“No, I didn’t have the chance. I became alpha at eighteen.” He'd gone back to being his normal, surly self, and I didn’t expect him to continue, but then he surprised me by speaking up again. “I planned to go to college, even applied and everything, and then my parents were killed. I had to drop everything to take care of Stella and the pack.”
“That must have been tough," I said. "What would you have studied?”
“I don't know. Maybe astronomy. I still have my telescope. It’s set up on the roof, and I like to go up there to relax sometimes. It helps get my mind off of things.”
I smiled at the image of him under the stars and opened my mouth to ask him more about it, but Kaden stopped suddenly, his face turning hard. He turned his head up to the sky and inhaled sharply.
I paused next to him. “What is it?”
He swore under his breath. “We walked too far outside of the pack borders. We need to head back.”
He turned around and started heading back, and I hurried after him, wondering what the big deal was. Or how he could even tell we'd left the pack lands. But mostly I was disappointed we'd been interrupted—Kaden had finally started opening up to me, but now that was over.
Kaden suddenly jerked his head toward me and commanded, “Ayla, shift right now."
I complied without questioning the order, without even stopping to take off my clothes. I’d been practicing with Stella to get the timing down in case I needed to shift in an emergency, and I could do it as fast as any seasoned wolf now. Except an alpha, of course. Kaden was already in his wolf form as I stepped forward to meet him, my shredded clothes in a pile behind me. He wasn’t looking at me, and I noted that our paws were completely different sizes. My pure white wolf felt small next to his black one.
I wouldn’t have picked up the sounds of people approaching if I’d been in human form, but I heard them clearly now and followed Kaden’s gaze to the tree line ahead of us. Three males walked out of the trees, and they were close enough for me to see the ram symbols on their arms.
Aries.
They fanned out, coming straight for us, and the middle one said, “Take the female alive."
A low growl emanated from Kaden’s wolf beside me. A warning. The three Aries males ignored it completely, stepping right up to us and shifting into their wolves. Their pack was allied with the Leos, and there could only be one reason why they would want me.
What the hell do I do? I’d worked so hard on fighting in human form and shifting into wolf form with Stella. I could smell something that belonged to the Ophiuchus pack from miles away, but what use would that be to me right now? I’d never fought anything in my wolf form—we hadn't gotten to that part of my training yet.
Kaden looked over at me, his black ears twitching, and jerked his head back toward the direction of Coronis. If I’d been in human form, I would have frowned, but I just cocked my head at him. He repeated the motion, this time with a soft growl. I swore I saw some sort of desperation in his eyes.
He wants me to run, I thought. No way. I shook my head at him as best as I could. I wasn’t going to leave him. It was a stupid idea, anyway. I could lead the Aries pack directly to the town if they decided to give chase, and the moon wasn’t out to give me an advantage. No, there wasn’t any option except to stay and fight.
Kaden and the Aries wolves circled each other, growling and snapping. I hadn’t felt this kind of tension, or the threat of serious violence, in quite some time. I’d almost forgotten how terrifying it could be.
Their growls became deeper, more threatening, and I backed away a few steps, still trying to figure out what exactly to do. Another wolf emerged from the shadows, a bit to the left, and neither the Aries wolves nor Kaden saw it. I watched in horror as the wolf lunged toward Kaden.
I opened my mouth to warn him—no good. I couldn’t do more than bark or howl, and who knew if he’d understand it. No, there was no time to think. I threw myself into the wolf’s path, knocking it off course. We both tumbled to the side, and I rolled to my feet instantly, crouched and ready to fight. I bared my teeth at the wolf, who shook its head, like shaking off water. Then, it jumped at me, too fast for me to follow, and suddenly we were fighting.
The moves that Kaden had taught me were useful for my wolf body, at least to an extent, and with my enhanced senses, it was a lot easier to react to the attacks and counteract them. We tussled for a bit before I got my jaws wrapped around the shifter’s hind leg. I bit down hard, squeezing my eyes shut as I broke skin and blood spurted out. The shifter howled and fought to get free. With a great wrench of his leg, he finally got out of my grasp and sprinted away.
