Page 91 of Ensnared by the Pack: The Complete Series (Destined Realms #3)

AUDREY

I jerked awake, my pulse racing, my body sticky with sweat and ugly red scratches up and down my arms and around my neck from where the sticky black smoke had captured me in my dream. The unease sat tight and heavy in my chest, worse than before I went to bed, and tears rolled down my cheeks.

Furious, I wiped them away. I was done with him, done with all of them. They couldn’t reach me and I was finally safe.

I. Was. Safe.

God, why couldn’t I make myself believe that?

I dragged my bleary gaze to the window, the curtains still open since I’d collapsed on the bed and hadn’t bothered to shut them.

Dawn was just starting to lighten the sky, which meant I’d slept for most of the night, but I didn’t feel like it. I was still exhausted, and the unease still seethed inside me and made me tremble.

With a groan of frustration, I got out of bed and slipped into a dark blue, backless dress with a high neckline that hid the scratches at my throat and was made from a material thick enough that it wouldn’t show off my nipples. Not that I had to worry about being perpetually turned on now that my heat was over.

Normally I would have preferred a shirt and pair of pants, but for some reason I balked at the idea. I wanted to look pretty just in case I came across Bishop, and he’d spent the last month watching me get dirtier and dirtier in a shirt and pants. I didn’t want to remind him of that. I wanted to remind him of the woman in the pretty dress he’d made love to the night of the wedding in Kelna.

Trying to remind myself that I likely wouldn’t see Bishop until dinner and that I shouldn’t get my hopes up, I headed down the quiet halls to the kitchen.

Inside, two women — one middle-aged and the other about my age — were making morning pastries. The young woman sang and danced as she worked while the old woman was more restrained and just hummed along with her. They were still in the early stages of their work with the young woman filling a pan with what looked like cinnamon rolls and the older one working on a batter that I guessed was intended for the empty muffin tray on the counter beside her.

Breakfast clearly wasn’t ready, but I suspected if I asked, there’d be fruit and bread in the fridge.

Except, even though I hadn’t eaten a lot last night, I wasn’t hungry. The unease was like a vise around my chest, making it hard to breathe, and it fed an angry irritation that was sure to get me in trouble if I talked to anyone.

And since I still wasn’t entirely sure where I stood with Cyrus and the pack, I didn’t want to risk pissing off the wrong person. In my old pack, the wrong person had been everyone except my friend Mila. I had to assume until I knew otherwise that it was the same here.

Which meant it was best to step away before one of them saw me.

And here I was being terrified of reprisal from everyone once again.

The thought made me want to scream and I hurried out the front door, hoping that being outside would help.

But the crisp air and the peaceful early morning silence did nothing to diminish the unease and frustration and anger — so much anger — boiling inside me.

Jeez. What was wrong with me?

I’d never been so angry in my life.

But maybe it was about time. I’d barely stood up for myself when I was a child and Merrick had punished that away within a year of living with him. Now I was free from him and his son. Perhaps all the rage and fear I’d kept bottled up all the years had finally broken free.

If that was the case, I needed to figure out how to get rid of it before I yelled at the wrong person. Just because I was Knox’s mate and Bishop was romantically interested in me, didn’t mean I had immunity from bad behavior.

Sure, shifters tended to be more volatile in nature than other supers, but losing it for no apparent reason was still bad.

I marched around the Residence’s grounds. My emotions roiled inside me and my thoughts were a jumble, searching for a reason for why I’d finally broken. Then my thoughts jumped to my horrible childhood then to the terrifying moment when that monster had started to eat Merrick while he’d still been alive then back to the beginning again. Around and around and around I went.

It wasn’t fair.

It just God damned wasn’t fair.

And while logically I knew life wasn’t fair, I couldn’t get my emotions under control. All that blood, all of my father’s blood, splattering the bathtub tiles, all the punishments, all the fear about when Sterling would attack next, building and building until I couldn’t breathe. All the hope Royce had given me in the blink of an eye before crushing it completely.

How dare they! How dare all of them.

