Page 34 of Ensnared by the Pack: The Complete Series (Destined Realms #3)

AUDREY

The plan was simple. Walk into a land where a death god slept, go to his altar, and cast a spell to kill my unwanted mating bond with Knox.

Except from everyone’s expressions, I doubted it was as simple as it sounded.

There were probably monsters between here and there, like those grimalkins that had attacked the town or worse. But since I’d only been in this realm a few days, I had no idea what to expect or what to fear.

A part of me believed that I should just fear everything. That would be safest. I didn’t know anything about where I was or even who I was with… especially the three brothers leading this pack.

Cyrus was enormous and while gorgeous, was gorgeous in a hardened-warrior-dangerous-bad-boy kind of way. If our shifter abilities didn’t heal us when we shifted — and if we were in my realm, the mortal realm — he’d probably be covered in tattoos, wearing a leather jacket, and riding a big, chunky, loud motorcycle. He’d probably throw me to those grimalkins without a hint of remorse if he thought it would protect his pack and wouldn’t hurt Knox.

Bishop on the other hand was dangerous in the completely opposite way. Also gorgeous, he had a warm, disarming smile, and was kind, gentle, and supportive, and while I didn’t think he’d purposely hurt me, he could easily break my heart. He’d probably left a trail of broken hearts all over town and didn’t even know it.

While Knox… Knox hated me. Even if binding my soul to his had been an accident — and I wasn’t sure he completely believed that — I’d still trapped him in a mating bond, and I could feel his hatred for the bond and me with frozen certainty in the core of my being.

And just thinking about it made the cold hollowness surge, swirling in and around the aching, desperate need to seal our mating bond with sex.

But the desire to have sex with him — or hell, one of his brothers — wasn’t the real emotion in all of that. It was his rejection of me and I couldn’t blame him. My power was so low I wasn’t worthy to be anyone’s mate let alone the mate of someone powerful enough he could be the alpha of his own pack… if he had any desire to lead.

On top of that, I couldn’t even shift. My wolf was still asleep. It hadn’t woken on the summer solstice of my eighteenth birthday like it should have nor after four more awakening ceremonies, and I feared the wolf half of my soul would never wake. I feared I never had a wolf form in the first place and everyone was mistaken about me being a shifter.

Sure, my essence said I was a shifter, but how could I call myself one when I couldn’t shift?

And who would want to mate with someone like that?

“All right,” Cyrus said, his intense, moss green gaze jumping from Knox, still in his enormous black wolf form, to Bishop who sat beside me, his hand resting on my knee in an attempt to steady my soul even though we weren’t mates or even close friends. “Deacon, Nova, and Finn can handle leadership and security for the town while we’re away. Lucius can take over when he gets back.”

Bishop nodded his agreement, but Whil, the stunning fae with an ever-so-slightly perpetual golden glow, frowned and opened her mouth to say something.

“I know it isn’t wise for the three of us to walk into a death god’s realm,” Cyrus said before she could argue with him. “But until I’m dead, I’m still the alpha of this pack. It’s my decision.”

Whil’s bright green eyes narrowed. “You’ll have to inform Nova that if things go badly, she and Deacon will need to take over.”

“Velora is going to love that,” Bishop groaned.

The muscles in Cyrus’s jaw flexed. “Nova is more powerful and Deacon works better with her.”

“You mean Velora is strung so tight Deacon will spend his time riling her up and nothing will get done,” Whil huffed, tucking a strand of shimmering golden hair behind her delicately pointed ear. Then she turned her attention back to the book that hopefully had the answer to freeing me and Knox from our bond without either of us dying.

“Bishop,” Cyrus said as he stood. “Find out everything we need to know about the spell. I’ll organize our betas. We’ll head out first thing tomorrow morning.”

“Tomorrow morning?” I asked, the words jumping out before I could stop myself. “It’s morning right now.”

I wasn’t really a part of this conversation and shouldn’t have said anything. Sure, I had to go in order to break my mating bond with Knox, but they hadn’t asked my opinion and even if they had, I wouldn’t have had one. Hell, I hadn’t even heard a quarter of the conversation about breaking the bond because Knox hadn’t included me in his telepathic communication with the others.

But waiting until tomorrow meant I had to suffer a whole extra day with the nerve-wracking frozen hollowness of Knox rejecting our bond and the achy longing to have sex to seal it. A longing that was growing stronger and stronger and wasn’t focused solely on Knox. My body didn’t seem to care who I had sex with as long as I had sex.

And Bishop was just so kind and gorgeous and it was a struggle just sitting in Whil’s greenhouse library with him beside me, the heat of his hand burning my flesh through my pant leg.

“It’ll take half a day to pack our supplies and organize everything,” Bishop said, squeezing my knee, his tightening grip ratcheting up my need and not calming me like he probably hoped.

“And it will take most of a day to get to the closest patrol shed,” Cyrus added. “There might be more grimalkins in the area and if we have access to shelter, we shouldn’t ignore it. Whil, have you got a map of the area?”

“Somewhere. Give me a minute to find it,” she replied.

“You’ve got until tomorrow morning.” Cyrus turned and headed toward the door of Whil’s strange greenhouse-English cottage-library as Deacon pushed through the foliage and flowers and hurried into sight.

“The hunt team has returned from Darkweald,” he said as he picked his way across the uneven floor to get to us in the mismatched seating area at the back. He wore the same black kilt-like-piece of clothing he had at dinner the other night and nothing else, exposing his broad muscular chest and making my desire spike because hey, he was a good-looking guy and my body wanted sex sex sex. He still also radiated the same sense of feralness, but it didn’t seem quite as dangerous after watching him roar with laughter at Cyrus’s — and my — embarrassment.

His golden-brown gaze jumped over the group of us, hesitating on Knox, and finally stopping on me, and he raised an eyebrow, his lips quirking as if he’d thought of a joke he didn’t want to share.

“No sign of the malicious god,” he reported, not commenting on what he obviously wanted to comment on — which was me being a part of some conversation between Whil and the three brothers. “But there’s magic present in the ruins. Whil should check it out.”

Cyrus’s expression darkened. “Just great. Okay, change of plans.”