Page 25 of Ensnared by the Pack: The Complete Series (Destined Realms #3)
AUDREY
The rich scent of wood smoke wrapped around me and my eyes fluttered open. I lay on a soft bed of… I wasn’t quite sure what. It looked like moss but felt more like bedding. Above me, two moons, one white and one slightly smaller and pink, were framed by tree branches heavy with leaves, and I realized I was in the small sacred grove outside the castle.
Except I had no idea how I’d gotten there.
Last thing I remembered, I’d gone to bed after that awkward dinner with Bishop, Cyrus, and their betas.
Now I was in their sacred grove… wearing my simple, white transformation dress.
This had to be a dream.
Something moved at the edge of my vision and I sat up, my pulse racing. Given what had happened the other night, I wouldn’t have been surprised if that monster haunted my nightmares for the rest of my life.
But instead of the red-skinned monster, it was Bishop who stepped out of the shadows and into the circle of moonlight.
Except he didn’t look right. He looked angry and hard, not the warm, gentle man who’d talked to me in Whil’s greenhouse library. His hair partially hid his face, hanging forward and not braided back at the sides, and his eyes were dark and edged with a dangerous wildness.
He wore the practical pants that looked a little like cargo pants that he’d been wearing when I’d been awake, although these were black, not brown, but wasn’t wearing his shirt, giving me an eye-full of his honed, muscular torso… or at least how I imagined his torso to look since this was a dream.
The breeze shifted, bringing with it more of the wood smoke scent and not Bishop’s clean, fresh-cut grass scent, and the yearning within me swelled, overwhelming the icy hollowness.
This wasn’t Bishop. This was my mate. His brother. And because I hadn’t seen him in human form, my psyche had turned him into a more dangerous version of Bishop.
“I don’t want you,” he said, his voice low, his power rolling through me as he took a step toward me, his body belying his words.
But instead of making me bow in submission like it should have, it heated my insides, filling me with a tremendous, aching yearning. “I didn’t mean to bond with you.”
“Did you mean to bond with the man you said the vows to?” he growled, suddenly sounding angry that I’d wanted to bond with someone else.
“I thought he was my fated mate.” My throat tightened and my cheeks burned, even as my desire grew stronger. “I thought we were destined for each other.”
The words sounded ridiculous. How could I have possibly thought Royce was my destined mate when my real mate was standing right in front of me.
Except that wasn’t true, either. Knox wasn’t my real mate. He was just the man unfortunate enough to be caught up in the magic of my mating vows.
“No.” The wild danger radiating from him grew stronger. “He’s not your mate. I am.”
“You’re just saying that because this is a dream. You don’t want me.” He’d just said so, and he’d also made that perfectly clear in Whil’s greenhouse library — if the constant aching cold of our rejected bond wasn’t enough proof.
“No,” he snarled. His canines extended and the look in his eyes turned ferocious, and even though he was still in his human form, I knew I wasn’t talking to Knox the man anymore, but his wolf. “You’re mine.”
He closed the distance between us before I realized what was happening, grabbed a fistful of my hair, jerked my head back, and crashed his lips against mine in a savage, ravenous kiss.
The icy hollowness inside me shattered, and desperate overwhelming need roared into every cell in my body and heaved at something powerful and wild deep within me. I needed him close, closer, needed him in me, needed to feel the bond between us empowered and alive. The bond just needed a spark, an electric magical jolt to bring it fully to life.
I tangled my fingers in his hair, digging my nails into his scalp, and kissed him back, that wildness hidden deep within me taking over and answering his hunger with its own.
With a snarl, he shoved me back, pinning me against a tree with his large powerful body.
“You. Are. Mine,” he growled into my mouth, the words ringing within me like the gong of the fake mating call. “Mine forever.”
“Yes,” the wild something within me moaned.
I clung to him as he tore open the front of my transformation dress and roughly palmed my breast, still kissing me as if he were drowning and I was the only source of air. I wasn’t going to think about how this was all a dream and how the gong of the fated mating call was merely an echo of what I’d experienced for real.
I ached to be desired, loved, accepted, and in this dream, the man who I’d accidentally forced a mating bond on was willing to give me all those things.
He roughly plucked and pinched my nipples, the pain building a need that was already threatening to consume me. Aching heat flooded my core, and moisture oozed down the inside of my thighs.
“Mine.” He released my breast, palmed my mound, and shoved two fingers up inside me without warning.
I gasped at the sudden invasion, but my inner muscles fluttered with the promise of a release and my next breath came out on a low, desperate moan. My hips rolled, my body knowing what it wanted, but he yanked his fingers out instead of satisfying me and brought them to his lips.
A low growl rumbled in his chest, and he inhaled deeply, taking in my scent. My breath hitched at the sexual hunger in his eyes, and it stalled altogether as he sucked one finger clean then the other.
“Who is your mate?” he demanded.
“You are,” I breathed.
“Say my name.” He shoved his fingers back inside me and pressed his thumb against my clit but held it there, not rubbing the sensitive nub like I needed.
I rolled my hips again, but he pushed back, pinning my rear to the tree, holding me captive his hand in my hair controlling my head and his fingers inside me controlling my pelvis.
“Say. My. Name,” he snarled.
“Knox.” He jerked his fingers out and back in, the force jolting the breath from my lungs.
My inner muscles rippled again and my body trembled. I had no idea where in my subconscious this was coming from for me to dream this. Maybe it was because I knew how to make myself come with my fingers combined with how angry he was. Maybe I’d just spent too long fantasizing about what sex would actually be like.
He jerked his fingers out again and shoved them back in, snapping my attention back to him.
“Who am I?” he demanded.
“Knox,” I moaned. “My mate.”
“That’s right.” His fingers moved out and in faster and faster, his thrusts powerful, violent.
I clung to him. It was the only thing I could do captured between his hands and trapped against the tree, but I didn’t feel helpless or in danger, not like I would if I’d been cornered by Sterling. No, I felt powerful. The icy hollowness was gone and a sun blazed within me, its heat and light reaching into every crack, every extremity, every cell of my body. My soul was alive with power and desire and that wildness that had been hidden within me until Knox had brought it out with his kiss and touch.
He pounded into me until I was wound so tight, burning with so much need, that it exploded out of me in a shattering, screaming rush. My inner muscles clamped down on his fingers with an orgasm more powerful than any I’d experienced before, stars flashed through my vision, and his expression turned smug and satisfied.
“You belong to me, and I will make him submit and claim you,” he— no his wolf said as the stars faded and darkness consumed the grove.