Page 29 of Ensnared by the Pack: The Complete Series (Destined Realms #3)

AUDREY

“Hey!” I yelled at the dog, keeping close to the path behind me so I could make a run for it and have as much of a head start as possible.

The dog swung its large, blocky head at me and snarled, and the sobbing girl leaped away from the group in the direction of the larger opening. But the dog jerked his head back to them and lunged at the girl.

The boy defending them grabbed her arm and shoved her behind him as he dove to meet the dog’s attack. My pulse stalled. It was a suicidal move, and I didn’t need my imagination to know the boy was going to be ripped to shreds like the two other kids already on the ground.

I grabbed a piece of the broken cart roughly the size of a baseball bat and barreled at the dog, screaming.

The creature batted the boy aside, its claws tearing into his back, and leaped at me.

Oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck.

I heaved to the side, somehow avoiding its claws, and bashed the dog over the head. The strike didn’t even make it hesitate. With a roar, it lunged at me and I ran, praying it would follow.

It did but caught up quickly and rammed its blocky head into me, shoving me forward. I hit the ground, losing my makeshift club, caught a glimpse of darkness out of the corner of my eye, and threw myself to the side.

The dog’s claws tore through my dress and into the cobblestones, and I rolled away, narrowly avoiding another swipe.

My elbow hit my club and I grabbed it and swung with all my might. It broke over the dog’s head, stunning it long enough for me to scramble to my feet and yell at the kids.

“Run!” I screamed at them. A pressure of something thud-thudded in my chest and all of the kids bolted.

The dog turned to go after them, and I threw myself at it, ramming my shoulder against its side and only managing to redirect its attention.

Yep, I was going to die.

At least I was going to do it saving a bunch of kids and not being eaten by a monster to give the assholes Sterling and Royce more power.

The dog snapped at me, its teeth grazing my arm, and I stumbled back, lost my balance, and fell.

Thankfully the kids ran. The pale-faced girl tripped and the bigger of the two boys picked her up and slung her over his shoulder with his supernatural strength. His dark gaze met mine for a second, his expression filled with fear, but he knew what he had to do, and that wasn’t to save me. It was to save the younger kids.

The dog snapped and swiped at me and I rolled out of the way again. A flicker of pain grazed across my back and I tried to scramble to my feet, but the dog rammed me with its head and knocked me back down right into the corner the kids had been in.

Shit.

With a snarl, the dog dove in to bite me, but a huge black wolf bounded out of nowhere and tackled it.

They rolled across the blood-slicked cobblestone, biting and clawing and snarling, their bodies twisting and heaving in a violent struggle.

I staggered to my feet, knowing I needed to get the hell out of there. If the wolf didn’t win, I was as good as dead.

But before I could run, the wolf snapped its teeth on the dog’s throat and tore open its flesh.

The dog collapsed, its blood gushing around it and the wolf, and I clutched the edge of the stall beside me, my pulse still pounding and my body trembling.

“Thank God,” I gasped. Oh, thank God.

The wolf raised his head, capturing me with piercing, black eyes flecked with green, and everything within me froze.

Knox.

I didn’t know his wolf form well enough to recognize him, but I knew in my soul the wolf in front of me was Knox.

Knox had saved me.

My whole being strained toward him, my soul aching with the bond he refused to accept.

Blood dripped from his snout as he stared at me, no growling, no angry words, nothing. It was like everything, all thought and sound, even the air, had been sucked from around us and we were suspended in this moment.

Him and me.

Bound together with a bond neither of us wanted. Forever. Trapped by our circumstances.

The icy hollowness inside me remained cold, his rejection still strong, but it didn’t grow, didn’t threaten to bring me to my knees with emotions I didn’t want and couldn’t control.

“What the fuck!” Cyrus roared from down the wider road, shattering the moment.

The world rushed back to life around me, people yelling, but not screaming, the foul reek of the dogs and the metallic bite of blood, but also the seductive wood smoke scent that my soul insisted belonged to me.

Knox raced away, neither brother acknowledging the other — although they could have communicated telepathically and just not included me in the conversation — and Cyrus stormed toward me.

He was breathtaking and terrifying and completely naked, revealing every powerful, dangerous inch of his body. His eyes were black with his wolf, his canines and claws extended, and blood streaked across his chest indicating that while he’d fought in wolf form — since he was naked — he’d also just been fighting in his human form, too.

Unable to stop myself, my gaze followed the streak of blood on his chest down to his partially erect cock, and my breath stalled. He was bigger than I expected, certainly bigger than the glimpse I’d gotten of Sterling all those years ago.

The throbbing need inside me surged, and all I could think about was how would it feel to have all that dangerous power holding me, pushing into me, driving me crazy.

“Don’t you ever pick a fight with a grimalkin again.” His power rolled off him in a great wave with his fury.

I jerked my attention up and met his glare while clinging to the edge of the vegetable stall to keep standing. I would not submit to him. Not when I knew what I’d done was right.

“I don’t care how noble the cause or how many children you think you can save. You’ll never do that again.”

“You’re not my alpha,” I snarled back, even though the smart thing would be to submit and keep my mouth shut. But I’d just run for my life again and had been helpless again. I was furious to the point of tears that I was useless, that the only thing I was good for was being a sacrifice, even if this time it had been my choice. There was more to me than that. There had to be.

“You’re mated to my brother,” he growled. “That makes me your alpha and I’m giving you a direct order. Do I need to make you submit to acknowledge it?”

More power rolled off him and I clutched the stall, refusing to give in. “I wasn’t going to let that— that whatever it was kill them.” And now that I thought about it, that dog, or rather, grimalkin, could have easily killed them. It had played with them first, picking them off one at a time and building up their fear, and would have continued to do so if I hadn’t stepped in.

“It almost killed you,” he said as he stepped close, using his size to intimidate me — and with all his muscle and towering above me, he sure as hell was intimidating. He trembled, a low, dangerous growl rumbling in his chest, and anger blazed in his eyes along with— was that fear? “Your death hurts my brother.”

It was fear. Just not fear for me.

“My death will solve his problem.” I strained my neck to maintain eye contact in a direct challenge. I didn’t care if he punished me over this. I’d been punished for everything else. This at least was worth it. “I will never abandon a child.”

If I could help it, no child would ever suffer like I had. Those kids had needed someone to protect them and I was there. It was that simple. It didn’t matter if I could have won the fight or not. Someone had needed to do something.

Something plopped on the ground by my foot, the sound wet and heavy, and Cyrus stepped back and looked down, breaking eye contact first and drawing my attention down as well.

I stood in a small puddle of blood. Of course I was. I was probably covered in blood with all the rolling around I’d done fighting the grimalkin. Hell, who was I kidding? I’d been running for my life there hadn’t been any fighting involved.

But there was something else important about the pool at my feet…

Except with the adrenaline rushing from my body, I couldn’t make my mind focus enough to figure it out.

There was blood all over the area, pools by the bodies of the two dead kids and by the dead grimalkin, but here…?

“Fuck,” Cyrus snarled and he jerked forward as my legs gave out and the world went black.