Page 24 of Wolf Desired

AUDREY

The rich scentof wood smoke wrapped around me like a comforting blanket and a reassuring calm heat filled my chest. I was safe. I was loved. I was home. The achy, icy hollowness from Knox rejecting our bond was gone and it was never coming back because we’d sealed our mating bond.

Oh, God!

My pulse lurched, grief and horror consuming all my warm feelings.

Knox and I had sealed our bond.

I was now permanently bonded to a man who didn’t want me and was furious at me for accidentally bonding with him in the first place.

Tears welled in my eyes and I buried my face into the shirt of whoever held me.

It had all been for nothing. I’d walked until my feet bled and then walked some more, and it had been pointless.

Why couldn’t we have held out longer? We’d just needed to get back to Stonehaven and Whil could have transferred the bond to Bishop.

But that had been a long shot. Just like the spell in the death god’s temple.

Cyrus had warned me that I was going to have to face the fact that Knox and I were going to be mates, and I hadn’t wanted to believe him. We’d been walking away from the temple and I—

My thoughts stuttered. I’d been exhausted and too cold. I—

Images of being with Bishop, of begging him to satisfy me as an agonizing, desperate need clawed inside me flooded through me. I’d pleaded with him to fuck me again and again. I’d needed more more more, and he’d been all over me and in me, hands, mouth, cock. I could still feel the glorious pressure of him pushing inside me, of how he hit an amazing spot when he pushed in from behind. I’d needed him more than anything and had been relentless in seeking my pleasure.

More tears leaked from my eyes and I clung tighter to the shirt, pressing my face against a hard, sculpted chest.

I’d been an animal, consumed by my need, not caring about anything but having him fill me.

Heat burned my cheeks. I’d lost complete control.

Then Cyrus’s face flashed through me and my body burned with the memory of him thrusting into me.

I’d had sex with Cyrus? That didn’t make any sense. Cyrus didn’t like me and he certainly didn’t want to have sex with me.

Another set of strong hands wrapped around me, and I was pulled into someone else’s embrace and enveloped in the scent of fresh-cut grass.

I tried to open my eyes, tried to drag myself to full consciousness and see what was going on, but I couldn’t. Exhaustion pulled at me but wouldn’t drag me back under and release me from the horror of my memories, and my sobs grew stronger.

A soothing hand stroked my head and a low voice murmured words my whirling mind couldn’t register.

All I could think about was how I’d been out of control, how I’d demanded sex again and again from a man I’d wanted to be my mate, how my fantasy of having sex with Cyrus felt so real, and how I was now trapped in a bond with Knox.

Trapped. Forever.

My life in this new realm was over before it had begun, and the thought of being imprisoned in a loveless mating came out in desperate, strangled sobs.

I didn’t know what to do.

There was nothing Icoulddo.

Finally, my exhaustion dragged me back into darkness, and I drifted into a churning, black sea, bobbing up to catch blurry glimpses of rugged, rocky scenery passing by, small crackling fires, and soothing hands urging me to eat and drink a cloying bitter liquid.

I had no idea how long the darkness held me captive, all I knew was that every time I broke through, I remember how I’d been, how I’d begged Bishop and Cyrus and Knox to use me in every way possible… or had that been a dream? A nightmare?

What was even true anymore?

Maybe I was dead.

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