Page 9 of Ensnared by the Pack: The Complete Series (Destined Realms #3)

CYRUS

With a furious roar, Knox wrenched out of my grip and shifted, retreating into his wolf like he always did when his emotions were heightened.

“What just happened?” Bishop asked, as I cracked the wax seal on the ampul’s stopper and dribbled the half ounce of elixir into her mouth. “Did she just mate bond with you?”

It sure looked like she had and from the look in Knox’s eyes, he was pissed. I just wasn’t sure if he was pissed that he’d been put in the position in the first place and forced to refute her or if he’d failed and was now stuck with a mate he didn’t want.

Knox hopped onto the bank not acknowledging Bishop’s remark and pushed through the bushes back to the trail.

“She was barely conscious,” Bishop added, hurrying through the bushes after him. “I’m not even sure she knew who you were, and you didn’t say your half of the vow. Do you even know her?”

Do you? You’re familiar with a lot more females than I am, Knox said, his mental tone on familiar clear that he really meant fucked.

“No, I haven’t slept with your mate before,” Bishop shot back.

She’s not my mate, Knox snarled.

Bishop glared at him. “I can feel the bond. You’re blocking it, but it’s there.”

Guess he was pissed over not being able to break the mating magic before it took hold. Which was bad on so many levels.

Out of all of us, Knox was the worst one for the woman to have forced a bond on. He barely got along with others, shifters or otherwise, and he certainly wasn’t interested in female attention. It was like Bishop, our youngest brother, had gotten all of the desire for social situations and flirting and had left Knox with nothing.

Except that wasn’t really true. Knox hadn’t been so closed off when we were children. At least not before the accident. He’d been a shy, somewhat reserved child, but he hadn’t actively fled interacting with people, not like he did now, and I couldn’t help but wonder if that distance he put between everyone except me and Bishop had been the reason for his fall into feral madness. There just weren’t enough people he cared about to keep his primal nature at bay. One stress too many and without social support, our wolves took over to protect us.

And that was something I was going to have to keep an eye on. The stress of being forced into a mating he didn’t want could be enough to tip him back into feralness.

So could losing that mate — whether he wanted her or not — and given the state of her injuries, I wasn’t convinced that one ampul was going to be enough to save her.

“We need to get another ampul in her,” I said. “We make for the patrol shed.” Where we had one more dose of the healing elixir.

It was an hour out of our way if we wanted to go straight back to town, but I doubted she’d make it that far. I wasn’t even sure she’d make it to the closest patrol shed. The healing elixirs worked wonders, but they weren’t quick, and it took more than one — more than two actually — to bring someone back from the brink of death.

Except two was all we had access to. I could only hope it would be enough for her to hold on long enough to get back to town.

The wind gusted, swirling the mist and bringing with it the deep scent of rain. The storm that had been promised on the horizon had arrived and sooner than expected, making the shed an even better choice than heading straight to town.

I glanced back toward the heart of the forest. We still had no idea what had caused the lightning and power wave earlier this morning, and the longer we waited the greater the chance any clue as to what had happened would be washed away. But the woman was a priority. Even if she hadn’t just soul bonded with Knox, saving her life was still a more immediate problem than investigating the lightning.

We hurried over the hill and into the valley on the other side. The clouds thickened, growing darker and darker and blotting out the sunrise. They released their promised downpour when we were only halfway to the shed. Stinging sheets of rain pelted us and wind gusts stole the breath from my lungs. But with no other obvious place to find shelter on the rolling grass and farmlands — and in need of that second ampul — all we could do was press forward as fast as we could.

We were drenched and shivering by the time we yanked open the shed door and hurried inside, Knox rushing in as well, surprising me.

He immediately shifted — thankfully resisting the urge to shake out his fur and spray everything in the tiny shed — and went to work starting the fire, leaving the woman to me and Bishop.

I grabbed the shed’s only ampul of healing elixir from the hidden compartment by the door, cracked the seal, and dribbled it in her mouth. She looked even paler than when we’d first found her, and I was certain that wasn’t just because the storm had washed away most of the mud and blood from her skin.

Blood still oozed from her deepest wounds and now her lips were blue. Even with the second ampul we still needed to warm her up and tend to her wounds, and I could only pray she hadn’t lost too much blood and that two ampuls would be enough to save her.

I glanced at Knox, who was so focused on building the fire that it was painfully obvious he was trying not to look at the woman. I had no idea how to deal with this mess. If the bond had been set, they were going to have to seal it or there was a good chance they’d both go mad.

Except Knox was stubborn and would fight it. Probably to the point of irrevocable damage to both of them. How did I convince him to accept a mate he didn’t want?

Hell, for all I knew she wouldn’t want him, either.

Would they be able to break the magic if they both agreed? I’d never heard of anything like that happening once the bond had been formed, but then I’d never heard of anything like a bond forming without anyone saying the vows, either.

Knox had been adamant in refuting the bond. It should never have taken hold in the first place, and the magic remaining in the woman would have eventually faded. It wouldn’t have been quick, usually months, but it would have gone away.

Except Bishop had said he’d felt Knox’s mating bond, which meant it had progressed further than just one person starting the spell.

Did that mean this woman had intended to purposely trap Knox in a bond? We were the alpha’s sons, and while it was expected my mate would join me in leading our pack there was precedent for the mate of a second or third son to become the female facet of the alpha unit. Of course, that was usually because that woman also took the first son as a mate as well, but there’d been that one rare female who hadn’t mated both brothers.

Except I knew every eligible female in our pack and didn’t recognize her. She didn’t even smell like any of the other pack members. And if she’d really wanted to ensnare one of us with the goal of becoming a part of our pack’s leadership, it would have been easier to trap Bishop. He wasn’t wary of women like Knox was.

That and unless it had backfired on her, I doubted her plan was to be found almost dead in a river, hours away from our patrol route. She’d have had no way of guaranteeing that we’d even go into Darkweald… unless she was responsible for the lightning and the power.

Except given how weak her shifter essence was, indicating that she was almost powerless, it was even harder to believe she’d been responsible for last night’s wave of power than her planning to trap Knox in a bond.

No. Whatever had happened to her and however she’d managed to mate with Knox, it hadn’t been planned.

And that only meant I needed to stop trying to figure everything out right this second and focus on saving the woman.