I sunk back down into a crouch, half-expecting him to turn around and bowl me over. I was so focused on the fleeing wolf, that the next attack took me completely by surprise. Faster than anything I’d ever seen move, a blur of gray fur raced toward me. Just as I turned to face the new shifter, he rammed into my side. It felt like a freight train. I went airborne, flying several feet back before hitting the ground hard enough that my breath left me in a huge whuff. For a moment, I laid there, my brain trying to catch up with the sudden shift in environment, and then the pain came in.
I’d gotten good at dealing with pain over the years. It came with dealing with Dad and Jackie’s punishments, of being beaten up by other Cancer pack members. It was easy to breathe through the pain eventually, but what could I do when I couldn’t even breathe?
I felt the pull of my bones as they started reshaping into my human form. No, not now! I thought desperately, trying to hold onto my wolf form, but it was like trying to hold onto water. It slipped through my fingers and I found myself settling back into my human form.
That was exactly what I shouldn’t do. I stood no chance against fully trained shifters in human form. I was barely holding my own in my untrained wolf form. It didn’t do any good. I tried to move, to push myself up, but it was useless. My human body was weak and injured, and there was no way I’d be standing on my own any time soon.
From where I lay, I could barely see Kaden fighting the other wolves. They moved so fast, all I saw were flashes of teeth, claws, and clumps of fur flying into the air, and heard the occasional growl and yelp to punctuate the silence. I tried to get up to help him, to draw in a deep breath to brace myself for the pain, but I couldn’t seem to catch my breath. My head swam when I tried to push myself up, my arm collapsing underneath me.
“Kaden,” I tried to say, but there was no sound, just me shaping my lips around his name. Was I going to die here, like this? After everything I'd been through?
Very suddenly, it was silent. I held myself perfectly still, body tensed for one of the Aries wolves to come and end it all, but a moment later, Kaden stood over me in human form. The relief that flowed through me was so strong I actually let out a sob. He was alive, and the Aries wolves weren't. Thank the gods.
He was completely nude, and at first, I tried to keep my gaze on his face. If I wasn’t in so much pain, I’d take a peek at the rest of him. Then again, if I was going to die, I might as well peek a little bit. What was he going to do, kill me? I let my eyes drop to his chest, where the hints of muscle I’d seen all through training were on full display, all in one unbroken line of perfection. Then lower, to the tiny trail of dark hair moving down his abs, down, down, down to his...
“We have to get you back to pack lands," Kaden said, and my eyes snapped back to his face. "It isn't safe here. There might be more of them out there."
I nodded, or tried to. Nothing seemed to want to move. I wished my shifter healing would kick in already, but maybe I was too injured.
Kaden leaned over and picked me up. His hands were gentle, gentler than I’d felt them yet, and I wished I could appreciate it. When he jostled me, it made everything hurt worse, and I let out a groan.
“Sorry,” Kaden said, and I frowned. That wasn’t like him at all. “Hold on tight, we’ll be there in a minute."
Then he took off in a run.
/> Chapter Twenty-One
The forest blurred by, dense trees cast in deep enough shadows that even if we’d been moving at a slower pace, I’d still be hard-pressed to notice any details. I couldn’t catch my breath, no matter how hard I tried. I’d thought that the agony would fade as we went on, but the sharp pains wouldn’t let me get a solid breath in. It took my lungs a few extra inhales to realize they weren’t getting the oxygen they needed, and a few moments more to finally pinpoint what was causing it. My ribs.
“I can’t breathe,” I wheezed out, trying to catch Kaden’s attention. He was intent on running, eyes focused ahead. He didn’t even seem to hear me. I was astounded by his speed. I could run this fast, but only in wolf form, but maybe this was another benefit of being the alpha. I tried to get his attention again, pounding my fist feebly against his chest, and repeated what I’d said.
