Page 97 of Ensnared by the Pack: The Complete Series (Destined Realms #3)

BISHOP

A heart-stopping mix of rage and panic shot through my bond with Knox, making my knees buckle. With a growl, I slammed my shoulder against the alley wall and managed to stay upright while only staggering up the remaining uneven steps to reach the top of the northern terrace then kept running.

Knox had said Audrey was in trouble, his worry so strong he’d let his full power slip — or maybe even released it on purpose — something he never did. Eloise and Kira, our cook and her assistant, had dropped to their knees from the force of his power, and I had a feeling so had everyone in a two-hundred-foot radius from Knox since Cyrus had then been inundated with telepathic questions about what was going on.

Another full blast hit me, compelling me to hurry and help, and Knox screamed in my head.

“Oh, Sisters,” Nova gasped. “Was that?—?”

“Knox?” I said. “Yeah.”

“Finn says he sees them. Northgate Road. Nova,” Cyrus barked with a leak of power. “You need to shift and meet them at the closest med pack.”

“Corner of Northgate and Menders,” Nova said as she shifted into her small, white and reddish-brown wolf, not even pausing to take off her dress. Then she raced out of the alley and onto a narrow, unnamed street heading toward Northgate.

I shifted as well and ran after her. While we’d traveled to the death god’s temple, the betas had set up medical packs in secure locations all over town — the majority on the perimeter — and started voluntary first aid classes for anyone who wanted to know how to use what was in the packs. We’d lost too many people in the grimalkin attack and Nova had sworn it wouldn’t happen again.

I could only pray that Finn had been in one of the first few classes, or that there was someone else nearby who could help since Knox didn’t know a whole lot of first aid and, from the panic racing through our bond, was barely holding it together.

What the hell had happened? And why the hell had Audrey been roaming Stonehaven alone?

For the most part, the town was safe, but she was a very weak, very pretty female and even in the nicest parts of town she could have drawn males too eager for her attention and unwilling to listen to her soft, shy requests to be left alone. That she’d ended up on the north side of Stonehaven, the shadiest part of town with the foreigners not beholden to an alpha, had me even more worried.

Knox, I called out, praying I was close enough to reach him.

She’s dying, he screamed back. She— Bishop, I can’t— It’s just like when we found her in the river.

Someone attacked her? My wolf rose to the surface and seized control. We’d kill whoever had hurt her, tear him to pieces and bathe in their blood.

I don’t know. There wasn’t anyone around. She wasn’t even awake when she hurt herself.

She hurt herself? How ? —?

I. Don’t. Know! he roared, his desperation and panic crashing through me, propelling me faster.

With my longer legs, I passed Nova even though I had no idea which building had the Northgate Menders med pack.

But it didn’t matter. Knox’s fear was a physical, impossible pull on our bond, drawing me to him — something that had never happened before. I wasn’t even sure how it was possible, because there wasn’t a bond strong enough to tell someone where the other was.

I sped out of another narrow no-name street and climbed the shallow steps onto Menders, a wider street that joined the northern terrace with the rest of the town. I passed a group of people frozen from the power pouring off Knox, caught in the opposing compulsions to help and to get away. Beyond them, I could see Knox at the next intersection. Menders and Northgate.

He knelt on the ground, clutching a limp Audrey to his chest while Finn knelt beside him, pulling stuff out of a bright yellow duffle bag. Blood darkened the ground around them in a too-large pool and there were already two elixir ampules lying discarded on the ground.

I slid to a stop beside them and shifted into my human form, taking a handful of gauze from Finn and clamping it down on Audrey’s mutilated left forearm.

A second later, Nova appeared and nudged me to the side so she could get at Audrey.

“Save her,” Knox growled, clutching Audrey tighter.

“I will,” she said, meeting Knox’s dark gaze, her expression tight with worry and determination. “I promise. But you have to put her down.”

Knox trembled and the muscles in his arms flexed. Power rolled off him, commanding me to save her, now now now, and the panic in our bond stole my breath.

“I can’t,” he gasped. “I can’t. Nova, please.”

“I’ve already given her the pack’s two elixirs,” Finn said.

“Who did this?” Cyrus demanded, his own power vibrating at the edge of my senses, his control on the verge of slipping.

He was going to kill whoever had hurt her. It was clear in his eyes. But there was also something deeper, darker in his gaze. I couldn’t recognize the emotion, but it made my already churning insides cold with dread.

