Page 4 of Ensnared by the Pack: The Complete Series (Destined Realms #3)
AUDREY
Sterling growled low and opened his mouth to say something, but his father barked his name.
“He’s not your beta if he defies you. He never was,” Merrick said.
Around him, the adults were shifting, their bodies transforming in a quick, fluid motion from one shape to another, starting on two legs and ending on four. Ripples rolled through a few of the teens, their forms shuddering, solidifying back to human, then shuddering again. The wolves beside them drew closer, offering support with physical contact while Merrick shifted, raised his head to the moon, and released a long, deafening howl.
Awaken and run.
Power rolled through the grove and those teens whose forms were already starting to change dropped to their hands and knees and shifted. The others started to lose their form and Merrick howled again.
His alpha’s command, to take my true form, to wake and run, squeezed inside me. I had to obey. I wanted to obey. I was pack — and I sure as hell wasn’t even close to being an alpha and able to resist his power.
But just like the last four years, no matter how much I wanted to obey, nothing inside me responded to his call, not a growl or huff or a sense that my body had the capability of being anything other than human.
My throat tightened with disappointment, but I pushed it aside. I wasn’t done yet. My wolf could still wake. I could still shift. I just needed to try harder, concentrate more, something, anything.
Awaken, Merrick roared in my head, as if he knew I needed another stronger push to shift.
His golden gaze seized me from across the grove and the pressure crushed around my heart.
I fought to breathe, to will my body into transforming. Please. This was my year. I was going to shift. I had to shift. Even with a fated mate, I wanted to shift. I wanted to be what I’d been born to be. A wolf shifter, a supernatural being, a predator, not some helpless prey who wasn’t shifter enough to be a super but not human enough to be human, either.
I squeezed my eyes shut and searched inside myself for even just a spark of ferociousness, a flicker of animalistic power, something, anything.
But there was only me. There had only ever been me. Weak, fragile, so close to human I should have just been born human.
Pathetic, Merrick huffed inside my head. He turned away from me and released another howl. The rest of the group responded and they took off into the woods, leaving me panting against the pressure that remained in my chest, my soul aching and empty.
Did I even have a wolf? How many times could I come to the grove on the summer solstice and not shift before I accepted the truth?
I was a shifter who couldn’t shift.
I was pathetic.
I pressed my forehead to the forest floor, gasping in ragged breaths, the deep musty scent of dirt doing nothing to steady me and ground me within my body because I didn’t want to be where I was. I didn’t want to be aching and empty in our pack’s sacred grove. I wanted to be running through the forest with the other wolves. I wanted to be recognized as an adult, hell, even just a person.
My eyes burned and my throat tightened with tears I didn’t want to shed. Crying was weak. Except I was weak. Sterling was right. He’d always been right. I was prey and would always be prey.
And I needed to remember that and get home before Sterling, Joan, and Shae could double back and attack me and?—
No. They wouldn’t because Royce still knelt beside me. They might not have figured out yet that he’d protected me because of our fated mating call, but they knew something was up, and they’d figure it out soon enough. Then Royce would join me as the laughingstock of the pack. Mated to the shifter who couldn’t shift.
I cracked my eyes open and glanced at him, my forehead still pressed against the cool uneven ground, too tired to bother raising my head. He hadn’t touched me or said anything the whole time, but from his expression it looked more like he wasn’t sure how to approach me instead of horrified that I was his fated mate.
“So much for this year being my year,” I said.
“I don’t know,” he said with a shrug. “How many of us can say we’ve heard a fated mating call?”
He offered me a soft smile. It lit up his face and I was struck with how handsome he was. Compared to Sterling in his shining captain-of-the-football-team blond glory, Royce with his spikey brown hair and muddy brown eyes hadn’t stood out as good looking. He’d been handsome, but nothing compared to his friend. But his smile, so real and comforting, turned him into an angel and it was breathtaking. I wasn’t sure I’d ever seen him smile like that.
The thought sent whispering heat teasing down my spine. This was a smile just for me. His mate.
“Well of the current group available, I’d say a hundred percent of us can say we’ve heard a fated mating call,” I replied with a soft laugh.
He rolled his eyes at me. “Your sample size is too small. Two isn’t enough for anything. Well…” He coughed and glanced away. “It’s enough for ah… something else.”
