Page 19 of Ensnared by the Pack: The Complete Series (Destined Realms #3)

AUDREY

Cyrus stood and headed to the back door, still open and still letting the sunlight pour into the kitchen.

“So you don’t know how to kill it?” I asked. Which meant there weren’t dozens of those monstrous things wandering around this realm.

The new guy stood and motioned for me to follow Cyrus. Practicality made me grab my sandwich even though I was no longer hungry. I still had no idea what I was doing or where I was going, but I couldn’t afford to do anything on an empty stomach, especially if I hadn’t eaten in a couple of days.

Outside, I turned my face to the sun, hoping it would warm more than just my skin, but the warmth couldn’t penetrate the frozen emptiness inside me, and I feared nothing ever would.

The other guy — whose name I still had to learn — drew up close behind me, too close for my comfort even though I was a shifter and as a species we had a smaller personal space than most. But I couldn’t tell if he was close because his personal space with strangers was practically non-existent or for some other reason.

From the outside, the mansion looked more like a Medieval castle, made from large stone blocks. It stood three stories — four or five stories at the six turrets — and was surrounded by gardens and a high wall.

Beyond the wall, I could see a few more buildings tucked against the rise of the mountain and suspected there were more on the other side of the mansion. These buildings were plainer, more practical than the castle, but still made from large stone blocks, and past them stood an even taller wall.

Then we rounded a corner and stepped into a shaded grove. It wasn’t very big, not like my pack’s— my old pack’s sacred grove in the middle of the forest, but with the trees clustered in a circle and pruned so their branches in the center framed the sky, it was clearly a grove.

Cyrus led us around the grove and down a slope to a strange building that was half English cottage and half greenhouse tucked against the large protective wall. Bushes and trees and vines crowded around the building and everything was in bloom regardless of their season, spring irises and tulips blooming beside fragrant roses and black-eyed Susans.

Something flickered at the edge of my vision… or was that the edge of my senses. It tugged at me, pulling my attention from the impossible cottage to the shadows in the grove above.

The icy emptiness shuddered and the aching need swelled.

I was suddenly hyperaware of the new guy, his muscular body close behind me. It was as if I could feel his body heat, which was impossible since he wasn’t that close. But he was even more handsome than Cyrus and with that smile of his and his kinder attitude, he’d be an even better choice to alleviate the need caused by my incomplete mating bond.

“Whil,” Cyrus called out, stopping at the cottage’s open door and surprising me. He struck me as the kind of man who’d just barge in and make demands. He was more than powerful enough to be the alpha of a pack, and in my experience wolves that powerful didn’t ask, they took.

“In the library,” a feminine voice called back.

“Our guest is awake,” he said, not going into the house as expected, but heading around to the greenhouse part and stepping through an open door from one garden bursting with life to another one.

Interspersed among the vines and branches and leaves and blooms were shelves crammed with books and jars and scrolls. The floor — wide flagstones when there was floor and not moss or grass or other groundcover — was set in wide steps, except they didn’t go in one direction. There were a few going up on the right to a tall bookcase and a few going down to a bench while another two steps were raised in the center of a small pool.

The room was larger than I expected, and we wandered to the back where there were more bookcases, fewer windows — although the ceiling was still glass — and a mismatched seating arrangement that consisted of a short, old-fashioned couch with only one arm, a more modern looking chair with thick cushions, two more simpler chairs, and a stool.

On the floor, surrounded by uneven piles of books, sat the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen. She was so stunning she seemed to glow, caught in a perpetual stream of sunlight that haloed her entire body, made her long golden hair shimmer, and accentuated the delicate tips of her pointed ears.

My breath caught. She wasn’t just a woman, she was a fae woman. And from how pointed her ears were, she had to be full fae.

“Am I in Faerie?” I asked, my voice breathy with awe.

The fae had sent a few sorcerers to help with the war, but they’d kept to themselves and very few people had actually seen one. The only evidence that they had even helped were the few faekin — men and women who were half-fae — wandering around the mortal realm. There were only a few pictures of a few faekin on the internet, never any fae, and only one faekin sat in the Joined Parliament.

The woman raised a sculpted eyebrow and glanced at Cyrus as he sat on the couch. The movement exuded power and danger, and I doubted he was purposely trying to intimidate me. This was his natural state. A predator.

