Page 23 of Ensnared by the Pack: The Complete Series (Destined Realms #3)
AUDREY
We went straight from Whil’s cottage to a dining room large enough to host fifty people, although the long table was only set for eight at the one end. The room wasn’t the enormous one I’d seen from the front hall, that room had been the size of a ballroom— it probably was a ballroom. This was a “more intimate” dining room.
The thought made a hysterical laugh bubble in my throat and I tried to swallow it back. Merrick’s house had been big, but it hadn’t been a castle. It had one dining room for about ten people, and if he wanted to meet with more, he hosted them in the ballroom in the town’s main hotel. Somehow, I’d gone from Cinderella trapped by a big fish in a tiny pond to Cinderella at the end of the story in a castle. The only thing I didn’t have was a prince.
I glanced at Bishop as he led me to a chair two seats down from the head of the table and pulled it out for me.
Maybe I did have a prince. Although being nice to me didn’t mean he was interested and I was also mated to his brother.
So yeah, no prince for me.
Cyrus already sat at the table along with another man who only radiated a fraction of the power of the alpha. I didn’t know if he was holding it back out of respect for Cyrus or if he just wasn’t very powerful… which didn’t make any sense. He had to be holding it back.
This was a dinner with the pack’s betas and an alpha didn’t pick weak betas.
The man had a similar build to Cyrus, big, bulky, and intimidating with a shaved head and piercing blue eyes, which only added to the theory that he was holding his power back. He couldn’t look like an equal in power if he was also an equal physically. No alpha would allow that.
Beside him sat a beautiful woman radiating more power than the guy, and somehow, I could tell she was actually holding her power back. She wore a dress in the same style as mine, sleeveless, backless, and with fabric light and silky enough to show off every sleek curve and ripple of muscle. Hers was a deep green which brought out the gold in her eyes and the red accents in her light brown hair. It showed off her long neck and sculpted arms, and I’d bet if she stood, she’d have a six-pack and a great ass.
I was more or less fit — housecleaning could be hard work — but I didn’t look nearly as good in the dress as she did and my nipples were still “at attention” with my constant, ever-so-slightly turned-on state. I would have been embarrassed about it if both of them hadn’t looked at my face and forgotten to check out the rest of me.
Swell. Yep. I can’t shift. Make your jokes now. Give me your disgusted looks. Bring it on.
Bishop cleared his throat and they jerked their attention away from me, but two more men and another woman strode into the room and took their seats. Now they stared at me.
Wonderful. I sat in the chair Bishop had pulled out for me, but that only made the man across from me raise his eyebrows in surprise.
“Knox’s seat?” he asked, his attention jumping to Cyrus.
“Easier than adding an extra place setting,” Bishop said, sitting in the chair beside me.
“Because bringing out silverware and an extra glass is a hardship,” the new woman said. She wore a red version of my dress made from a material that was thicker than mine — thick enough that it might have better disguised my nipples — and had her dark hair piled on her head in an intricate updo.
With her attention on Bishop and only Bishop, she gracefully sat on the chair beside Green Dress. Her power wasn’t particularly strong, and this time I clearly felt like she wasn’t holding back, which shocked me. Maybe she wasn’t a beta but a mate of one of the men.
Or maybe Cyrus wasn’t like all the alphas I’d heard about and everything I knew about alphas and how to be pack was wrong.
“It’s a waste to leave the spot empty every night,” the leaner of the men Red Dress had entered with said. He sat beside her, his power similar in strength and also not suppressed, and offered me a warm, if confused smile, his attention on my face — most likely my black eyes.
“To answer the question you’re all dying to ask,” Cyrus said, drawing everyone’s attention. “And I know it isn’t ‘will Knox be joining us for dinner’ because you know he never does. This is Audrey. She’ll be staying with us for a while,” he said. “And yes, the rumors are true, she’s the one we found injured in Darkweald.”
“Rumors?” the other new man said with mock innocence as he took his place beside Lean Guy. He was older than the others with a hint of gray at his temples and deep laugh lines around his eyes.
He’d shown up in a black, lighter-material version of a kilt, his broad muscular chest and arms on full display. He wasn’t as big as Cyrus or the man sitting across from me, but there was a sharpness to his features, a strong sense of feralness churning just under his skin that made him seem even more dangerous than Cyrus. A constant trickle of power radiated from him as if he was almost as strong as Cyrus or Bishop, was trying to fully contain it, but didn’t have the same kind of control at suppressing it as the brothers did.
Cyrus rolled his eyes at him as if the man made comments like that all the time, the sense of humor a strange juxtaposition to the sense of wildness radiating off him. “We all know Zavier said something before he and Lucius headed out.”
“That boy just can’t keep his mouth shut,” the guy across from me said.
“Give the boy a break,” Green Dress said with a laugh. “When was the last time the alpha’s sons went out on patrol and came back with a woman?”
