Page 77 of Ensnared by the Pack: The Complete Series (Destined Realms #3)

AUDREY

The rich scent of wood smoke wrapped around me like a comforting blanket and a reassuring calm heat filled my chest. I was safe. I was loved. I was home. The achy, icy hollowness from Knox rejecting our bond was gone and it was never coming back because we’d sealed our mating bond.

Oh, God!

My pulse lurched, grief and horror consuming all my warm feelings.

Knox and I had sealed our bond.

I was now permanently bonded to a man who didn’t want me and was furious at me for accidentally bonding with him in the first place.

Tears welled in my eyes and I buried my face into the shirt of whoever held me.

It had all been for nothing. I’d walked until my feet bled and then walked some more, and it had been pointless.

Why couldn’t we have held out longer? We’d just needed to get back to Stonehaven and Whil could have transferred the bond to Bishop.

But that had been a long shot. Just like the spell in the death god’s temple.

Cyrus had warned me that I was going to have to face the fact that Knox and I were going to be mates, and I hadn’t wanted to believe him. We’d been walking away from the temple and I?—

My thoughts stuttered. I’d been exhausted and too cold. I?—

Images of being with Bishop, of begging him to satisfy me as an agonizing, desperate need clawed at my insides flooded through me. I’d pleaded with him to fuck me again and again. I’d needed more more more, and he’d been all over me and in me, hands, mouth, cock. I could still feel the glorious pressure of him pushing inside me, of how he hit an amazing spot when he pushed in from behind. I’d needed him more than anything and had been relentless in seeking my pleasure.

More tears leaked from my eyes and I clung tighter to the shirt, pressing my face against a hard, sculpted chest.

I’d been an animal, consumed by my need, not caring about anything but having him fill me.

Heat burned my cheeks. I’d lost complete control.

Then Cyrus’s face flashed through me and my body burned with the memory of him thrusting into me.

I’d had sex with Cyrus? That didn’t make any sense. Cyrus didn’t like me and he certainly didn’t want to have sex with me.

Another set of strong hands wrapped around me, and I was pulled into someone else’s embrace and enveloped in the scent of fresh-cut grass.

I tried to open my eyes, tried to drag myself to full consciousness and see what was going on, but I couldn’t. Exhaustion pulled at me but wouldn’t drag me back under and release me from the horror of my memories, and my sobs grew stronger.

A soothing hand stroked my head and a low voice murmured words my whirling mind couldn’t register.

All I could think about was how I’d been out of control, how I’d demanded sex again and again from a man I’d wanted to be my mate, how my fantasy of having sex with Cyrus felt so real, and how I was now trapped in a bond with Knox.

Trapped. Forever.

My life in this new realm was over before it had begun, and the thought of being imprisoned in a loveless mating came out in desperate, strangled sobs.

I didn’t know what to do.

There was nothing I could do.

Finally, my exhaustion dragged me back into darkness, and I drifted into a churning, black sea, bobbing up to catch blurry glimpses of rugged, rocky scenery passing by, small crackling fires, and soothing hands urging me to eat and drink a cloying bitter liquid.

I had no idea how long the darkness held me captive, all I knew was that every time I broke through, I remember how I’d been, how I’d begged Bishop and Cyrus and Knox to use me in every way possible… or had that been a dream? A nightmare?

What was even true anymore?

Maybe I was dead.

Maybe that monster had eaten me and this was hell. It was just as likely as me actually escaping Sterling and Royce and the pack, falling through a rip between realms, and landing in a place where they couldn’t reach me. Even if I had my full shifter powers— Hell, even if I was strong enough to be an alpha, I’d never have the ability to open a rip or gate or anything else between realms.

A dark, menacing laugh rumbled, striking sudden, icy fear within me, and I froze, afraid to move, afraid to look like the prey that I was.

“You’re desperate,” a voice hissed in my ear, but when I wrenched around to face whoever it was, I found myself alone in my old pack’s sacred grove. “Whore.”

“It was my heat,” I insisted. But that didn’t release the shame that sat heavy and hot within me.

“Greedy cunt,” the voice hissed in my other ear. “Greedy, desperate cunt. You begged for it. You’ll always beg for it. You’re begging for it now.”

“No.” I hugged myself. I wasn’t like that. And yet mixed with the shame was desire to be with Bishop again like our first time before my fever, or to be with Knox just like how I’d dreamed, or to have Cyrus hold me with such tenderness as he thrust inside me.

“You’re going to beg your mate and he’s going to fuck you and still hate you because you’re weak.”

The words sliced into my soul, bleeding in more shame, while my voice, crying for Knox to give me more, begging him to fuck me, echoed around the grove.

“That,” the evil voice said with a dark chuckle, “was a pity fuck. He had to seal the bond to save his life. Not because he loves you.”

“The bond will help,” I insisted. The bond was supposed to deepen the love between two people, but if there wasn’t any love to begin with…?

“You’re going to be his convenient cunt. You’ll never say no to him and he’s going to fuck all his hate into you.”

“He won’t.” He wouldn’t. “Bishop would never let?—”

The menacing laugh roared around me. “Bishop is his brother. He’s family, not some weak pathetic whore. He wants to fuck you with his brother because they’re sick fucks and you’re the sickest of them all. Do you honestly think two guys would want to share you?”

Was it all a trick? Was Bishop trying to manipulate me just like Royce had when he tricked me into thinking we were fated mates?

My throat tightened and tears burned my eyes. It couldn’t be a trick. I believed Bishop. He cared for me. I know he cared for me.

“You’re a convenient cunt who won’t talk back. You’ll take whatever they give you, you’ll beg for it, and they’ll laugh at how they’ve turned you into their toy.”

“That’s not true.” Sure, Bishop had talked about sharing me with Knox, but it was to help me… wasn’t it?

“You don’t want to be used like that,” the voice taunted, back to whispering right behind me. “Do you?”

I wrenched around, still alone in the grove where Sterling had tried to sacrifice me.

“You’re only good to be a fuck toy or a sacrifice,” he mocked.

“No.”

“You know it’s true,” he said. “You can feel it in your soul… along with the bond keeping you prisoner.”

“It’s not true.” Except I was so weak. No one had ever wanted me. Not even my own father. Everything Sterling had told me over all those years had chipped away at me, breaking me down into something fragile that would inevitably shatter.

“You know you only have one option.”

I had no options. I was trapped in the mating bond.

“You know what it is.” The voice deepened, his tone cajoling. “It’s in your DNA.”

The image of my father’s blood splattered over the yellow bathroom tiles flashed through me.

“No.”

“Yes. Unless…” the voice turned wicked. “Unless you do want to be a begging cunt.”

“No,” I insisted, but I didn’t know if it was to killing myself or being Knox’s whore. I had more self-respect than that… didn’t I?

“You do,” the voice whispered. “He hurt you. He hates you. He fucked you without you saying yes. He and his brother are going to continue to use you. Do it.”

“No,” I whimpered. I didn’t want to give up like that, didn’t want to accept that happily ever after was a ridiculous fantasy for someone like me.

“Do. It,” the voice screamed.

Something deep within me jolted and I screamed back, “No!” The wildness I’d felt when I’d dreamed of Knox surged. “Hell no.”

I wasn’t like my father. I was stronger than him, not as a shifter but where it mattered, where it had to matter. I might be afraid and ashamed, and I might make myself smaller to avoid being noticed by the predators around me, but I didn’t give up.

I never gave up.

I always found another way, even if that meant being patient and suffering while I waited for the right moment.

“No!” I threw my head back and released a half scream half howl.

The wildness rushed through me, spinning me around and around, and the churning black sea pulled me into darkness again.