Page 66 of Mated By the Pack
I’m fuller, but empty again—only for a moment.
“Anyone considered how we’re going to get her free from all this if the vines don’t let her go?” Knox chuckles, rubbing his cock against my pussy.
“We’ll make her ask nicely,” Jace laughs. “But not yet. Definitely not yet.”
“Agreed, brother,” Knox says, pushing into me. “One more time for each of us, then we’ll see if The Tangle wants to let her go. That way we can put her on all fours and really rut this tight little pussy.”
“Mm,” Gideon says. “I’m already getting hard again, just thinking about it.”
I mumble something incoherent, then give in to the pleasure.
The long night is just getting started.
CHAPTER 19
Calla
Gideon, Jace, and Knox fuck me until I’m barely conscious. Only then do they allow me to beg the vines to release me. Thankfully, they respond, leaving only red marks on my skin where I pulled against my restraints.
Then I collapse on all fours in the dirt, barely able to hold myself up as they get ready for more.
By the time they’re done, I can’t even move. I’m aware of them carrying me. Dressing me. Taking me back into the cave and putting me down on something soft. I’m exhausted, but sleep doesn’t come. Instead, it’s the haze that welcomes me back.
The Aether.
I’m still unsteady, even in my dream. My body aches. My legs wobble.
I see Silas in the distance, standing on the hill he led me to the last time I was here. Everything else is too fuzzy, like a blurrypicture that’s so out of focus it makes me a little dizzy to stare at it.
I manage to walk to where Silas is standing. He greets me with a nod and gestures to the valley below. It comes into focus, and the altar is gone. The stones are fragments, scattered across the soil. The pillars that stood tall are toppled, and mostly reduced to dust.
“What happened?” I ask, hearing the souls beneath us cry out in agony. It’s so heartbreaking I want to cover my ears, but I still my hands.
“The point of no return, Calla,” Silas answers. “This is the moment when The Aether could no longer contain the broken souls created by mankind.”
There’s a shuddering gasp, like The Aether itself is struggling to breathe. Then a mighty exhale that sweeps across me like a scorching wind. The ground begins to rumble, and it’s not just my wobbly legs making me unsteady. Silas doesn’t budge, but I stagger and almost fall before he catches my arm.
Underneath me, roots push through the soil. Tangled, wild, and pulsing with life. Monstrosities rise around me. Trees that don’t stay still. Treants that groan and spew rotten dust. Vines that look similar to the one I’m wearing. Spikeshade, as Vance called it. I even see some crimson vines, weaving through The Tangle as it forms.
“It happened this fast?” I question, remembering things I’ve seen before.
“No, you’re witnessing years pass, Calla,” Silas replies. “Souls that never found peace, being forced from The Aether that couldnot absorb them. Souls never meant to exist. Warped by the ignorance of men.”
“But there’s so many… There were this many hybrids?” I ask, watching souls vanish in the valley, right before another howl echoes in The Tangle and more vines burst from the earth.
“Not just hybrids, no. Men played with nature long before that. It was a chain reaction that spiraled for generations,” Silas explains. “The Aether contained the broken souls as long as it could, trying to protect the world from the devastation that would come if it couldn’t. The Aether knew, as soon as souls that weren’t spun from the blueprint began to appear. But there was no way to undo what was done. No way to give them peace.”
“You said I’m… hope.” I glance over at him. “Hope for your pack, I get, if it works. But how does that provide hope for the rest of the souls? The ones that are already stuck in The Tangle.”
“Just watch.” Silas gestures ahead.
The world continues to transform, then I notice something else. The Aether itself—the haze that seems to always linger. It shudders, vibrates, and a sliver of it breaks away. The sliver becomes a spark, floats on the breeze, bounces across the ground, and then gets absorbed into the soil.
“And that…” Silas points. “Is what you are.”
I watch for a few more seconds before looking back to Silas. “I don’t understand.”
“There has always been a barrier between The Aether and your world, despite them moving in harmony with one another,” Silas explains. “When The Aether could no longer contain the lost souls, and The Tangle emerged as a scar, that barrier wasbroken. A tiny piece of The Aether entered your world. The very fabric of creation.”
