Moon Touched (Zodiac Wolves: The Lost Pack Book 1)

by Elizabeth Briggs

He slid his hand across my stomach, much as he had in training, but it went exactly where I'd hoped it would, not staying on my hip for propriety. His fingers slid down until he was touching me through my clothes. Not enough pressure for anything but a tease, but my hips bucked against the pressure anyway. His skin was scorching me, even though the fabric.

  “I will take care of you," he said.

  It awakened something within me, some base, animal instinct that my logical brain should have rebelled against. I trembled with need, and Kaden seemed to chase that tremble with his body, pressing into me. I felt the hot line of his cock through layers of fabric. I drew in a sharp breath at the want that went through me, a wild thing I couldn't control.

  I bared my throat to him, letting him sink his teeth into the soft flesh. It wasn’t hard enough to break skin, let alone truly hurt, but I arched my body against his, trying to get closer. Secretly wishing he would mark me as his mate for real, for everyone in the pack to see. I rubbed myself against him like an animal in heat, trying to get any friction I could. He laved my skin with his lips and tongue and somehow I felt the touch in an entirely different place, at the pounding core of me, and I let out a moan at the sensation. I was so wet, practically dripping, and I wanted more than just friction and teasing.

  Kaden's lips curl into a smile at the sound of my moan. Cocky bastard. But fuck, I loved it. I wanted to see him smile like that every day.

  His hands closed around my shoulders once more, and this time I felt the press of something sharp on each shoulder. He’d partially shifted to give himself claws, and I looked down to find them sinking into the fabric of my shirt. He tore the cloth as easily as a knife through butter, and I let out another sound as the shreds fell to the ground, leaving me bare from the waist up. He stepped back, and the cool air rushed in. My nipples hardened instantly in the night air, and I shivered.

  He perused my body as if he was looking at a piece of art, and my breath continued to come in loud gasps. I didn’t feel exposed, even though I should. I stood up a bit taller, presenting myself to him.

  His eyes flicked up to mine, and in them, I could see the blatant ownership. I was unbelievably turned on, more than I had ever been before, and I held my hands out to Kaden once more. “Are you just going to look at me all night, or are you going to do something about it?”

  His eyes flared at the challenge, and he was on me once again, this time pulling me toward him instead of shoving me back against the tree. I reached up and sank my hands into Kaden’s dark hair, silken smooth under my fingertips, and met his energy. He growled into the kiss, hands roving over my exposed skin. As if he could leave his mark on me, claim me, and truly make me his forever.

  In that moment, I wanted him to.

  He drew one breast into his hand as he broke the kiss. His fingers were light enough that I shivered again, then he pinched my nipple between thumb and forefinger, a sudden burst of pain in the pleasure. His eyes latched on mine as if he wanted to see the reaction. I moaned again, wanting more of it.

  He must have seen the need in my eyes, because he kissed me once again, tongue sliding against mine, stroking it. Then he drew back, and way he looked at me should have been a sin. I shoved my hands under his shirt, wanting to see more of him, to feel his skin against mine. He let me touch his sculpted muscles for a few moments, and then made a low sound like a groan. It vibrated deep from his chest into my fingertips, and the next thing I knew, he’d shoved my hands off him so he could take his shirt off.

  I’d seen Kaden shirtless plenty of times—shit, he was practically running around half-naked every time I saw him—but I let my gaze truly linger this time. He was gorgeously sculpted, and I wanted to run my tongue over every divot in his chest, then dip lower and see what his cock tasted like. It was an urge I’d never felt before, but I had a feeling I could make him come apart with my mouth and wanted to try.

  “Whatever you’re thinking about is turning you on,” he said. “I can smell it.”

  He reached between us and slid his hands into my pants. I gasped as his fingers touched my slit for the first time, parting my lips and circling my clit. He teased me for a few moments, letting me arch my hips up into his touch before he slid a finger inside of my body. The sensation was foreign since I’d never had anyone else touch me like this, but I arched into the pleasure it brought, wanting more.

  Kaden drew his finger out and licked it, eyes fluttering closed as if he was tasting something delicious. When he opened them again, they burned with desire. He pressed me back against the tree once more, claiming my mouth with his own, a demand to let him in. His hands slid down the front of me, sharpening into claws as he hit the fabric of my pants, and he tore them off me.

  He tossed my ruined pants somewhere to the left. I didn’t bother checking where. What did it matter, when I had Kaden in front of me, taking my clothes off, looking at me like that? I’d walk back to the house naked if that was what he wanted.

  His mouth latched onto my throat, teeth grazing the pulse point in my neck. I reached up to touch him again, but Kaden growled, pinning my hands above my head with one of his own, pinning me against the tree. I tested the strength of his grip, and it didn’t budge. I’d never felt turned on by being restrained, but this was a night for new things.

  “Do you want this?” Kaden growled, pressing me harder into the tree behind me. I arched my back, trying to rub any part of my body along him to get the release I needed. I was a pulsing thing of desire, and I’d say anything to get him to touch me again, to put his cock inside of me.

  “Yes,” I moaned. “Yes, please.”

  Kaden pulled his cock out of his pants and gave it a few strokes. I looked at him with greedy eyes, eager to see what I’d felt pressed against me earlier. I kept my hands right where they were, even though I wanted to reach out and replace his hands with mine. Another time, my brain whispered. You can make him come apart with your hands and mouth. I shuddered at the prospect.

  He grabbed my hips and lifted me up, wrapping my legs around him, my back still pressed against the tree. He slid his cock along my slit a few times, making me shudder against the friction, and then he pushed himself inside of me. I gasped at the sudden fullness, at the feeling of being complete.

