Page 33 of Ensnared by the Pack: The Complete Series (Destined Realms #3)
AUDREY
After three powerful orgasms, the icy hollowness of Knox’s rejection was finally stronger than the thrumming compulsion from the mating bond and I felt almost normal getting out of bed and putting on one of the slip-off dresses so I could go to the bathroom and take a shower.
Bishop stood in the hall, leaning against the wall beside the bathroom door. His expression was hungry and his wolf-darkened eyes captured my attention the second I opened the door. He took a deep sniff, making my pulse trip with renewed desire and my cheeks heat with embarrassment.
“I can’t help it,” I murmured, wrenching my gaze to the floor between our feet. “Maybe I am going into heat.”
God, wouldn’t that just be my luck? But that would explain why it wasn’t just Knox I wanted.
“Have you had a heat before?” Bishop asked, his voice soft, low, caressing my senses like silk across my hyper-sensitive skin. “Do you know what it feels like?”
“Women in my pack don’t have one until they have a wolf form.” I clung to the doorknob, frozen in the doorway, my mind desperate to hide in the bathroom or back in my room, but my soul aching to grab Bishop by the shirt and drag him in with me.
“The bond might have set it off. Whil might be able to tell you.” He took a large step away from me and the bathroom door. “She also has news about the bond.”
My gaze jerked back up to his. “Can she break it?”
“I don’t know.” He swallowed hard and his eyes returned to their honey-brown color, his wolf retreating back inside him. “She can wait until you’ve had a shower and we’ve gotten you something to eat.”
“Right.” I hurried the few steps across the hall to the bathroom before I gave in to my desire to grab Bishop. But the second I opened the door, his fresh-cut grass scent swept around me, along with something deeper, richer, that made me instantly think of sex, and my desire overwhelmed the icy hollowness again.
“Oh shit,” he hissed, freezing me in place in the doorway and making my pulse leap. “Your bandages. I should help you with them.”
He cleared his throat and drew up close, his body heat and power rolling over me. I clung to the doorframe, determined to not move or look at him or anything other than stand there and let him help me.
He quickly tugged off whatever had been taped to my back then retreated down the hall, and I hurried into the bathroom and closed the door, escaping from him.
Except I hadn’t escaped from his intoxicating scent and now I was trapped in the bathroom with it, aching as if I hadn’t just come — three times!
Oh, God.
I really hoped Whil had figured out how to break the mating bond or had a potion or spell or something that could deal with this insatiable need for sex.
I powered through a cold shower, not even bothering to turn the hot water on and not caring how my back stung, toweled myself off, then had to retreat past Bishop back to my room for a change of clothes.
When I stepped back into the hall fully dressed, Bishop’s wolf was hidden deep within him and he looked like the friendly guy I’d first met. We went to the kitchen, grabbed some pastries and apples, and walked to the back of the alpha’s grounds to Whil’s cottage.
We entered through the greenhouse library door and headed to the seating area at the back where we found her, Cyrus, and a big, black wolf.
Knox.
Our eyes met and my breath left my lungs— hell, all the air vanished from the greenhouse, sucked out by the tension and yearning and aching need ignited in the space between us.
A churning, tearing mix of icy hollowness and blazing desire swirled inside me and my body trembled, trapped between the need to throw myself at him — even in his wolf form — and the need to run away.
“Sit,” Cyrus commanded, his power wrenching my attention up from Knox, who sat on the floor in front of the couch, to Cyrus sitting on the couch. He pointed to one of the plain wooden chairs, and I plopped down on it before I could stop myself or even think of picking a different one.
Bishop shot Cyrus a dark look but didn’t argue with him as he sank onto the cushioned chair between me and Whil. The fae woman sat on the floor among her piles of books where she’d been the first time I’d met her, making me wonder if the piles were just “part of the furniture.” Except a few of the books were distinctly different from the ones the other day, indicating that this was how she organized herself while she worked.
A large tome sat on her lap, opened to a spot near the back, and I stared at it, hoping that if I focused on it, I wouldn’t look at Knox… or think about him… or about last night’s dream.
The book’s pages were yellowed with age and the edges rough as if they had been made by hand and the text looked handwritten in a dark, red-brown ink.
Was that blood?
Nah, who wrote a book in blood?
“What are you doing with the grimoire found in one of the death gods’ temples?” Bishop asked.
Shit, maybe it was written in blood.
She smoothed her hands across the pages and looked at me. “I found this book in a market in Savaria three hundred years ago and bought it to keep it out of the wrong hands. I never thought I’d use anything within its pages.”
I didn’t like the sound of that. I’d been going on the impression that they weren’t going to kill me. Cyrus had been furious that I’d fought that grimalkin because my death could have killed Knox or driven him crazy.
But what if they were just looking for a way to save Knox from the horrible side effects of a broken bond? If I died too soon, it would hurt Knox, but now that Whil had found a solution, they were free to kill me and end this madness.
“I ah…” I glanced back the way we’d come even though I couldn’t see the door to the outside, my pulse suddenly racing. “I…”
“Stay,” Cyrus snarled, his power locking me in my seat before I could think to run. “Let’s hear what it is before panicking.”
Bishop set a hand on my knee, his touch easing some of the fear but not all.
“No one is killing anyone.” He turned his attention to Whil. “Right?”
“Sort of,” she said. “You’re not going to kill someone, but some thing . You’re going to kill your bond.” She opened her mouth, paused as if she was listening to something, then looked at Knox. “I’d say the most dangerous part is getting there. I can’t say for certain how dangerous the spell is, but there’s evidence in this tome that says it shouldn’t kill either of you.”
“Who?” Cyrus asked as if he knew what she was talking about.
I glanced at Bishop. He didn’t look confused at all.
Swell.
Knox had said something with his telepathy and hadn’t included me in the conversation.
“Knox and Audrey have to go,” Whil replied. “They both need to be there for the spell to work. But they need to walk into the heart of one of the death god’s lands, so a dozen hunters at least would probably be best.”
Cyrus frowned. “The closest death god is north of Darkweald, but that’s still at least a nine day hike. We can’t spare a dozen hunters. We need to figure out how the grimalkins got so close to town and if there are more of them. We’ll need all the bodies we’ve got protecting Stonehaven.”
“I’ll go,” Bishop said then shot Knox a hard look. “Better one of the strongest fighters than a dozen weaker ones.”
“Two,” Cyrus said, rubbing his face, looking exhausted. Had he stayed up all night dealing with the grimalkin attack? “Two of the strongest fighters. I’m not letting my younger brothers walk into a death god’s lands by themselves.”
Right. Because I didn’t count. I wanted to be upset about that, but I couldn’t deny reality. If those grimalkins were an indication of how dangerous this world was, I wasn’t going to be helpful on this trip. The best I could hope for was to not get in the way and not fuck up when it came time to do the spell to break our bond.
And really, I should be ecstatic. Whil had found a way to break our unwanted mating bond without killing either of us— or at least it shouldn’t kill either of us. If it worked, I’d no longer be in a constant state of arousal, and the frozen emptiness inside me that threatened to shatter my soul would be gone.
I’d finally be able to live whatever kind of life I wanted.
I just had to walk into the lands of a death god and murder my bond. How hard could that be?