Page 22 of Ensnared by the Pack: The Complete Series (Destined Realms #3)

AUDREY

I woke to the bright scent of fresh-cut grass, flowers, and the rich aroma of damp dirt then realized I was still in Whil’s strange greenhouse library. Above, through the leaves and branches and the glass ceiling, the sky was starting to darken, the precursor to night when it had been the middle of the day when I’d had that panic attack and passed out.

Bishop sat cross-legged on the floor beside me with his back against the couch and an enormous book in his lap. His head was tipped forward, but a few small braids at his temples kept his jaw-length hair out of his eyes. It was long enough that he could have tied it back with an elastic, but just like with the over-sized shirt I’d woken up in, the braids indicated he was prepared to shift at a moment’s notice.

He raised his gaze to meet mine and for a second, I was drowning in his warm brown eyes. Mesmerizing green flecks caught the lamplight, pulling me in deeper and deeper, like just how I’d fallen into Royce’s gaze when I’d heard the fated mating call.

“How do you feel?” he asked, his voice soft, sending a shiver of need rushing through me even though I doubted he intended his tone to be sensual.

Turned on, cold, ashamed and?—

And a whole bunch of things I didn’t want to think about.

“Awful. Cyrus didn’t have to force me to bring up the mating bond,” I said, focusing on the one thing that didn’t have to do with me being weak or foolish or anything else. Anger I could do. Anger was safe.

He offered me a soft, sad smile. “Would you have said something otherwise?”

No. The sooner I forgot about that mistake the better, except— “I would have when I found out I was bonded with a complete stranger.”

“I know this must be difficult for you, but if you can think of anything else that happened to you that might help.”

“Help how? My mate bond bound me to a man I’ve never met before who despises me.” The ice inside me swelled along with the memory of how much he didn’t want me. “I don’t think hashing out the details will help him understand.”

He’d hate me even more once he knew the truth. It was bad enough he was stuck with a weak stranger for the rest of his life, it would be worse once he knew I was naive and stupid, too.

“Your bond with Knox didn’t form the normal way so maybe there’s a way to break it,” Bishop said.

My chest tightened at my mate’s name, but I couldn’t tell if it was with desire or grief.

“His name is Knox? Do you know him? Does he—?” The pressure tightened. Not desire or grief. Fear. I was feeling fear. He was so angry with me, his fury ice in my veins, would he take out that rage on me? “Does he have a temper?”

Bishop’s eyes darkened and his power shuddered around him, threatening to release before he regained control. “He’d never lay a finger on you,” he said, jumping to the conclusion — and likely seeing the fear in my eyes — that I was worried my unwanted mate would be abusive. “My brother is angry and he usually goes off by himself when he’s upset, but he can’t get as far away as he wants with the mating bond newly formed and still unsealed.”

The word unsealed turned some of the cold back into aching desire. The bond didn’t care if he hated me or that it had been a mistake to bond with him. It needed to be sealed and that meant having sex… and if we didn’t do something about it, eventually the bond would compel us to have sex whether we wanted to or not.

“He’s your brother?” I asked, trying not to think about the inevitable sex or, if we somehow managed to resist the bond long enough, the insanity.

“And Cyrus,” Bishop said.

And they’d taken me to an enormous building that had to be the alpha’s residence. They’d also looked right at home in the kitchen, which meant one of them was this pack’s alpha.

It had to be Cyrus. His power was enormous, and while I could sense the others were strong as well even though they were holding back, Bishop was too nice and Knox was too angry.

“So I’ve accidentally forced a mating bond on the alpha’s brother.” Just great. The weakest wolf in existence had forced herself into an alpha’s family.

“It wasn’t your fault. The bond was meant for someone else.” Sadness filled Bishop’s eyes, and for a second, I couldn’t understand why. Then I realized he didn’t know I’d been tricked. He thought my intended mate had been killed before he could finish our mating vows. “With luck we’ll be able to find a way to break the bond and you can mourn properly.”

I contemplated going with the lie. It would mean no one in this realm would know I’d been so foolish, but I was a horrible liar and I’d feel uncomfortable getting sympathy from everyone for a lover I hadn’t lost.

“I wish it was like that,” I said, my cheeks heating with shame. “I wish there’d been someone who’d wanted to mate with someone like me.”

Bishop’s sadness turned to knowing, but without any disgust like I’d feared. “I think being tricked into falling in love with someone might be worse.”

“Yeah, the asshole is probably still alive and laughing at me,” I said bitterly. And if I was stronger…

“How long did he play you along?” Whil asked, stepping out from behind a flowering shrub carrying a tray with a teapot and cups.

“Thankfully, not long. Somehow they found a witch who could make a spell or potion or something that imitated a fated mating call.”

“A fated mating call?” Bishop asked as Whil set the tray on a nearby table.

Right. He didn’t know what that was. That was something only my pack experienced. “It’s a side-effect of the spell that—” My throat tightened. Come on. Just say it. Whil has already sensed the truth.

“A side-effect of the curse that prevents you from shifting,” Whil finished for me, pouring tea into a cup and offering it to me.

I took the cup and stared into the pale green liquid. “A long time ago the alpha of the pack made a deal with a powerful witch to enspell us, or rather my ancestors. The wolf half of our soul is kept asleep until the summer solstice after our eighteenth birthday.”

