Page 181 of Ensnared by the Pack: The Complete Series (Destined Realms #3)

AUDREY

I woke with a start, suddenly furious and completely confused. It must have been another dream, one I didn’t remember. Except the second I thought that, I realized the anger was coming from my mating bonds.

Knox was back and he was pissed… except underneath all of that was a churning fear.

“What’s wrong?” Bishop asked, his arms around me tightening and his body tense.

When I’d gone to bed, Bishop had still been at the fancy dinner in the ballroom. I’d tried to smile and nod — while also pretending to not understand anyone who used a translator — but it had been hard to focus.

Both Bishop and Whil — and even Cyrus once he’d found out about the dark magic inside me — had assured me I wasn’t going to just snap and turn into a murderous maniac, but that didn’t ease my fear.

I didn’t want to control evil magic. I wanted nothing to do with it. It was still getting stronger inside me and I didn’t want to risk it infecting my soul bonds.

And a small part of me was terrified that all the progress I’d made in becoming stronger and recognizing that I did have value was because of the magic. Was the wildness inside me really my wolf awakening or was it the dark magic?

“Audrey,” Bishop said, yanking me from my worries. “What’s wrong?”

“Knox is back and he’s angry.”

Bishop frowned then closed his eyes. “Your bond is really strong. I can barely sense him, which means he’s still a good five-minute run from Stonehaven.” Then he threw back the blankets and sat up. “If he’s pissed, he found something in Anakar. Let’s go.”

I hurried to my wardrobe and pulled out a shirt and pair of pants while Bishop grabbed his clothes draped over the back of the chair in the corner. We quickly got dressed and rushed out of the French doors in my sitting room.

Once again, I was up and it was barely dawn.

“Where are we going?” I asked, surprised that we’d stepped outside instead of staying in the Residence. I’d assumed Bishop would have gone to Cyrus’s room to wake him.

“Whil’s,” Bishop replied, taking my hand.

I glanced up at the two moons still visible in the sky. “She’s going to love that.”

“If the merchants have a way of controlling the grimalkins, then we’re going to want her involved in the planning,” he replied, his gaze going unfocused for a second.

“Cyrus is up. He’s going to meet us. Now, come on,” he said. “We need to keep our pace leisurely so no one knows something is going on.”

My heart pounded as we strolled through the gardens toward Whil’s greenhouse library cottage. Knox’s anger roiled inside me and my wildness started to rise. I needed to move faster, take action, do something even if I knew that there was nothing we could do until Knox and Deacon got back to the Residence.

And even then, I wouldn’t be able to do anything because I was wea?—

I stopped myself before I could continue that thought. I wouldn’t be able to do anything right now anyway, even if my mates and Cyrus would let me.

We reached Whil’s cottage as Cyrus did and headed around to the side toward the greenhouse entrance while Cyrus banged on the front door.

“How long until Knox gets here?” I asked, struggling to block off some of Knox’s anger.

I pushed as much love and support as possible through our bond as I fought to stay calm. Freaking out wouldn’t help the situation, and if I was going to help, I needed to look strong and confident.

“He and Deacon are about two minutes out,” Bishop replied as he led me through the greenhouse to the mismatched seating area at the back.

Cyrus met us there, and a moment later Whil entered from the cottage part of her house carrying a tray with a teapot and six cups. She set the tray on the table between us, pressed her hands against the pot, and closed her eyes. Golden light flashed around her hands and steam rose from the spout and around the edges of the lid.

Cyrus raised a surprised eyebrow before sitting in the cushioned armchair.

“I figured no one wanted to wait for the kettle to boil,” Whil replied as she poured six cups of tea.

“You mean you didn’t want to wait,” Bishop corrected.

“It’s not even dawn. Again,” she huffed as she sat on the floor in the middle of three piles of books. “If this is what Cyrus thinks it is, I’m going to want tea.”

It is, Knox replied in my head, stepping around a leafy plant with Deacon right behind him. The merchants have set up camp— “ in Anakar and have over four dozen grimalkins,” Knox finished, shifting into his human form halfway through.

He lifted me off the couch and took my seat, placing me in his very naked lap.

A shiver of need — that was completely inappropriate — teased down my spine. Knox hummed low in his throat, and the anger in our bond eased as if he’d needed to hold me to get himself back under control even though it hadn’t felt as if he were on the verge of going feral.

“Fuck,” Cyrus hissed.

“No shit,” Deacon added. “We didn’t stick around long, but we counted about two dozen swordsmen and all those beasts.”

“The rip between the realms is also back,” Knox growled, his grip around me tightening. “It’s not wide enough for a person to come through, but it might have been at some point. There were the remains of two bodies near it.”

My desire turned cold and visions of last night’s dream rushed through me. Except it hadn’t really felt like a dream, and now I was willing to bet everything that it hadn’t been.

Sterling had sacrificed Mila and Porter to open the rip and if their bodies were still there, then the rip had been large enough for them to have passed through. If it hadn’t been large enough, there wouldn’t be any bodies, they’d have burned to ash before even hitting the ground.

“Sterling is here,” I told them.

And he was more powerful than before.

I’d barely escaped his control when he’d tried to get me to walk into the rip and burn up. He’d only had ghostly ram horns then, but if my dream hadn’t been a dream but me witnessing what Sterling was doing then he could now turn into that monster.

“We won’t let him hurt you,” Cyrus said, his alpha power washing over me not in a command but as a protective cocoon. “Ever.”