Page 6 of Ensnared by the Pack: The Complete Series (Destined Realms #3)

AUDREY

Lightning sliced through the clouds and black misty tendrils rushed around me, digging into my essence, seizing the pressure and heat in my chest from the incomplete mating bond and yanking on it, trying to pull it from my body.

Oh, shit.

I mentally scrambled to hold it in and break the magic. He couldn’t complete the sacrifice if he didn’t have an incomplete bond.

“I refute him!” I screamed into the vortex, heaving against Royce’s grip. “I refute this asshole. I take it all back.”

“Too late, mutt,” Royce snarled. “The god has you bound and he’s about to eat you alive.”

“No.” I tried to knee him in the groin, but he turned to the side and my knee skimmed his hip instead, so I rammed my heel down his shin, drawing a snarl of pain.

“Fucking bitch,” he roared and backhanded me.

The impact broke my nose and shot agony through my face. Blood gushed down my chin and splattered on the ground. A brilliant flash of lightning streaked from the clouds and blasted into the center of the grove with a resounding boom .

“Come and take your sacrifice,” Sterling called out.

More of my blood splattered on the ground followed by another blast of lightning and roar of thunder.

“I refute you. I refute you,” I gasped. Please, I refute you.

The incomplete bond trembled and chilled. I was doing it. Just a little more and this would all be over. Sterling and Royce would be pissed, I’d have to fight for my life to escape, but the assholes wouldn’t get whatever it was they wanted.

“I refute you!” I yelled

“And he doesn’t care.” Royce’s fingers turned to claws and he tore through my dress and dug deep gouges in my chest.

Agony sliced through me, a mix of physical and magical pain, and I screamed. The incomplete mating bond ripped into my soul deeper and more painful than Royce’s claws ripping into my flesh. The magic still thought he was my fated mate, and the pain of my mate’s attack was overwhelming, stealing every thought but the desperate one to run. Run now. Now!

The lightning crackled and roared, illuminating the grove brighter than daylight and filling the air with the reek of ozone. Then the black mist burst apart, revealing an enormous column of rippling air, like heat rolling off asphalt on a summer’s day, and radiating an enormous, crushing power.

Royce threw me to the ground at Sterling’s feet, and a large red clawed hand reached out of the rippling air. It grabbed me, the claws piercing my back and chest, adding to the agony wracking my body, and the creature hoisted me up as it stepped fully out of the ripple.

It looked like a greater demon with large, leathery wings, fangs, and ram’s horns protruding from his forehead. But it was bigger. A lot bigger. Which meant it was enormous since greater demons were already some of the largest supers in all the realms. It also didn’t radiate any heat like a demon, let alone the enormous amount of heat that a greater demon was said to radiate with its essence fully released, and every inch of its skin — save for whatever lay under its loincloth — was red like a bad movie version of the devil where greater demons looked more-or-less human.

“She’s weak, but she smells delicious,” the monster snarled, revealing a mouth full of sharp teeth, “like sorrow and desperation.” His tongue flicked out, swiping through the gashes Royce had carved into my breasts, lapping at my blood.

Oh God, oh God, oh God.

I wrenched in the monster’s grip, driving its claws deeper into my body, my fear consuming all pain as well as all logic. I was pinned in its grasp, flailing wouldn’t free me, but I had to do something. I was not going to be eaten by some monster. No way in hell.

Then a wave of power coming from somewhere behind me crashed over me with the command to kneel, crushing my insides because I couldn’t move.

Sterling and Royce did drop to the ground and Merrick stormed into the grove.

“You broke into my safe and summoned it?” Merrick roared. “You idiot. He’ll kill us all.”

“He’ll make us strong,” Sterling shot back and he lunged at his father, somehow defying the alpha’s power that was still squeezing my insides.

Merrick jerked out of the way, his eyes wide, likely with surprise that Sterling was strong enough to defy his power, but Sterling moved with him and rammed both sets of his claws into Merrick’s chest. The alpha grunted in pain and slashed at Sterling’s back, but Sterling ducked down, tearing his claws through Merrick’s belly, and dancing out of the way.

Blood gushed onto the ground, and Merrick grabbed his stomach in a weak attempt to stop the bleeding. But the wound was too deep, eight long gashes that practically opened him up. Even with his heightened healing ability and the ability to heal by shifting, the injury was too great. Shifting now would just kill him. He needed to get to a hospital.

“Even better,” the monster roared. “More power and more desperation.” It tossed me aside like a discarded doll and dove on the wounded alpha.

I slammed into a tree, pitched forward, hit another tree with my head, and crashed in a heap on the ground, the world spinning around me.

Through my wavering vision, I watched the demon shove his hand into Merrick’s gut, rip something out, and eat it.

Merrick screamed and my stomach heaved. That was going to be me?—

That could still be me.

Merrick might be the main course now, but I could still be dessert. I had to get up and run.

I heaved up to my hands and knees. Darkness swam across my vision, but I forced myself to keep going, grabbed the tree beside me, and climbed to my feet, sending another wave of darkness that threatened my consciousness.

The monster howled in delight, catching my attention and giving me a perfect, horrific view of it drawing another strangled cry by tearing off Merrick’s arm and chomping on it like a chicken wing.

My stomach heaved again and I staggered to the next tree, deeper into the forest and the shadows. I moved to the next and the next, the sounds of the monster eating Merrick ringing in my ears, propelling me forward.

That would be me. I would be next. Run. Run run run.

I forced myself to move faster, the trees and underbrush becoming shadowy blurs, my vision just as bad in the dark as a human’s because I didn’t have a wolf form yet. But I couldn’t be more careful. I had to get as far away as possible before they noticed I was gone.

Just keep running. It doesn’t matter where so long as it’s away from that nightmare.

Branches caught on my dress and in my hair and whipped stinging slices against my bare arms and face. My toes caught on roots and bumps hidden in the darkness making me stumble, and rocks and branches sliced my bare feet. I bashed my shins against larger stones, rammed my hips and shoulders into tree trunks, but kept running.

I had to get farther, move faster. Go go go.

Sterling had let that thing eat his father alive.

My breath rushed in short, painful gasps.

Alive!

I jammed my foot on something, wrenched to the side to keep my balance, and slammed into a tree trunk. Pain shot through my face and the world spun and went black for a second.

Blindly, I staggered forward. I couldn’t stop. Not for anything. But my foot hit empty air and I crashed forward, tumbling down a rocky incline and splashing into deep, freezing, rushing water.

The current wrenched me under and tossed me around and around. My body screamed for air, but I couldn’t find the surface. My shoulder and the side of my head slammed into something hard, and sparks flashed across my vision before being consumed by writhing watery darkness.

I scraped against something else, broke the surface, somehow managed to gasp in a watery breath, but was shoved back under before I could even think to get my bearings and save myself.

I was moving too fast and my lungs screamed for air. I was going to drown and I was sure I hadn’t gotten far enough away from that monster.

At least I wouldn’t be alive when the thing ate me.