“Why would someone do that?” Bishop asked, horrified.

“Humans hadn’t taken well to supers in our realm and it was a safety precaution. Unlike the other packs, we didn’t have to worry about a child shifting where a human could see,” I replied. “Because of that, we were able to have stronger connections with human communities, and my pack— that pack became one of the most powerful packs on the planet.”

“And when your wolf finally wakes all the senses that had been repressed that you should have had a lifetime to acclimatize to, burst into existence,” Whil said.

“Sometimes those senses lock onto a similar soul, a perfect mate,” I said. “It’s like— it was like fire and pressure and a vibration in my soul that shook my essence. I don’t know if that’s what it’s supposed to feel like or not since it wasn’t real.” There were only a couple of fated mates in the pack, but I hadn’t talked to them about the fated mating call, and all I had to go on were rumors about what it felt like.

“Sounds like an angelic mating brand,” Whil said, leaving her cup of tea only half poured and heading to a bookshelf hidden behind a small tree with bright autumn leaves.

“I looked at Royce and I just knew he was my mate.” I blew at the steam curling from my cup, my hands starting to tremble. “I didn’t know him very well. I didn’t have a lot of status in the pack before my eighteenth birthday, and when my wolf didn’t wake, I lost even more status. Royce said—” I huffed a bitter laugh. Royce had said a lot of things that hadn’t been true. “He said he was afraid the alpha would deny our mating. He was friends with the alpha’s son and next in line to be the first beta.”

“So you rushed to say your vows,” Bishop said, some of the sadness returning to his expression with a huge helping of pity.

Swell. Although I should probably be happy it was pity and not disgust like how my pack looked at me. I’d tried every day to be better, stronger, enough, but that hadn’t made my wolf wake or my pack treat me any differently.

“Then they cast the spell and summoned the monster and you know the rest.” I tried to raise my cup to my lips to take a sip but my hands were shaking too much.

“Here.” Bishop took my cup from me and set it back on the tray.

Why was I shaking? I couldn’t figure out my reaction. Of course, all I could really feel was icy hollowness and aching yearning.

He captured my hands between his, his palms warm against my skin, and held my gaze with his warm brown eyes.

“How long have you been afraid?” he murmured.

“For as long as I can remember,” I whispered. Even when my father had been alive, I’d been afraid. He’d yell in his sleep, lose his temper, break things. It was his bad memories and it hadn’t been his fault, but my existence had always been precarious.

“Whether we break the bond or not, you’re safe here.” He brushed his thumb against my cheek and I realized I was crying. My body was finally reacting to the shock of what had happened, but I was too twisted up inside by the mating bond— or rather Knox rejecting the mating bond to feel it.

“I’m a shifter who can’t shift. I don’t have any value.”

“Whoever told you that is dead wrong,” Whil said from behind the tree. “We all have something to offer. I’m a sorcerer, but my ability to channel raw magical power from the Realm of Faerie is so small it’s almost laughable to call me a sorcerer. But here in this realm, I’m a counselor and archivist and researcher. You just haven’t figured out where you fit yet and it sounds like your previous pack didn’t give you a chance to find out.”

It sounded so easy when she said it like that and I desperately wanted it to be true, but I knew it wasn’t so simple to be seen as something more than the girl who couldn’t shift.

“Now let me do my work here. You have a dinner to go to,” Whil said.

“Dinner?” I asked.

Bishop offered me a soft smile. “Cyrus wants to prove he isn’t a complete asshole and has asked that you join us and our betas for dinner.”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea.” I really didn’t want a repeat of being forced to submit, especially with a larger audience, and I didn’t trust that Cyrus wouldn’t do it. That and I still looked like I’d been beaten up, which would make people stare at me and ask questions I didn’t want to answer. “I should stay and help Whil. Two heads are better than one, right?”

“Can you read Sennari, Common Fae, Latin, or Ofuin?” Whil asked.

“No.” And I hadn’t even heard of half those languages. Well so much for that. “I still think going to this dinner is a bad idea.” I gestured to my face as if Bishop — who’d already figured out so much without me having to say anything — wouldn’t have realized why I didn’t want to meet other people.

“You can’t avoid meeting our betas until you’re fully healed. You’ll be living in our house for a while, and they need to meet you right away so they don’t think you’re a threat.” Bishop hooked his finger under my chin and brought my gaze back to his, making the aching need inside me swell. “And no, you’re not living someplace else,” he added before I could suggest the idea. “Even if you’re only Knox’s mate for a little while, you’re still family right now.”

“And if we can break the bond and I’m no longer Knox’s mate?” I asked, holding his gaze.

“We’ll help find a place for you, whether it’s here at the Residence or in town.”

The intensity in his eyes grew, fueling my need, and I broke eye contact, dropping my attention to my hands in my lap.

It sounded too good to be true. And maybe it was, but I didn’t have any choice. I couldn’t leave because the bond would compel me back to Knox so we could seal it whether we wanted to or not and it was already pretty insistent.

Even if the situation was half as good or a quarter as good as Bishop made it out to be that was still better than where I’d come from. I could live with that… if my bond with Knox didn’t drive me insane first.