Nova peeled back the gauze, revealing the mess of Audrey’s arm then slapped the gauze back down and moved to the gauze Finn held over her chest and thigh.

“I don’t know,” Knox replied, his attention locked on Audrey’s pale face, his body trembling. “I saw her cut herself. She was standing and crying and cutting herself with a broken bottle.”

All the color drained from Cyrus’s face and he jerked a step closer.

Knox tensed. “Too close,” he growled, his voice low, his breathing suddenly sharp and ragged, the surge of fear that marked a panic attack bursting through our bond. “You’re too close. All of you are too close!”

Cyrus heaved himself back, and Finn and I inched as far away as we could while still holding the gauze in place. No one wanted to risk Knox’s wolf losing it, and while Finn didn’t know we’d just barely saved him from going feral a few hours ago, he sure as hell remembered how vicious Knox had been the last time.

Knox sucked in a sharp breath then another and squeezed his eyes tight. I could feel him struggling to not let his fear overwhelm him. Even his wolf was helping, fighting against the most primal part of its nature to stay in control because that was the only way to help Audrey.

“I think she was asleep,” Knox forced out. “She looked so surprised.”

“I need to stitch most of this,” Nova said as she taped the gauze around Audrey’s forearm then ripped the front of Audrey’s dress so she could tape gauze there as well. “But I want to do a thorough cleaning first. The elixirs will help, but I’d rather she wasn’t also fighting an infection on top of trying to heal this degree of damage.”

Another burst of panic swept through our bond and Knox’s grip on Audrey tightened.

“I need to be with her,” he said.

Finn’s eyebrows shot up at that announcement but he thankfully didn’t say anything. As it was, people were going to be talking. Knox had frozen every shifter in the immediate area, locking them in his fear to avoid crowds and his desperation to save his mate.

Before the day was done, everyone was going to know that Knox and Audrey were mate bonded. There was no other logical explanation for his reaction. And everyone was going to be wondering how and why it had happened. The wolf that didn’t need or want anyone now had a mate. One who couldn’t even shift and live the same lifestyle as him.

“We’ll set up something outside her suite,” Cyrus assured him. “Finn. Run ahead until you’re close enough. Tell Whil to meet us in the gold suite and get Zavier to set up a mattress on the patio. Last time I saw him, he was with Lucius in the library.”

“Yes, alpha,” he said, thankfully without asking the questions that I could see in his confused expression. He yanked off his shirt, dropped his pants, and raced away, shifting mid-step.

“You think there’s more going on?” I asked Cyrus, as he gathered up Finn’s clothes and shoved the gauze, tape, and empty ampules back in the med pack. There wasn’t any other reason for him to summon Whil.

“She didn’t sleepwalk the entire time we were traveling. I don’t know why she’d start now,” he replied, leading us back toward the Residence. “She was caught up in a spell that ripped a hole between her realm and ours, and her heat was a lot stronger than it should have been for someone so weak.”

Nova shot him a dark look. “And trauma can do strange things to a person. She’s in a mate bond she didn’t expect, just survived a dangerous and exhausting journey, and doesn’t yet know her place in this pack. Anything could have been the last straw for her. Any sharp words could have pushed her subconscious over the edge.”

Cyrus stiffened at that. Something had happened, and if I knew Cyrus, she’d done something to make him panic — like she’d done for most of our journey — and with the stress of Knox going feral, he’d lost it.

Sudden fury blazed through my bond with Knox.

“You did this?” he demanded, his eyes dark and his canines extended as his wolf took over. “You made our mate hurt herself?”

A crack of his power made me and Nova stumble while Audrey whimpered and the rage in the bond jerked back to fear.

“We’ll find out what happened and we’ll deal with it,” Cyrus said.

We ran through the Residence’s main gate and skirted around the castle, not bothering to navigate the maze of hallways to get to Audrey’s suite. Zavier and Lucius had already set up a mattress with pillows and blankets on the small, semi-private patio that was sheltered by some tall shrubs and planter boxes. Beside it, was a white sheet and a low table with the medical supplies Nova needed to clean Audrey’s wounds, stitch them up, and rebind them.

Knox sat on the white sheet, laying Audrey so her head was cradled in his lap. It still wasn’t the space Nova needed to work, but it was better than clutching Audrey to his chest, and Nova didn’t comment on the position.

Nova had cornered me when I’d first gotten back to Stonehaven and demanded to know what had happened between Audrey and Knox, and I’d told her they’d been forced to seal the bond.