I’d been trapped in my life through my naivety and my position in my pack, and I was still trapped. I was trapped in my bond with Knox and I was trapped in my own body, my wolf form locked away forever.

A ferocious wildness rose inside me, and I threw my head back and screamed, desperate to release the pressure crushing my chest.

Tears of heartache and frustration and emotions I couldn’t even recognize streamed down my cheeks. I could be brave for Bishop, and I could hold out until Knox apologized for hurting me, but I was always going to be broken. Always.

The sudden need to escape crashed over me. It consumed every other thought and feeling, propelling me into a wild run out the Residence’s gates, through Old Town’s narrow winding streets, and out into the newer part of Stonehaven. I ran and ran and ran as if I could run away from the hurt and fear and shame inside me.

As if I could run away from who I was and become someone else.

I ran until I was straining for breath, covered in sweat, and my whole body trembled from exertion, and then I sagged against an alley wall damp with morning dew.

The wildness still churned inside me, desperate to escape, furious at being trapped, the emotions so strong they felt like they belonged to someone else. Weak little Audrey would never feel anything so deeply. She’d never scream and run like a mad woman.

But maybe that was what I was now. A mad woman. Maybe I’d finally lost it, my soul broken, just like my father’s. Just like my nightmares had whispered to me.

I raked my hands through my hair, pushing it away from my face, and sucked in deep breaths, determined to steady myself.

Each inhalation hurt my chest, the pressure and unease still clawing inside me, and the urge to run still made me twitch, but both sensations started feeling foreign as if they weren’t mine as if they belonged to?—

Knox.

My pulse stuttered. The need to escape and the blinding white rage were Knox’s emotions, and they were fueling my own insecurities.

Something was happening with him, something that was making him feel so strongly he was influencing my emotions through our mating bond.

I pressed my hands over my chest as if that would somehow focus my connection on our bond. I needed to distance myself from him and regain control. It was bad enough he could physically control me with his alpha power. Now he could make me feel things I wasn’t really feeling through our bond.

But the second I thought that, I knew he wasn’t doing it on purpose. He was in trouble and the only way to stop the onslaught of unwanted emotions was to help him. Now. Now now now.

Except I had no idea where he was.

Hell, I didn’t even know where I was.

I hurried out of the alley and looked down the street. From the street’s width and the large stone paving tiles, as well as the smaller brick on the two- and three-story buildings on either side, I had to be in a newer part of town.

I didn’t recognize any of the buildings and from where I stood I couldn’t see the Old Town wall. There were about a dozen people on the street. Most were carrying bags and heading somewhere — off to work maybe? — while a few were setting out sandwich boards and turning on lights in the nearby stores.

From the angle of the shadows and the mountains looming to my right, I guessed I was facing southeast, and since I couldn’t see Old Town, that meant it was behind me. But when I turned to head the other way and return to the Residence, the pressure of Knox’s emotions surged, stealing my breath and filling me with a desperate urgency.

I jerked back to the southeast and the pressure turned into a sharp pull, yanking me forward a few steps before I realized what I was doing.

I hadn’t been running blindly through town. Knox’s emotions were pulling me to him… because he needed me. Whether he knew it or not, his overwhelming emotions were a call for help. One that, even if I wanted to, I couldn’t deny.

I took off, letting the pull lead me down the street. The path drew up close to the mountainside before opening into an enormous courtyard blocked in by the mountain and two-story buildings on either side.

Pillars had been carved into the side of the mountain framing half a dozen large openings and the pull led me through the closest one into a dimly lit hall. The pressure surged again and I ran down the hall, faster and faster. The rage that had consumed me earlier threatened to take over and I knew if I didn’t get to Knox soon, I’d lose myself to it again.

Knox was inside and the sense of urgency squeezed tighter.

I bolted down the hall. Large faintly glowing stones placed every twenty feet along the wall at head-height offered barely enough illumination for me to see with my practically-human vision, but it was enough to keep from tripping and to spot the tunnel leading deeper into the mountain.

