Page 8 of Ensnared by the Pack: The Complete Series (Destined Realms #3)

KNOX

Pack has been hurt, my wolf growled to Cyrus and Bishop, racing faster as if he couldn’t get to whoever it was quick enough. He must have recognized something about the scent that I hadn’t, which was uncommon for everyone else but not for me. I spent days, sometimes months at a time in my wolf form, letting him control our body and wasn’t completely aware of everything he did or everyone he encountered.

They could be dead, Cyrus replied grimly. He must have gotten a sniff of all that blood, too.

My wolf snarled at that and I crashed into a thorny bush, not caring that it scored my skin. The cuts weren’t deep and even if I didn’t shift, they’d heal soon enough.

I don’t smell decay, Bishop replied quickly in an obvious attempt to calm my wolf.

Cyrus grunted at that. It could be too soon for decay to set in but he didn’t want to say anything and risk setting me off. Now even he was walking on eggshells around me.

I shoved through the bush, my gaze instantly caught by a bit of white something, and jumped off the short steep edge of the riverbank into the mud.

The something white was a torn, filthy, bloody dress, on the broken body of a woman sprawled face down in the mud a few feet away. Scrapes and bruises covered her, and four deep wounds punctured her back as if she’d been stabbed with a wide, thick blade.

With the wind hissing through the trees and the rushing water, I couldn’t hear from this distance if she was alive or not, but I couldn’t see her breathing and I had a horrible feeling the injuries on her front would be worse.

I padded to her side, shifted, and gently rolled her over, my vision snapping to red, my anger roaring in my ears.

I was right. Her front was worse. Her face was one big bruise, her eyes swollen shut, her nose broken and still weeping blood, and the front of her dress had been ripped open, revealing four gashes, clearly claw marks, sliced across her chest.

Watery blood oozed from the wounds, pooling in the muddy puddle beneath her, and my anger blazed stronger. They hadn’t just beaten her. They’d tortured her. Those slices weren’t deep enough to kill right away and the sensitive flesh of both her breasts had been cut.

And the pack had thought I was a monster when I’d gone feral.

I’d never toyed with anyone like that, never tossed a person away in the river like they were garbage.

A growl bubbled in my throat. I didn’t recognize her, not by her battered face or her matted, muddy blond hair, and neither I nor my wolf recognized her scent, but that didn’t matter. I wasn’t going to leave her here for the scavengers. She deserved to be taken back to pack land and given a proper burial.

And then I was going to hunt down whoever had done this to her and rip him to shreds.

My wolf heaved under my skin, determined to take over and start hunting now.

Just breathe, Knox, Bishop said, his voice in my head filled with worry. He wasn’t even trying to hide his concern.

He and Cyrus pushed through the underbrush a few feet away from the thorny bush I’d gone through and staggered to a stop.

“We’re going back to town,” I snapped, picking up her limp, still slightly warm body, and cradling her against my chest. “We’re going back now and burying?—”

A gurgling gasp escaped her lips, followed by weak, ragged coughs, and water trickled from her mouth.

Fuck, she’s alive? How the hell was she alive and I hadn’t noticed? I was holding her in my arms. I should have heard her heartbeat.

But I was just so furious over what someone had done to her and — now that I was concentrating and up close — I heard that her pulse was slow and weak, barely there.

The eyelid on her least swollen eye fluttered and another gasping, weak cough, wracked her body.

“We have to get an elixir into her and get her back to town,” Bishop said, hopping off the bank into the mud and reaching to take her from me as Cyrus opened his pack to get the precious ampul of healing elixir every patrol team carried in case of an emergency.

But before I could hand her over, another cough shook her, her eye cracked open, and her gaze locked on mine.

Heat and pressure erupted in my chest, roaring through me. My knees gave out and I dropped to the mud, clutching her, unable to look away.

Mine. She was mine. Every cell in my being knew she was mine?—

No. I was hers. The power came from her. Somehow, without having said the vows and awakening the mating magic, she was binding our souls together.

The force tore into my essence, weaving through it and wrapping around it, growing tighter and tighter. She was trapping me. The cage of a soul bond was locking into place around my heart and if it solidified, I’d never be free.

No. Stop. I can’t be trapped. I won’t be trapped.

“Stop,” I gasped.

She didn’t respond, just kept staring at me… or staring through me. I wasn’t sure which. I wasn’t even sure she was actually conscious.

Her breath stuttered and she whimpered, but I couldn’t tell if it was from the magic or her injuries.

“Stop it,” I growled. Don’t do this. Don’t trap me.

But the force of the magic surged, burning and hardening, tightening around my heart and soul until I couldn’t breathe. Darkness crowded around me, crushing down, threatening my consciousness. I had to get free, had to stop this. Fight. Kill. Tear it all to shreds.

My wolf heaved and snarled, sensing my panic. It would protect me, protect her, protect what was mine?—

No. We couldn’t be bound together and I wouldn’t be able to refuse the bond if my wolf took over. As much as it didn’t want to be trapped, it somehow didn’t see this mating as a cage like I did. It thought she was his and needed to protect her. Binding our souls was the first step in ensuring she was safe.

“Refute it with me.” I shook her, desperate to wake her up. We could break the spell if we both refuted it before it took hold. If she knew that she was bonding to a complete stranger, she’d stop. She had to stop.

“Knox!” Bishop wrenched the woman from my arms, his eyes wide.

The distance stretched the magic between us, tearing at my soul, heaving me toward her, and Cyrus grabbed me around the waist and pulled me back.

The woman whimpered again and her eyelid slid shut, but that didn’t sever the connection between us. The magic had fully awakened, and now that she was unconscious, she wouldn’t be able to refute me as her mate and end this. It was up to me and the force of my will alone.

“I refute you,” I said, heaving against Cyrus’s bear hug, my body still trying to get to her. “I refute you. I won’t have you. You’re not my mate!”

Ice exploded in my chest, tearing through the heat and pressure of the mating magic. It froze the magical cage around my heart and the chain binding me to this woman but didn’t shatter it. I’d managed to cut off an active connection from my soul to hers, but I was still trapped, and even though we had yet to fully seal the bond, this stage was still permanent. I didn’t know if there was any way to break it other than death.