Kaden finally looked down at me and shook his head once. “We’re not safe here. We have to keep going.”
Ah. We were still outside our pack lands. I still didn’t know how they marked them, or why we would be safe there, since Kaden hadn’t shared that secret just yet. Just as I opened my mouth to ask, he slowed to a trot, nostrils flaring as he caught scent of something different. I could smell the difference as well, but it didn’t smell like home to me. Not yet.
“I’m setting you down,” Kaden said, and I braced against the jostle. He’d held me so tight on the run that I’d hardly felt it, but this would hurt just as much as when he picked me up. I clenched my teeth and tried to hold in the groan, but it was no use.
Kaden crouched at my side and glanced up at my face with concern. It was the first time I’d seen the look on his face directed toward me, and I was taken aback. When he’d kidnapped me, my well-being had been the last thing on his mind, and when he continually beat my ass in training he didn’t seem to care how scraped up I got. I struggled to sit up, uncomfortable with the look he was giving me. I needed him to be gruff and uncaring as usual, or else it would signal I was really in trouble.
Kaden put a hand on my shoulder, exerting just enough pressure to stop me from rising further. The injury in my side burned as I pushed against him for a few moments, before it became too much and I collapsed back on the ground, panting.
“Stay down, or I’ll make you.” The commanding alpha tone in his voice let me know that he meant it.
I huffed out a breath, but couldn't do much more than that. He began poking at my ribs, and I used the time to observe him. I took in the proud nose, hard blue eyes, and the stubborn set of his jaw. My gaze trailed down his neck to where the blood started. I wondered whose it was. He didn't appear injured, so it must have been from the other wolves. He'd taken down all of them as if it had been nothing.
I sucked in a deep breath as he prodded my ribs, pain chasing away that train of thought. I’d lost count of the number of times I’d been hurt, but that didn’t make it any easier. Once the adrenaline faded, there was nothing to protect me from the pain. Getting through the beating was easy, but the aftermath hadn’t ever been. On top of that, the feeling of not being able to breathe was about to send me into a panic, and I tried desperately to hang onto any semblance of control.
“The Aries’ ram charge broke several of your ribs,” Kaden said.
“No shit,” I muttered, but the sharp edge of sarcasm I’d meant to color my words with was lost in the pain.
Kaden shot me a dark look. “Your ribs almost punctured your lungs when you shifted back. I need to put your ribs back into place before I can move you."
I nodded, tilting my head back to catch the barest hint of sunlight streaming through the branches high above. Kaden had been kind enough to set me down on a patch of moss, and there weren’t any stray sticks to dig into my back as I did my best to relax and wait for the impending pain.
When it came, I closed my eyes, breath hissing out.
“Good,” Kaden said, his voice low and soothing.
I reached out, hand scrabbling against his tattooed arm, and he let me grab onto it without question.
“Look at me,” Kaden said, and I shook my head. I’d start crying if I looked at him, and I was trying extremely hard not to cry from the pain alone. “Look at me,” he repeated, and I forced my eyes open. His eyes were intense, the color of the sky just after sunset, and I felt myself falling into them.
“I don’t know if I can get through this," I wheezed finally because Kaden seemed to be waiting for me to say something. Kaden had taken his hand off my side for a few moments, probably so I wouldn’t scream and alert the entire Aries pack to our location.
“You can." Kaden's words held an easy confidence that I didn’t share. “Ready?”
“No,” I groaned. “But you’re going to go ahead anyway, so just get it over with.”
He continued shifting my ribs around, and I did my best to hold still. Kaden kept up a low stream of words, the most I’d heard him say in one sitting, but I had no idea what he was saying. The words all seemed jumbled together in my brain, but I latched onto that voice, trying to make it the only thing I paid attention to, not the forest around us, not his fingers on my skin, and not the panic growing inside me as I struggled to breathe.
Then Kaden’s hand was on my jaw, tilting it back down. I hadn’t even realized that I’d looked away from him. Overbearing alpha, I thought but didn’t pull my chin away.