“Are we talking about all of them or just Bishop?” the older guy chuckled, making Red Dress shoot him a dirty look.
“And really, Cyrus,” Green Dress continued, “if you wanted to keep things quiet, you shouldn’t have asked to borrow a dress while I was in the middle of meeting with half of my staff.”
Bishop threw his head back and laughed. “You went to Nova for a dress? Audrey was out for hours. There was plenty of time to send someone to get something.”
Cyrus shot Bishop a dark look. “It is what it is. She didn’t need clothes until she woke and we had no idea when that would be.”
“You fell asleep in that chair after I checked on her,” Green Dress said. “Didn’t you?”
Cyrus huffed and Bishop turned to me, his eyes bright with amusement. “We’ll get you some clothes tomorrow when I show you around town.”
“You don’t have to do that,” I said. I was already in their debt and still didn’t believe that they wouldn’t demand something in return.
“Better me than him,” he said with a laugh, jerking his thumb at Cyrus. “He wouldn’t know what looked good on a woman if it slapped him in the face.”
The others at the table burst into laughter and the tension evaporated. Clearly that was an inside joke.
“I don’t care if I look good. Just… more… covered,” I murmured, my cheeks heating. “I’m not used to wearing something so…”
“Convenient to take off?” Green Dress said, making my thoughts jump to my achy need to seal the bond— hell, to just have sex with someone, anyone, my body didn’t care who.
Everyone at the table stiffened ever-so-slightly and adjusted in their seats, suddenly uncomfortable, and I realized they’d just gotten a huge nose-full of my desire.
My cheeks burned hotter. Just great. You couldn’t hide anything from a shifter. And while I’d known that, I hadn’t really experienced it. Aside from school where only our teachers were shifters — and were probably used to smelling all kinds of things — Merrick had kept me more or less isolated from the rest of the pack. I’d been too busy for extra-curricular activities and only Mila had wanted to be my friend, and after I’d turned eighteen and my wolf hadn’t woken, I’d been even more of an outcast.
Bishop cleared his throat and Cyrus’s glower darkened while the older guy burst out laughing. The lean guy shot the older guy an exasperated look and pinched the bridge of his nose, while Red Dress’s gaze fluttered up to Bishop with a heated look in her eyes then quickly looked away.
“That wasn’t where I was going with that,” Green Dress chuckled. “I meant given that you haven’t shifted out the rest of your injuries, you probably aren’t accustomed to shifting all the time.”
“Is it really cold where you come from?” the exasperated man asked.
My embarrassment burned hotter, racing over my whole face and down my neck. “No. It’s… complicated.”
“And you’re clearly not used to proper etiquette,” Red Dressed huffed, her dark brown gaze flickering to Bishop again as if she couldn’t keep her eyes off of him. And really, I couldn’t blame her. Bishop was hot. Gorgeous and funny and kind. Who wouldn’t want to be with him? “You don’t release pheromones like that at the dinner table and if there’s a risk of that happening you don’t attend dinner.”
“Lighten up, Velora,” the older guy said. “She’s young, she could be nearing her first heat and just hasn’t figured out what the signs are or how to control it yet.”
Oh. My. God! Did he really say that? Now my face was hotter than the sun. Yes, we shifters experienced periods where our sexual needs were stronger, usually in our late teens and early twenties, but it wasn’t like a true heat like actual wolves.
“If that’s the case then she shouldn’t have come to dinner,” Red Dress, Velora, said.
“She’s our guest,” Cyrus growled, letting a wave of power ripple over the table. Everyone’s eyes jumped to him. “I told her to come. I wanted you to meet her so you don’t accost her in the halls. Her reproductive cycle isn’t your business?—”
Green Dress raised an eyebrow at that, making Cyrus roll his eyes at her.
“Fine. Yes. If it’s a problem, then it’s yours, Nova, but only yours.” He slid his glare over the others. “No, she’s not accustomed to our ways. From the little she’s told us, her pack is very different.”
The guy who was exasperated with the older guy sat forward. “How different? Where do you come from? Are there actually any communities up north?”
I opened my mouth but I had no idea how to respond to that. Would they even believe me? Cyrus hadn’t and had only accepted what I said as truth because of Whil.
“Very different,” Bishop answered for me, “it’s hard to explain, and she doesn’t know.”
His hand dipped under the table and settled on my knee, sending a ripple of calm through me as if he were my mate or a close friend and not someone I’d just met.
But that only reminded me of how shifters needed physical contact to help steady the animal aspect of their soul — even for those whose wolves were still asleep — and how I’d been without that kind of comfort since Mila had left. My reaction to Bishop’s touch said I’d been without for so long anyone was good enough to steady my soul, even a stranger… albeit a kind stranger, but still a stranger.
Of course, the achy throbbing from the unsealed mating bond also didn’t care he was a stranger or even my mate, and I gave the room another, mortifying, blast of my desire.