“She thinks she’s from a different realm,” Cyrus replied.

I shot him a dark look. “I don’t think. I know. My realm doesn’t have two moons.”

Cyrus matched my dark look and let a hint of power roll over me. “You could be lying.”

“Why would I be lying?”

“Come here.” The woman — what had Cyrus called her? Whil? — pushed the books in front of her aside to make room for me on the floor. “You’re not in Faerie, but I am fae. I’m Whiltierna. Everyone calls me Whil.”

“Audrey,” I said, stepping over a small pile of books to get to her.

Whil held out her hand, palm up. “The boys found you in Darkweald.”

“That’s what Cyrus keeps saying,” I replied, sitting in front of her and placing my hand in hers.

Golden light radiated from her skin and a warm caress of power curled over my hand and up my arm.

“A malicious god sleeps in Darkweald. You could have gone there with evil intentions,” she said.

I huffed, and the power seeped over my shoulder and into my chest. It oozed around my heart, soft and sensual, but couldn’t get past the ice to fill the emptiness inside me.

Nothing would fill it. I was going to be broken and empty forever.

I tried to push that thought aside.

It will fade. It has to fade.

“Oh child,” the woman breathed. “That’s a nasty curse.”

Both of the men leaned forward.

“Did she get it from Tzanagoth?” Cyrus asked.

“No, this is old. Handed down from generation to generation.” The woman raised a gaze filled with sadness and captured me with eyes the color of new leaves.

My cheeks heated with embarrassment. One quick look and she knew I couldn’t shift.

“Did you go to Darkweald to use Tzanagoth’s power to break your curse?” Cyrus pressed.

“No,” I said.

His power rolled over me, stronger than before.

“I’m from the mortal realm,” I insisted, my body bending forward of its own volition to submit to him. “I don’t know what Darkweald is or anything about this Tzanagoth.”

Whil shot Cyrus a look and his power vanished. “How do you know about the realms?” she asked.

“Supers—”

She frowned at me.

“Supernatural beings,” I corrected. Guess she wasn’t familiar with the short form. “We came out of hiding about twenty-five years ago when the archangel Michael decided to cleanse the earth of the human infestation . The entire planet learned in one horrible attack that angels and the Realm of Celestial Light were real and so was almost everything else.”

The new guy pulled the stool closer to me and sat. “Everything?”

“They didn’t go into a whole lot of detail in school, but yeah. There are hundreds of realms, maybe thousands?—"

“And you can learn about them later, Bishop,” Cyrus said, cutting me off. “We need to know what happened, and we need—” Cyrus snapped his mouth shut, cutting himself off.

Clearly, I wasn’t supposed to know whatever that second bit was.

The other guy — Bishop — sighed. “So, what did happen?”

I was stupid enough to think Royce was my fated mate and had trusted him too easily. And I still had no idea what Cyrus’s intentions were.

“Two guys from my pack summoned a monster and tried to sacrifice me to it,” I said, not wanting to get into all the embarrassing details but knowing I needed to say enough so they’d think I’d told them everything. “The alpha interrupted them and it tossed me aside to eat him. I wasn’t thinking clearly. I was bleeding and hit my head so I’m not quite sure what happened, but I think I ran through the portal the thing came out of to get to the mortal realm.”

There. Straight to the point. Everything they need to know without all the embarrassing details.

My gaze dipped to the sandwich still in my free hand and Merrick’s screams shuddered through me, making my stomach heave.

“It ate him,” I murmured, the words slipping out.

“Who?” Whil asked.

“The alpha. It started ripping him apart and eating him while he was still alive.”

More of Whil’s power seeped into me, pressing against the icy barrier but unable to break through. “How did they open the portal to summon it?” she asked.

“I don’t know. They poured a potion on the ground and there was black mist and lightning.”

“Just a potion?” Whil’s grip on my hand tightened. “There had to be something else.”

Yeah, an incomplete mating bond.

Whil’s gaze flickered up to Cyrus and his power surged over me.

“There’s more,” he growled. “Tell her.”

I bent over, my forehead pressed against the flagstones in forced submission. “The alpha mentioned something from his safe,” I gasped.

“What was it?” Whil asked.

“I don’t know.”

“You’re hiding something,” she insisted. “I’ve cast an intention spell and I know there’s something you’re not telling us.”