Page 28 of Ensnared by the Pack: The Complete Series (Destined Realms #3)
AUDREY
“You’re safe here and you’re allowed to make plans for the future,” Bishop added, his voice soft and filled with a gentleness that made me want to burrow against him and never leave the comfort of his touch.
Instead, I pressed my palms against his chest to urge him to step back onto the street, but my thoughts stalled at the feel of all that powerful muscle hidden underneath his shirt then jumped to last night’s dream and how I’d imagined what all that muscle had looked like and felt like and?—
Bishop’s wolf darkened his eyes and his nostrils flared, taking in my scent.
“I can’t make plans. Not really,” I forced out, my voice breathy. “There’s almost no chance Whil will be able to break the mating bond and I’m certain lingerie won’t change—” I glanced back at the shop attendant who was eagerly watching us. “It won’t change his mind about me.”
“So don’t buy it for him.” His gaze flickered to my lips as if he was thinking of kissing me and my need flared stronger. “Buy it for yourself. Let yourself feel beautiful.”
I slid my hands up his chest, raised up on my toes, and tilted my head up in invitation. Please kiss me. Making myself come in the shower hadn’t been nearly enough. Of course, having sex with Bishop wouldn’t satisfy my need, either. The only one who could was Knox and he didn’t want me.
The icy hollowness enveloped some of my desire, and my throat tightened with the grief of rejection that I didn’t want but couldn’t stop feeling because of the damned mating bond.
The desire in Bishop’s eyes shifted to worry, as he clearly saw my change of thoughts. “However this works out, it will be okay. I’ll keep you safe. I promise.”
Except he couldn’t promise that and there wasn’t anything he or I or anyone could do about it.
So move on. Move forward. It’s the only thing I can do.
I forced a smile and stepped back. “I’m pretty sure I asked for clothes that involved more material, not less.”
His worry blossomed into a heart-stopping smile. “You’re right. As my lady wishes.”
We left the lingerie store and slowly wandered around the market, Bishop letting me explore everything at my own pace, not just the clothing stores. People smiled, waved, and chatted with him while I shopped, but I never felt like he was ignoring me. It was clear the pack loved him, just like it had been clear last night that the betas loved him and Cyrus, and a part of me was grateful he was drawing their attention away from me and my bruised face… after, of course, they all stared at me.
By late morning, Bishop carried two bags full of clothes and another with a practical pair of hiking boots.
It was too much. I could have gotten by with a shirt, a pair of pants, and the boots, but Bishop kept adding things when we went to pay. He even added a pink version of the dress I was wearing when he thought I wasn’t looking even though I’d stressed practical clothes only.
A part of me heated at the idea that he wanted to see me in a dress again even though I’d already nixed the idea of lingerie. But just because I’d said no, didn’t mean I could stop my mind from imagining the fantasy of him releasing the two simple ties and letting the silky fabric slide off my body.
Now I sat in a small park with benches, picnic tables, and a playground for the children while Bishop got us lunch.
Children ran around laughing and yelling one third fully clothed, another third completely naked, and the final third as wolf pups.
Their joy was infectious and I couldn’t help smiling, but it was a bittersweet smile. If our pack hadn’t paid that witch all those years ago to prevent us from shifting until we were eighteen this was what our playgrounds would have looked like. Shifters being themselves, free from the moment they were born. They wouldn’t have been able to shift until at least five or six years old but they’d still have been connected with the wolf half of their soul from the moment they were born.
Two of the pups started wrestling and a woman at a picnic table called out to them, but they ignored her. Another woman nearby laughed and said something, and the first woman chuckled with her. Then the first woman stood, slipped out of her dress, shifted, and bounded over to them.
It was so natural it took me a moment to realize I hadn’t been shocked at her being naked. She was a mom with her kids and was stopping a fight before it got serious. She’d just so happened to strip and shift to do it.
I turned away before my bittersweet joy at watching the kids play turned completely sour.
My childhood had been what it had been and I was what I was. I couldn’t change it or me no matter what I wanted, and I wasn’t going to let Knox’s rejection of our mating bond make me feel sorry for myself about that.
I’d decided I was done with that in the lingerie tent, and I was going to stick with that decision.
Still, I wasn’t sure I could keep watching the family and life I hadn’t had so I let my gaze wander over the rest of the area instead of the playground.
The park sat at the edge of town on the far side of the market. A dozen large old trees delineated two of its sides from the rest of the market, but the third and fourth sides were wide open. The grass had been cut to the edge of the park but not beyond and was the only thing indicating where the park stopped and the rolling grassy foothills began.
Beyond stretched a breathtaking vista, and if I didn’t look up at the ghosts of the two moons, I could almost pretend I was close to home in the mortal realm. Green and yellow grass speckled with flowers waved in a gentle breeze, white clouds scuttled across a brilliant blue sky, and the yellow sun warmed my skin.
One of the larger clouds drifted over the sun, and the wind gusted, making the grass ripple and undulate like water. The bigger movement accentuated a break in the ripple as if the grass were parting around something.
Probably a rock. We were in the foothills after all.
But the cloud scuttled away with another gust and the bright sunlight seemed to shine a spotlight on something black within the grass that wasn’t a rock. Probably a shifter. Whoever it was wasn’t big enough to be a full-sized wolf but could have been a kid or teen. He or she was probably honing their stalking skills, and while it seemed strange to me to see a youth hunting, just like the pups playing on the playground, it was probably common here.