“Ayla,” he said, my name sounding just as unusual on his tongue as it always did. He called me by it so infrequently, but today seemed to be the day he was saying it the most. “I need to tend to you now. We won’t make it back to Coronis without fixing you up out here, and if I move you, I’ll just throw the ribs out of place again.” He paused as if considering his next words, chewing on them before he spat them out. “This is going to be a bit strange, but I need you to trust me.”
I hesitated only a moment. He’d been the only one to jump to my aid so readily in years. During the attack, he’d tried to get me to run, even though that had been a stupid idea, and showed that he hadn’t been thinking straight. He’d shown me more loyalty in the few weeks I’d been here than I’d seen in twenty-two years in the Cancer pack. If he wanted me dead, he could have let the Aries pack have me. Every single thing he’d done for me, from the moment I'd been captured, made me realize just how much I trusted him.
“I do trust you,” I said, with complete sincerity.
He nodded and settled more comfortably on his haunches at my injured side. He leaned down, and I assumed at first that it was to look at the wound. His breath ghosted over my side and I shivered, battered flesh flinching at the added sensation. Kaden opened his mouth and I felt my jaw drop as he licked me.
His tongue was hot, wet, and not entirely unpleasant. It started at the crest of my hip and dragged up the oversensitive flesh. I wanted to shove him away, to demand to know what kind of game he was playing. Before I could gather the right words, his eyes flicked up to meet mine, and I snapped my mouth shut.
He slid his tongue back down across my injury, just as slow, and it didn’t feel…awful. In fact, my mind flashed back to the dream I’d had, when Kaden had been very resourceful with his tongue in a different way. I held very still, avoiding Kaden’s eyes as he continued licking up and down my side, tongue scorching hot and almost soothing.
As he continued, a blush began staining my cheeks, and I was beyond grateful for the blood covering me, so maybe he wouldn’t notice if he looked up. The pain was fading and something else began pulling at me. It felt as if it was going in time with Kaden’s tongue, a low throb-throb that I didn’t want to examine too closely. It was too close to desire for comfort, and I’d have no explanation this time for the scent of my lust if Kaden happened to notice.
As he continued, I started noticing less of the pain and more of the feeling of his tongue, flattened against my bare flesh and stroking up and down. I drew in a deeper breath experimentally, muscles tensed for the inevitable rush of pain. It didn’t come.
Kaden deemed it necessary to continue licking me for a few minutes longer, and my heart raced as the pain faded to nothing. I flattened my palms on the moss below me to stop myself from doing something incredibly stupid, like pull him closer and see if his tongue felt just as good on other parts of my skin, like I’d imagined it in the dream.
Finally, Kaden drew back, licking his lips like he’d tasted something delicious. I watched him, breath caught in my throat as I waited for his next move. His gaze tracked over the skin he’d laved his tongue over for several minutes, and then drifted across the rest of my body.
His nostrils flared slightly as he took in my bare flesh, and then he cleared his throat and looked away as if he just realized I was naked. That we were both naked. The sexual tension that had disappeared in the heat of the fight and the rush to get me back to Ophiuchus pack lands returned with a vengeance.
“Better?” he asked, but his voice was rough. Like speaking was difficult.
I swiped a hand over the unmarred skin experimentally. My injury was completely gone as if I'd never been attacked at all. Incredible.
“I didn’t know you had healing powers,” I said because I didn’t think better would be an adequate way to describe how I was feeling right now. I desperately hoped he couldn’t smell it, and wouldn’t remark on it like he had the other night.
Kaden shot me a smirk, back to being the cocky alpha I knew. “All of the Ophiuchus pack have healing saliva. It's our pack power.” He bared his teeth. “We also have a poison bite.”
“I’ll remember that,” I said dryly. "I thought only the Virgo pack could heal."
Moon Touched (Zodiac Wolves: The Lost Pack Book 1) Page 16