“Like completing the mating bond?” I wasn’t sure how I felt about that even knowing that was the next step for us.
Yes, Royce was my fated mate and I couldn’t pretend I hadn’t heard the call. I hadn’t thought it would come with an explosive fire that would make me feel like I was being burned alive — Mila hadn’t said anything about that — but we knew so little about the call that everyone’s call could be different. Perhaps the magic needed for my and Royce’s souls to recognize each other had to be stronger because I was a broken shifter.
On the other hand, completing the bond meant having sex with someone I barely knew. Not that knowing him would change anything. We’d still be fated mates. I’d just hoped I’d be a little less self-conscious about the whole sex thing before I actually had sex. Especially since I’d never actually had sex before. It had been hard enough to keep Mila as a friend and next to impossible to find a guy to have any kind of relationship with.
And while I knew I was going to have to admit that to Royce before we completed our bond and he probably wouldn’t judge me, I wasn’t prepared for the look he’d give me when he realized I was a virgin.
“How about coffee first?” I suggested as I pushed up to my feet and leaned against a tree to steady myself.
“I’d love to,” he said, standing as well, his hands reaching for me as if to help me with my balance but stopping before making contact, still uncertain of himself. “But I don’t think we can afford to wait. Not even for coffee.” He glanced across the grove in the direction the pack had gone. “Sterling wasn’t lying when he said Merrick was going to arrange a mating for you. I overheard the alpha on the phone the other day. He’s going to send you to the Albuquerque pack.”
“Albuquerque?” I was surprised he wasn’t sending me to Union City or to a pack in Europe. Albuquerque wasn’t close, but it wasn’t exactly far away, either. Except getting rid of me wasn’t the plan. Using me as currency to buy what he wanted was, and if that was the case— “Isn’t the Albuquerque alpha the head of the North American Shifter Alliance?”
“And they just had a seat open up at the table,” Royce said. “It’s not the JP, but it’s the next best thing.”
“Does he honestly think the alpha will give him that seat once he learns he’s been sent a defective shifter?” It didn’t make sense, not for something like that. But then if he wasn’t going to mate me to a shifter for his own political gain, why would he arrange a mating for me?
“It sounded like it didn’t matter whether you could shift or not,” Royce said.
My pulse picked up. I really didn’t like the implications of that. The Albuquerque pack had a renowned supernatural research facility and if Merrick wasn’t shipping me off to be someone’s wife, he could be shipping me off to find out why I was a shifter who couldn’t shift. And I didn’t want to think about how they were going to gather their data.
“We can’t risk Merrick denying our bond,” Royce added, inching closer to me and reaching a tentative hand to cup my cheek.
My pulse fluttered at his touch and at the desperate look in his eyes. I leaned into his palm and warmth billowed in my chest and radiated over my cheek where our flesh met.
God, it felt so good to be touched. Since Mila had left, there hadn’t been anyone to satisfy my shifter need for physical contact, and I hadn’t realized just how much I missed it until now.
“He can’t deny a fated mating call,” I replied, my voice turning breathy and the heat in my chest sinking low within me, the need to seal our bond rising even though it had only just been awakened. “Even if we haven’t said our vows and completed the bond, we’re still fated mates.”
His gaze dipped to my lips and the heat blossomed into an achy need. What would it feel like to kiss him? What would it be like to do more? Unlike me, I was sure he’d had practice, had kissed someone, probably a few someones, before. He’d probably been with a woman, too.
And now I was even more self-conscious of the fact that I’d never been intimate with someone.
“I don’t want to bet on Merrick respecting a fated mating call,” Royce murmured, inching even closer, his breath feathering across my lips. “I never thought I’d have a fated mate and I’m not going to lose you before I even know you.”
The need and fear in his eyes matched mine. Merrick couldn’t be trusted. He’d use me however he saw fit and the only way to guarantee that didn’t happen was to seal my mating bond with Royce.
“Okay,” I breathed. “Take me to your place.”
“Sterling could still catch us before we get there.” Royce brushed his lips against mine. Desire shivered all the way down my body, inflaming the aching need between my thighs. “Let’s do it here in the sacred grove under the summer solstice’s full moon.”