Page 95 of Ensnared by the Pack: The Complete Series (Destined Realms #3)

AUDREY

A dark, menacing laugh reverberated around me and someone screamed in agony. Merrick. Merrick was screaming. The monster was eating him alive and I was next.

Panic stole my breath and I ran. Tree branches clawed at my face and arms and tore into my dress more viciously in my dreams than they’d been in reality. Blood poured down my chest, stark against the shredded white fabric, while agony blazed through my body and my mind spun.

I had to get away. Had to?—

The menacing laugh grew louder, a deep roiling sound with Merrick’s screams a terrifying descant that made my soul tremble with fear.

“You can’t escape,” Sterling said, making me wrench my gaze around the dark forest, desperate to find him.

I was back in my old pack’s sacred grove. Alone. My heart threatening to pound out of my chest.

With a lurch, I realized I was dreaming. Again. But that did little to ease the panic threatening to consume me.

“You’re pathetic,” Royce added. “So weak your only use is to be a sacrifice.”

“No.” I jerked around, trying to find them even though I knew I wouldn’t until the dream wanted me to.

Were they behind me? I couldn’t tell, couldn’t see them, could barely see anything in the gloom.

The laugh roared through the glade, deafening me, making the trees and ground tremble, and stirring up a frozen wind that stung my skin.

“No one wants you,” Sterling taunted.

“That’s not true,” I gasped. Bishop wanted me.

Except I didn’t know that. Cyrus hadn’t been who I’d thought he was. Bishop could be the same. My previous dreams could be right and everyone was just using me.

“You’re a convenient cunt,” Sterling laughed. “You begged for it and soon you’ll go crawling back to them and beg some more.”

“I won’t,” I insisted. I could be strong. But the second I thought that, I knew it wasn’t true. I wasn’t strong. I’d never be strong.

“Of course you will, because that’s all that you’re good for. Fuck toy or sacrifice.” Sterling’s laugh crescendoed, pressing in and oozing against my body as if it had physical mass even as the wind picked up and the trembling ground threaten to knock me over.

I tried to wipe the laugh away, but it clung to me, crawling over my skin and digging into the gashes Royce’s claws had carved into my chest when he’d torn open my white transformation dress.

“I can’t believe you were stupid enough to think I was your fated mate,” Royce added, his voice suddenly right behind me.

I jerked around, my pulse roaring in my ears, bile burning my throat, but he wasn’t there.

“Fate would never match me to someone like you,” he hissed. “Fate wouldn’t match you to anyone.”

Not even to Bishop.

I knew that now. I’d seen the truth. I wasn’t worthy.

But he’d promised ? —

And Royce had made me believe he’d wanted me, too.

I was so stupid. My throat tightened with tears. I’d fallen for the same trick in less than a month because I was desperate. Desperate for hope and love and all the things someone like me didn’t deserve.

Except that doesn’t make sense, a small voice whispered inside me, barely audible over Sterling’s roaring laugh and stinging wind.

Of course, it didn’t make sense. Nothing made sense. Because this was a dream.

Except even when I was awake my life didn’t make sense. It never had.

“Because you’re not supposed to be alive. You’re supposed to bleed,” Sterling hissed, his voice coming from the right. “ He desires your screams.” No, Sterling was to my left.

I whirled around, jerking this way and that, but couldn’t see anyone in the darkness and couldn’t seem to make myself stop looking. If I had night vision like a normal shifter, I’d have been able to see him… maybe. No. I would have.

“Scream little wolf,” Royce growled, his voice right behind me, making me lurch, my heart in my throat.

“No,” I squeaked. “Never.”

But I knew they could smell my fear, knew I’d finally come to realize that fighting them, fighting everything, was futile. It just prolonged my suffering.

“If you won’t scream, then you’ll bleed,” Sterling snarled and dozens of flying snake monsters swarmed around me.

I batted my hands at the closest ones, slapping them away, but there were too many and they moved too quickly. Their sharp teeth tore into my flesh, while their tails wrapped around my arms, slowing my movement, and one wrapped around my throat, cutting off my air.

Another blast of laughter roared around me and the ground lurched beneath my feet. I heaved and squirmed, agony burning with every bite, each breath a desperate gasp. I had to get them off me, and I had to keep my balance. If I fell, I’d never get back up again.

