enough beds to keep you here for observation. But you should contact me if your stomach gets worse or you start showing other signs of shock.”
She reminded me of the shock symptoms I needed to look out for: increased heart rate, breathing problems, being too cold, dizziness, etcetera. Then she gave me directions to where Quinn might be and I hurried out of the locker room.
As instructed, I turned left and headed down the long hall. Molly was pretty sure Quinn would either be in one of the waiting rooms, or in the room they were going to give to Zavier once his injuries had been treated, and since I had to pass through one of the waiting areas to get to the stairs to the patient rooms, I decided to check there first.
As I hurried, the rumble of many voices grew louder and louder, but I expected that. I was racing out of the staff-only area into the public areas, and the pack was in the middle of a crisis. It made sense that people would gather at the hospital.
What I didn’t expect was to round a corner and step into a wide hall packed with people.
Shit.
The waiting area had to be full, with those who couldn’t fit gathering in the hall, and I really didn’t want to push my way through the crowd and draw everyone’s attention. Especially if Quinn wasn’t here.
Whoever had attacked me on the first night of the summer festival and had ended up poisoning Bishop was still at large, and I knew there were people in the pack who didn’t like me.
“Excuse me,” I murmured to the closest person, a young woman holding a sleeping baby.
Every instinct I had screamed to make myself small even though I knew that was from years of being scared and helpless. I didn’t have to be small anymore. I should have never had to be small even when I’d been powerless.
But I still wanted to be cautious because I had no idea how these people would react to me. Not drawing undue attention to myself was always the safest plan, especially when I wasn’t with my mates or friends.
“Alpha!” the woman exclaimed far louder than I’d hoped, making everyone nearby look at me.
“Alpha,” another woman said, the title making me cringe. Cyrus was the alpha. Bishop and Knox were as well. I was most certainly not a pack alpha.
“Yes, thank you,” someone else said.
“Alpha—”
“My babies?—”
“My pups?—”
“I can’t thank you enough?—”
Everyone started talking at once and crowded closer. A few of the kids who’d been with Quinn and trapped in the smithy with us pushed through the crowd to stand in front of me. For a moment, warmth swelled around my heart, a whispering shifter connection in my soul with everyone in the hall even though I wasn’t touching them, wasn’t emotionally close to any of them, and barely knew them.
Then my chest tightened with my old fear that there were too many of them and I’d drawn attention to myself. I wasn’t supposed to draw attention.
Knox’s emotions heaved inside me and I clamped down on our mating bond. I couldn’t risk him running in here to protect me from his own people.
“I was so scared, alpha,” a little boy from Quinn’s group said to me as he tugged on my burrowed scrubs to get my attention.
“Me, too, alpha. Me, too,” others chimed in.
“You were very brave,” I told them, squatting to be at eye level, focusing on them and their worried faces and not the crowd of adults all around us.
“But I cried.” The little boy’s grip on my scrubs tightened.
“That doesn’t mean you weren’t brave.” My heart broke for him and all the other children who’d experienced today’s horrors. No child should ever be terrified or see the horrible things they’d seen. I wanted to hold all of them and protect them. I wanted to figure out how to stop the grimalkin attacks for good.
Except I had no idea if that was even possible. It seemed like grimalkins attacked Stonehaven on a semi-regular basis. More than semi-regularly if my experiences with their attacks were anything to go by. I’d only been in this realm for two months and the grimalkins had already attacked twice.
“Being brave doesn’t mean you aren’t afraid. I was afraid too, and I wanted to cry,” I told them. “It means you do what needs to be done despite being afraid. And I saw you— I saw all of you being brave. You tried to be quiet when we needed to be quiet and you helped Quinn with Zavier when she needed help. You were all very brave, and I’d be proud to defend the pack with you at my side.”
I had no idea where the words were coming from, especially since I wasn’t really an alpha, and a part of me cringed that I was saying alpha things. But how I felt didn’t matter. What mattered were the children, and I watched pride and self-confidence bloom in the eyes of the little boy who’d confessed to crying.
In fact, all the kids looked more determined, as if me just saying a few words helped them feel safer and more in control of their circumstances.
And while yes, I wanted them to know that it was okay to be afraid and sad and all the other emotions, it felt good to give them something I’d never experienced as a child. The knowledge that an alpha of their pack thought they were good enough.
“Della and Jake,” Felix, the engineer I’d met at the summer festival, spoke up. A thick white bandage had been wrapped around his head. “Give Alpha Audrey some space.” He stood from one of the few seats against the wall and motioned for me to sit.
I offered him a grateful smile because I was exhausted and my stomach was still queasy. “Thanks, but I need to find Quinn first. Does anyone know where she is?”
“She’s waiting for Zavier in his room,” an older woman replied, her grim expression souring the satisfaction I felt from consoling the children. That didn’t look like Zavier was in good condition. “Take the stairs at the end of the hall and go to the second floor. She’ll be somewhere on that main hall.”
She pointed in the direction I’d originally been going, indicating I needed to push through the entire crowd.
“Thank you.” I straightened from my crouch and pushed through the people, a strange mix of pride, happiness, and embarrassment churning in my stomach.
All of these people looked at me like I was someone. For the first time I was being seen. I had value and respect, and people cared about me. But on the other hand, people were looking at me and my lifetime of trying to be invisible made me uncomfortable with being the center of attention.
More people thanked me, some regarded me with awe, others with respect, and I tried to keep my head high while quietly acknowledging their thanks and comments.
The crowd parted to let me pass, and I kept my pace even as I walked to the stairs, even as the churning in my stomach grew stronger.
I didn’t know how to behave. All I knew was that fleeing would make me look like prey and I was done with being prey. That, and an alpha didn’t flee. And if everyone was calling me alpha, I had to live up to the role whether I wanted to be one or not.