Page 83 of Ensnared by the Pack: The Complete Series (Destined Realms #3)

AUDREY

Over the next two days, I regained my strength enough to walk at the guys’ pace for half the morning and ride Bishop in wolf form for most of the afternoon. I pointedly ignored Knox, and Cyrus didn’t tell me to help him with his campsite jobs again. Instead, I helped Cyrus or Bishop — whoever wasn’t hunting — with filling canteens, foraging for wild fruit and vegetables to supplement our meat, or gathering firewood.

The tension between Knox and I was palpable, and my fear of reprisal for yelling at him squeezed my insides, but I was determined not to back down. For once in my life, I was going to stand up for myself.

Knox had purposely hurt me and I couldn’t just pretend to shrug that off. He could glower and avoid me or hell, even yell and hit me, but I had to stand firm. I couldn’t run away from him like I’d wanted to run away from Merrick and Sterling, and I wouldn’t go back to a life of always being afraid.

But God, it was so hard not to curl in on myself and try to make myself invisible.

“Tomorrow night we’ll be camping just outside Darkweald,” Bishop said as he helped me down a steep slope.

“At this pace, we’ll probably reach the campsite by midafternoon,” Cyrus replied, glancing up at the sun even though we’d just stopped for lunch half an hour ago, at noon. “We’re making good time.”

I bit back a sigh. Bishop had said our slower pace north hadn’t been because I’d been walking and that we’d only made great time this time because the guys had pushed themselves while I was unconscious and when they were carrying me.

But I didn’t really believe him. Yes, they looked a little more worn out than before, but I was pretty sure they’d have been able to handle the faster pace when we’d first headed out.

Except according to Bishop, they’d gone at the slightly slower pace — and he insisted it had only been slightly slower — because they’d thought we were going to be walking for the full twenty days. The rest at Kelna had been a welcome surprise… well, the rest that hadn’t involved my body going crazy with a heat fever.

Cyrus skirted a copse of trees and hopped down another incline into a ravine that wound through the rocky landscape. I remembered it from when we were going the other way and it really did mean we were getting closer to Darkweald. Beyond the ravine lay a dense forest, then a more or less flat stretch of ground, and then the forest where the malicious god slept. We were almost home.

The thought sent mixed emotions swirling through me. I’d only spent a few days in Stonehaven and I already thought of it as home.

Except that wasn’t entirely true. The guys referred to it as home so that’s why I thought about it that way. Not because I had an emotional attachment to the place. Although I hoped I soon would.

I hoped the other pack members, if they couldn’t accept me, would ignore me. That was probably the best outcome I could wish for and was a step up from my previous pack.

I stumbled down the second incline, falling into Bishop’s arms, and flashed him a smile of thanks.

He’d been giving me longer and longer stints of walking and I was starting to feel stronger. Almost as strong as when I’d first started this journey.

“Want me to carry you?” he asked, his voice gruff.

“Half an hour more?” I asked, pulling out of his embrace.

“It’ll be good for her,” Cyrus called over his shoulder. “She’s still too weak.”

“I’ll always be too weak for him,” I mumbled, hopefully soft enough that he couldn’t hear me. He was a good twenty feet ahead of us, so the odds were fifty-fifty.

“He pushes everyone,” Bishop replied with a wry smile. “It’s how he shows he cares.”

He offered me his arm like a gentleman escorting a fine lady and I took it.

“You should have seen him after our mother and fathers died. He was an angry, growly, obnoxious beast,” he said as we followed along the ravine after him.

“And if that’s what gets you to combat practice and keeps you alive, so be it,” Cyrus shot back.

A cloud swept over the sun, throwing us into shadows for a second. When it scuttled away, the sunlight caught in streaks of gold in Cyrus’s light brown hair, streaks I hadn’t noticed before.

The image of his eyes, filled with concern, his irises dark with his wolf’s influence, swept through me. Then he dipped forward, wrapped his arms around me, and pulled me into a tight embrace as he plunged into me again and again and?—

I shoved the fantasy aside even as a part of me questioned if it actually was a fantasy.

Had that actually happened?

Everything about my heat fever was so foggy and incomplete…

Which meant it was just another of my messed-up dreams. Just like the dreams I’d had of having sex with Knox, dreams that I hadn’t had since we’d sealed our bond, or the shame dreams where a nasty voice called me names for what I’d done during the fever.

Cyrus wasn’t interested in me, he’d made that clear, and I was mated to his brother. That was the only reason he was being somewhat nice to me.

Another cloud covered the sun for a second and then another as a gust of wind swept down the ravine.

“We need to pick up the pace,” Knox said from behind us.

I glanced back, unable to stop myself from looking at him even though I was determined to give him just as cold a shoulder as he was giving me. But he wasn’t glaring at me for being too slow like I expected, he was glaring at the rapidly darkening sky.

“I remember there’s a cave halfway down the ravine,” I said as the first drops of rain splattered on the ground, darkening the rock.

“No,” Cyrus replied, shooting down my suggestion without giving it any thought. “We need to go up. Get out of here.”

I swept my gaze at the rocky walls on either side of us. They stood a good fifteen feet high and the bottom half was worn smooth.

Oh, shit.

Water smoothed rock meant the water in the ravine rose to above my head, and while we were in summer and could be standing in a dried riverbed, the more likely answer was that the ravine was a naturally occurring floodway during storms.

A heavy drop of rain plopped on my face and then another and another.

“I think there’s a fallen chunk of rock a short way down,” Bishop said.

Cyrus gave him a sharp nod and took off as Bishop scooped me into his arms and raced after him.

The fat drops quickly multiplied into a stinging, cold torrent, and the wind picked up with sharp bursts that stole my breath and made the guys stagger and fight against the force to keep moving.

I was drenched in seconds and forced to hide my face against Bishop’s shoulder to keep the downpour from my face.

We reached the rock, an enormous chunk of stone that had broken off the ravine’s side and slid to the bottom. Cyrus hopped up it with ease despite the blinding rain and turned back to us.

I’ll get to the top and pull Audrey up, he said in my head, not bothering to yell over the roar of the storm.

Hurry it up, Knox shot back, his gaze on the steady stream of water running down the center of the ravine, now deep enough to cover his feet.

Bishop hefted me up as high as he could, and I scrambled the rest of the way up the rock to the top, while Cyrus jumped and grabbed the top of the ravine wall.

But just as he was about to haul himself up, a jackal leaped to the edge and snapped its sharp teeth at him.

My pulse jerked as he dropped back down and landed beside me, crowding me to the side and making my foot slip. With a yelp, I wind-milled my arms, fighting to keep my balance, knowing it was a losing battle even if the wind hadn’t just gusted and pushed me over.

Fuck , Cyrus snarled and jerked forward, seizing my arm and yanking me up against his side, sending a flash of my fantasy rushing through my head.

But the heat vanished as quickly as it appeared. The rain picked up into a near-blinding torrent, the water level on the ground suddenly rising to Knox’s ankles, and above us, half a dozen jackals stood at the edge, snarling and snapping blocking our only escape.