This way. Hurry. Hurry. Run. Fight. Kill.

More light, brighter than what was in the hall, shone from the end of the tunnel, and I raced toward it, straight to a closed metal gate.

Shit.

I grabbed the cold bars and heaved, but the gate wouldn’t budge. It was locked.

No! I had to keep going. It was the only way to stop the emotional onslaught before it took over again.

Beyond the gate lay an arena lit well enough to see everything in the center, but not so bright it was blinding. It had been built in an enormous cavern in the heart of the mountain and had a polished stone floor, a wall about a foot taller than me surrounding the “field,” and two dozen rows of bench seating surrounding it.

Knox, in his wolf form, prowled the arena floor, snarling and baring his teeth. Pools of blood darkened the floor with a ripped piece of clothing lying in the center of the largest one. He looked as if he were a real wolf trapped in a cage and not a shifter, his movements jerky and wild.

I pressed a hand against my chest, clinging to the gate with my other hand to keep standing, and focused on the pressure inside me. This close to Knox, the pull felt like it was tearing my soul from my chest, and a rage and primal wildness that needed to rip everything apart threatened to seize me.

I wrenched my eyes open and strained to suck in a steadying breath. The emotions coming through the bond had exploded into a vortex that tore at my insides and likely tore at his as well.

For whatever reason, the primal core of his wolf was devouring the human half of his soul, and if it succeeded, I’d lose my mate forever.

I had to get in there. I had to save him.

The lock on the gate required a key that I didn’t have, so I swept my gaze around, looking for it or a way up to the arena’s seating, anything that would help.

There. About ten feet behind me. A passage I hadn’t noticed because I’d been focused on the gate and the light beyond it.

I rushed into the passage, up the short set of stairs into the first row of benches, and climbed over the edge of the wall determined to get into the arena as fast as possible. If I hung from my fingertips, the fall was only a foot or two, but the stone was smooth and I’d barely gotten turned around and over the edge, when my fingers slipped and I crashed to the arena floor, landing on my butt.

A low growl jerked my attention up and I locked gazes with Knox as he bolted toward me with no glimmer of recognition in his eyes.

My pulse stuttered.

He wouldn’t hurt me. I was his mate. If I died, he died. But did his animal half understand that? He was so angry, so determined to kill everything.

“Audrey!”

A wave of power crashed over me along with the sudden need to run away. I wrenched my gaze around the arena, searching for a way to escape even as a part of me screamed that the impetus came from someone’s alpha power, not me.

On the far side, Cyrus and Deacon leaped over the wall to the arena floor their expressions filled with panic and raced toward me.

Both guys looked like they’d already fought with a feral wolf and barely escaped with their lives, and if all the unease churning inside me came from Knox then that meant they’d been fighting with him since last night.

How had it gotten so bad? And why hadn’t they shifted out their injuries? Unless, of course, they were bad enough they feared the shift would exhaust them and they wouldn’t be able to keep doing whatever they were doing with Knox.

Cyrus, who still wore the pants he’d worn yesterday morning indicating that he and Knox had gone straight to this arena when we’d returned to Stonehaven, had lost his shirt and held one arm against his stomach. Blood smeared his chest and ran from beneath his arm and down his legs, soaking into his pants, while Deacon’s whole right side was bloody. He held his right arm to his chest, blood leaking from long gashes that ran from his shoulder to his elbow.

Behind them, Bishop lay on a bench, not moving, and my pulse lurched with a new fear. I couldn’t see if he was injured, but I also couldn’t see if he was breathing.

Oh, God! Had Knox done that?

“Run!” Cyrus roared at me and another burst of power made my muscles tense.

But there wasn’t anywhere to go and the command only added to the emotions crushing my chest. I couldn’t climb back up the wall. It was too tall. The closest gate was locked. And there was no way in hell I’d be able to outrun a wolf.

And now I was no longer certain that Knox wouldn’t hurt me.

He’d mauled Cyrus and hurt Bishop and they were his brothers. I was just some weak little girl who’d forced a mating bond on him.