I could only assume since Deacon had known about the mate bond and that we’d been traveling to the death god’s temple to break it, that he’d told Nova, since the only other person who’d known about it when we’d left town, was Whil, and she’d sworn to keep it a secret.

Of course, now it didn’t matter. Everyone knew and everyone was going to be talking about it.

Nova got to work cutting Audrey out of her dress and cleaning the gashes on her left breast, right over her heart.

What had she been trying to do? Cut her heart out? Cut out her bond with Knox?

She’d been so strong for the journey to the death god’s temple and I’d thought, even though she’d been shaken by the heat fever, that she was all right. She’d been upset and shyer than she’d been when we’d first met, but I hadn’t thought she was suicidal, not even on an unconscious level.

Maybe Cyrus was right. Maybe, somehow, she’d been influenced by magic.

Whil and Finn hurried around the shrubs, and Knox tensed at the additional people before Finn, Lucius, Cyrus, and I stepped back.

“What happened?” Whil asked, her bright green gaze sweeping over Audrey and taking in the blood and gauze and her still too-thin frame.

It broke my heart to see her so fragile because I knew she wasn’t fragile. Someone had just convinced her she was. And while I didn’t know the extent of what she suffered in her previous pack, I knew enough to know she wouldn’t have survived if she’d truly been fragile. She also wouldn’t have survived the attack that had brought her to us, the journey to the death god’s temple, or a heat fever.

“We’re not sure,” Cyrus replied, making Knox growl, the sound low and threatening. The muscles in Cyrus’s jaw flexed and his spine straightened just a little bit more, revealing his discomfort. “We need you to check her for magical influence.”

“I didn’t notice anything when I checked her when she first arrived,” Whil said as she sat on Audrey’s other side and placed a hand on her forehead. “Oh, Sisters!”

Cyrus flinched as if he wanted to get closer then remembered that we needed to give Knox space. “What?”

“She’s tethered to someone,” Whil replied.

“Who?” I asked.

“I don’t know. They’re far away. I swear the tether wasn’t there a month ago.” Whil closed her eyes to concentrate and her magic brightened enough for me to see the golden glow around her hand even in the bright sunlight.

“It’s that asshole,” Knox said. “The one that tried to kill her. It has to be.”

“And he could have made her hurt herself with this connection?” Cyrus asked.

The glow flared, washing out Audrey’s already pale face and Whil frowned. “It could make her do lots of things,” she replied. “But she’d have to be vulnerable to start with. This isn’t strong enough to possess her. She’d have to already have emotions toward whatever they wanted her to do and then they could amplify it out of proportion.”

Which meant Audrey might not have been stressed and depressed enough to hurt herself, but the seed had been there.

Cyrus hissed a curse and ran his hand over his face, his “alpha-in-control” mask sliding over his expression. Her being connected to someone had more repercussions than just her hurting herself.

What if she got mad at one of us? Could whoever it was influence her into hurting someone else? Maybe even kill them? Now it was a matter of protecting not just Audrey but the whole pack.

“Can you cut the tether?” Cyrus asked, his voice gruff.

“I—” Whil’s expression tightened and her body tensed.

The glow from her magic surrounded Audrey’s head, making it difficult to make out her features, and a second later, Audrey cried out and started writhing.

“Whil!” Knox snapped, holding Audrey’s head and keeping it in his lap, as Nova threw herself over Audrey’s body to keep her still, and I grabbed Audrey’s legs.

“Just— I—” Tears rolled down Whil’s cheeks, her body clenched with effort, and the light started to stutter, sharp, piercing strobes that sliced into my brain.

Please let her cut it. Please let Audrey be free. I could protect her from a lot of things and I wanted to with all my heart, but I couldn’t protect her from someone in her head. Even if we were mate bonded, I wouldn’t be able to do that.

“I can’t,” Whil gasped as she threw herself back, leaning against the side of the mattress gasping for air as Audrey went limp again. “I’ve blocked it, so whoever it is can’t influence her again, for now, but I can’t sever it. I’m not strong enough.”

Cyrus gave a tight nod and Knox’s emotions soured inside me.

Yeah, I didn’t like the “for now,” either.

“I’ll need to check the block regularly to keep it intact,” Whil said.

“For how long?” Knox asked.

Her expression turned grim. “Indefinitely.”

Which meant that monster was going to be haunting Audrey for the rest of her life.