Page 37 of Wolf Desired

AUDREY

Over the next two days,I regained my strength enough to walk at the guys’ pace for half the morning and ride Bishop in wolf form for most of the afternoon. I pointedly ignored Knox, and Cyrus didn’t tell me to help him with his campsite jobs again. Instead, I helped Cyrus or Bishop — whoever wasn’t hunting — with filling canteens, foraging for wild fruit and vegetables to supplement our meat, or gathering firewood.

The tension between Knox and I was palpable, and my fear of reprisal for yelling at him squeezed my insides, but I was determined not to back down. For once in my life, I was going to stand up for myself.

Knox had purposely hurt me and I couldn’t just pretend to shrug that off. He could glower and avoid me or hell, even yell and hit me, but I had to stand firm. I couldn’t run away from him like I’d wanted to run away from Merrick and Sterling, and I wouldn’t go back to a life of always being afraid.

But God, it was so hard not to curl in on myself and try to make myself invisible.

“Tomorrow night we’ll be camping just outside Darkweald,” Bishop said as he helped me down a steep slope.

“At this pace, we’ll probably reach the campsite by midafternoon,” Cyrus replied, glancing up at the sun even though we’d just stopped for lunch half an hour ago, at noon. “We’re making good time.”

I bit back a sigh. Bishop had said our slower pace north hadn’t been because I’d been walking and that we’d only made great time this time because the guys had pushed themselves while I was unconscious and when they were carrying me.

But I didn’t really believe him. Yes, they looked a little more worn out than before, but I was pretty sure they’d have been able to handle the faster pace when we’d first headed out.

Except according to Bishop, they’d gone at the slightly slower pace — and he insisted it had only beenslightlyslower — because they’d thought we were going to be walking for the full twenty days. The rest at Kelna had been a welcome surprise… well, the rest that hadn’t involved my body going crazy with a heat fever.

Cyrus skirted a copse of trees and hopped down another incline into a ravine that wound through the rocky landscape. I remembered it from when we were going the other way and it really did mean we were getting closer to Darkweald. Beyond the ravine lay a dense forest, then a more or less flat stretch of ground, and then the forest where the malicious god slept. Wewerealmost home.

The thought sent mixed emotions swirling through me. I’d only spent a few days in Stonehaven and I already thought of it as home.

Except that wasn’t entirely true. The guys referred to it as home so that’s why I thought about it that way. Not because I had an emotional attachment to the place. Although I hoped I soon would.

I hoped the other pack members, if they couldn’t accept me, would ignore me. That was probably the best outcome I could wish for and was a step up from my previous pack.

I stumbled down the second incline, falling into Bishop’s arms, and flashed him a smile of thanks.

He’d been giving me longer and longer stints of walking and I was starting to feel stronger. Almost as strong as when I’d first started this journey.

“Want me to carry you?” he asked, his voice gruff.

“Half an hour more?” I asked, pulling out of his embrace.

“It’ll be good for her,” Cyrus called over his shoulder. “She’s still too weak.”

“I’ll always be too weak for him,” I mumbled, hopefully soft enough that he couldn’t hear me. He was a good twenty feet ahead of us, so the odds were fifty-fifty.

“He pushes everyone,” Bishop replied with a wry smile. “It’s how he shows he cares.”

He offered me his arm like a gentleman escorting a fine lady and I took it.

“You should have seen him after our mother and fathers died. He was an angry, growly, obnoxious beast,” he said as we followed along the ravine after him.

“And if that’s what gets you to combat practice and keeps you alive, so be it,” Cyrus shot back.

A cloud swept over the sun, throwing us into shadows for a second. When it scuttled away, the sunlight caught in streaks of gold in Cyrus’s light brown hair, streaks I hadn’t noticed before.

The image of his eyes, filled with concern, his irises dark with his wolf’s influence, swept through me. Then he dipped forward, wrapped his arms around me, and pulled me into a tight embrace as he plunged into me again and again and—

I shoved the fantasy aside even as a part of me questioned if it actually was a fantasy.

Had that actually happened?

Everything about my heat fever was so foggy and incomplete…

Which meant it was just another of my messed-up dreams. Just like the dreams I’d had of having sex with Knox, dreams that I hadn’t had since we’d sealed our bond, or the shame dreams where a nasty voice called me names for what I’d done during the fever.

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