“Scream, prey. Scream and cry and beg and feed Tzanagoth,” Sterling howled, as the snake around my neck vanished and the agony in my body roared into an inferno, igniting every inch of me inside and out. “Scream and bleed.”

“No,” I forced out, tears streaming down my cheeks, as blood poured down my arms and chest. My white transformation dress was soaked and every time my blood splattered on the ground it exploded into a ball of red mist and birthed another snake.

I clawed and swatted at them, yanking one hand free, then the other only to be captured again. My heart pounded, threatening to tear out of my chest. I had to get them off me, had to run, had to escape.

But just as I heaved both arms free and wrenched away the snake around my neck and turned to flee, something seized my hair and jerked me back.

Royce.

He tightened his grip in my dirty blond locks, just like he had that horrible night, and he used it to haul me up until my bare toes skimmed the ground. Pain lanced through my scalp, and I heaved and clawed against his hold, uselessly repeating everything I’d tried the night of the transformation ceremony.

“You’re supposed to scream,” he snarled, raking his claws down my chest, ripping open my dress, and slicing into my flesh as if it hadn’t just been ripped and bloody moments before.

I squeezed my eyes shut, praying I’d wake up.

It was just a dream. Just a dream.

“Waking won’t be any better,” Sterling laughed. “You’re still an alpha’s whore and they’re going to use you until you die.”

They wouldn’t. I wouldn’t let them. Please. I couldn’t.

But I was nothing compared to them, compared to everyone. They could take what they wanted and they would. They were alphas.

“No,” I begged. “Please.” Just the thought of seeing Bishop with Sterling or Royce’s malicious expression hurt. He wasn’t a psychopath. He couldn’t be. He’d never use me like that… wouldn’t he?

“Of course he won’t,” Royce growled. “I won’t let him, because you’re mine. You’re my whore and I didn’t get to fuck you.”

Royce’s black smoke lashed around my body, binding me to the ground, and the flying snakes latched onto me with their sharp teeth.

“You belong to me,” he sneered as the snakes started burrowing into my skin.

Pain roared through me and I heaved against the smoke. They were going to take over, possess me. I could feel their sickening evil, born of violent blood sacrifices, oozing through my veins.

“No.”

“Oh, yes,” Sterling crowed.

“Please, no.” I had to get free, had to get them off of me, out of me. I had to. I had to. They were going to take over, consume me from the inside out, and empower the malicious god that Sterling and Royce had tried to summon.

With a strength I didn’t know I had, fueled by a panic that consumed all other thoughts, I wrenched one of my hands free and clawed at the snakes sinking into my skin.

“Get out. Get out!” I didn’t belong to them. I didn’t belong to anyone. Not even Knox. And I sure as hell wasn’t going to let Tzanagoth consume me.

My hand hit a rock with a sharp edge and I seized it, slicing at the snakes trying to crawl under my skin. I’d kill them all. I wouldn’t let them possess me. I wouldn’t let anyone possess me, not Knox or Sterling or even a god.

I controlled my own fate no matter how lonely or pathetic it was.

Frantic, I slashed and swatted and fought. I freed my other hand and the smoky darkness tried to capture me again, but I writhed and twisted, avoiding its sticky grasp as more snakes tore at my skin.

Sterling stepped out of the grove, his eyes bright with a wicked smile, ghostly red rams horns curling from his temples like the depiction of Tzanagoth in Anakar. The terrifying power I’d sensed when he’d tried to get me to step into the rip and burn myself up, howled with the wind, suffocating and crushing, stronger than even Cyrus’s alpha power.

“Yes,” he cackled, his eyes bright with manic glee. “Bleed for me. Bleed!”

The snakes tore into my flesh and I screamed and screamed and?—

— jerked awake.

Oh God.

It was a dream. Just a dream.

The reek of rotting food and piss hit my nose, then the metallic tang of blood. My head felt heavy, my body numb, even as my pulse pounded hard and fast.

I stood at the end of the alley, brandishing a broken bottle edged with blood, confused about how I’d gotten there and why I held the bottle.

Something plopped on my sandaled foot and I dragged my gaze, my thoughts working in slow motion, down down down my body.

Blood soaked my dress and rushed down my mutilated left arm. Everywhere there’d been a snake trying to possess me there were dozens of ragged slices, so many slices, so much blood, so?—

Sterling’s wicked laughter roared through me even though I was awake and the horror of what just happened stole my breath.

“Took you long enough,” he taunted. “The sacrifice is now complete.”