A dozen feet away I caught glimpses of two more black shapes slinking through the grass together. They drew closer to the edge of the long stalks and I couldn’t tell if they were practicing hunting as a pack or if the two of them were hunting the single wolf.
Then the solo wolf lifted his head and howled, revealing that he wasn’t a wolf but a dog with a wide, square head and short black fur.
Dozens of howls responded and the two wolves— no dogs, the dogs that had been at the edge of the grass, raced into the park. They attacked a woman, wrenching her to the ground and killing her before I had time to call out.
The park erupted into chaos, people screaming and running, grabbing children and leaving their shopping and lunches.
More dogs barreled out from between the stalls and tents onto the street. Even though they looked like dogs, they attacked like big cats, pouncing and clawing as well as biting and tearing into people who weren’t fast enough to defend themselves or flee. Men and women shifted, not bothering to undress, sacrificing their clothes to the magic that made them shifters, while others stayed human but grew claws.
A wolf lunged at another dog-creature coming out of the tall grass. It tried to get on top and bite the dog’s neck or claw open its belly. But the wolf could barely catch it and when it did, it couldn’t sink its teeth or claws into the dog’s hide.
I scrambled from the picnic table, abandoning my new clothes, and raced into the market’s maze-like streets away from the chaos.
The crowd jostled me, too many people trying to squeeze through the narrow space at the same time. Ahead of me, a man with a wailing toddler bumped a small girl, knocking her down, but didn’t even glance at her. He probably didn’t even know he’d run into her.
I grabbed her arm and hauled her to her feet. She gasped a thank you and we turned to keep going, but a desperate scream, somewhere ahead of us, stopped us in our tracks. The crowd heaved, people pushing and scrambling to change directions.
“This way,” the girl said, yanking me back a few steps to a narrow space between two permanent sheds.
With her small stature, she easily slipped inside and quickly headed toward the band of sunlight on the other side. I hesitated for a second. I was bigger than her and it was going to be a tight fit. I didn’t want to risk getting stuck… except if it was a tight fit for me, it would be an impossible fit for the dogs.
Oh, this is a bad idea.
I shoved myself inside, needing to exhale and take little gasping breaths to fit. The girl had already vanished out the other end and all that lay ahead of me was the narrow strip of sunlight.
Behind me, I heard the crowd race past, then the dogs. Someone screamed, the sound desperate and filled with agony, and the breeze gusted past me filled with the metallic tang of blood and something dark and foul that could only have been from the dogs.
I shoved my way forward, the rough wooden walls pinning me in, catching on my dress and scratching my bare skin. My heart pounded and fear twisted my gut into a frozen knot. I couldn’t turn my head to look behind me and had no way of knowing if any of the dogs had noticed me.
Then wild, ferocious barking roared behind me followed by heavy violent banging that shook the sheds.
My heart jerked into overdrive. At least one of the dogs had noticed me and was trying to break through the sheds.
I strained to shuffle faster, desperate to get to the ever-growing band of light at the end.
The dog howled and snarled and the sheds shuddered again. Wood cracked and crunched, the sound shooting ice through me and the foul scent swept around me as hot breath hit my bare arm.
Oh, God. It was right behind me and I couldn’t even turn to face it… and I had no idea if not being able to see my death coming was the better option or not.
The end of the sheds drew closer as it snarled and crashed into the sheds again. More wood crunched and something wet grazed my elbow.
Shit shit shit.
I heaved myself sideways in a desperate, awkward dive for safety and toppled out the other side, crashing onto the cobbled street. The dog smashed through the rest of the sheds and bounded toward me, and I scrambled to my feet, but there was no way I’d be able to outrun the thing.
Then two gray wolves leaped on it, clawing and biting and trying to pin it to the ground.
Run, a male voice barked. It sounded a lot like Finn and was backed with a wave of power that had me racing away from them and the heart of the market before I fully knew what I was doing.
The foul smell from the dogs and the cloying reek of blood choked me. All around me people screamed, children wailed, dogs barked, and wolves howled. A part of me howled at the fact that running was the only thing I could do. I couldn’t shift and even if I could, I didn’t know how to fight. I didn’t even know if it was possible for a wolf to take down one of the dog-monsters.
I raced around a corner into a small, recessed area and stumbled to a halt. A dog had cornered a group of children and — from the two medium-sized bodies laying a few feet away from the trembling group — had already killed two of them.
A scrawny boy, probably about twelve, held a wailing toddler, while two little girls cowered behind him, one sobbing, the other deathly pale and silent. A slightly larger boy who looked to be about the same age as the other one stood in front of them, snarling at the dog with his canines and claws extended.
There were only two ways out of the area, the narrow path I’d run out of and a wider path big enough for the shattered vegetable cart lying a few feet away. But neither was an option. The dog had the kids backed into a corner between two shallow vendor stalls — also filled with produce and nothing that could be used as an effective weapon — and the stalls stood in front of a tall wall that didn’t have any windows.
The only way the kids were going to get away was if something distracted the dog, and with no one else around, that something had to be me. No way was I going to leave these children to their fate, no matter how stupid it was to draw the dog’s attention.