  He drew his cock out and pounded it back in, thrusting up into me, making me ride him. This angle caused his head to brush the same spot his fingers had found. It sent sparks up my spine, and I drove myself down harder onto his cock with his next thrust. He seemed surprised, sucking in a deep breath, but let me grasp onto his arms so I could get a better hold. I met him, thrust for thrust, chasing that pleasure. It built, liquid and warm, in the pit of my stomach, and my harsh pants became little moans.

  “You look so fucking hot like this, taking my cock so well,” he said, teeth grazing the taut cord of muscle in my neck. I slid one hand to Kaden’s neck, needing something more solid to hold onto. He growled and his lips crashed into mine once more, demanding entrance.

  He bit my lower lip, just hard enough that I knew it would be swollen for hours, and the pain mixing with the pleasure brought me closer to that edge of desire. I ground down onto his cock, trying to chase it. Almost there, almost there…

  I drew in a deep breath and—

  The door burst open, ripping me out of my dream. I jumped to my feet instantly, ready to escape, too many years of being in Dad's house ingraining me to go on the defense mode immediately.

  Kaden barreled in, claws out, looking around wildly. I blinked at him, trying to shift the last of my consciousness to the waking world, and not back in a moon-drenched clearing where Kaden had his cock inside me while I screamed his name.

  His eyes finally fell on me. “Are you okay?”

  “What?” It was the last thing I expected him to say. I stepped out of the fighting stance I’d fallen into on instinct—feet wider, I could almost hear Kaden saying—and crossed my arms over my chest. “What are you doing in my room?”

  “I heard noise
s. I thought someone had broken in and attacked you.”

  What? Oh. Heat rose in my face, and I hunched my shoulders, suddenly realizing that the object of my sex dream was standing right in front of me, and I was wearing just a sports bra and shorts. It was one thing to participate in the casual nudity of a shifter, but it was another thing altogether when my body was aching, my desire still so present.

  “It was nothing,” I said, trying to put as much bluster into the words as possible. “Just a dream.”

  As if my own realization at my state of undress had sparked his, Kaden’s eyes dropped to my breasts, and then went down further, tracing the lines of my body. For a moment, I wondered if I was still asleep, if this was some weird dream-in-a-dream I hadn’t woken up from yet, but then he inhaled and closed his eyes.

  “You smell of sex,” he said.

  I was still so caught up in the dream that his voice saying those words sent another bolt of desire down my spine. I could easily imagine him saying other things next, similar to those I’d just heard in my dream. Gooseflesh popped up as if his words had caressed me.

  When he opened his eyes, they were hard and angry. “Dreaming about your Leo mate?”

  “What?” I asked, shaking myself out of the hold of his voice. “No, I—”

  “Don’t do that under my roof. I don’t care who you want to fuck, but keep your fantasies of that piece of shit far away from me."

  I opened my mouth to correct him, but what exactly would I say? Actually, I wasn’t dreaming about my mate, I was dreaming about you. How would that help the situation?

  Part of me wanted to chase the last moment, to regain that hunger in Kaden’s eyes as he’d been looking me over, but that didn’t make any sense. He was angry, and an angry Kaden was a familiar Kaden. Him looking at me with lust had been out of the ordinary, and probably hadn’t meant anything, anyway. Mentioning it would just create conflict where there didn’t need to be any.

  “Get out of my room,” I said instead, which was much more on par with how we usually interacted.

  Kaden’s eyes flared again, and he looked like he wanted to argue. Then he simply shook his head and walked out, slamming the door behind him.

  I took in a deep, shuddering breath. I tried to calm my racing heart, but I couldn't stop thinking about how hot my dream had been. I'd never had sex before. No one in the Cancer pack would touch me. I'd dated a human while I was in college but my parents forbade me from seeing him because he wasn't my mate. And of course, my mate didn't want me. Not that I wanted him either, but that didn't make the ache for him go away. Now I was going to be tormented by dreams of Kaden too.

  Really graphic, detailed dreams. Damn, why couldn't he have waited another few seconds to wake me up?

  Chapter Twenty

  The next few days passed with no small amount of awkwardness. Kaden hadn’t brought up the incident in my room, and I hadn’t either. That didn’t change the fact that the midnight incident hung between us like a stench in the air. Neither of us went poking at it, but it was there, all the same, and I was just waiting for it to get to a breaking point. We seemed to dedicate extra time to ignoring it, carefully looking away and putting distance between our bodies, and it was driving me up the wall.

  Worst of all, it was like we noticed every time we were close and made a big deal of getting past it. It was harder when Kaden was pressed against me in a hold, or pinning me to the ground after bowling me over, but there was no time to spend on physical attraction when I was trying to wiggle out of his grasp or throw a punch. It didn’t stop my brain from wandering in the off-moments though, and I found myself having to ask Kaden to repeat a lot of things.

  It seemed like training was getting more and more physical, the hand-to-hand combat becoming more of a close-quarters thing as I got better and he actually had to work to take me down. He wasn’t getting distracted nearly as much as I was, but I still noticed the odd time or two that he stared at me intensely, almost the same look in his eyes as he’d had in the dream. My brain’s ability to conjure up the memory of it was eerie.

  It was becoming increasingly obvious that Kaden and I had intense chemistry, and I couldn’t deny that he felt it either. Not that it mattered. As if the mating bond could feel that I was thinking about someone else, the sharp tugs drawing me back to Jordan became more intense. Every single time I got caught up in looking at Kaden’s muscles or drowning in his eyes, I’d feel it. It would be like an itch that I couldn’t quite scratch, something telling me that this was out of place. Reminding me that I should be somewhere else right now. I wondered if the moon goddess was getting a huge kick out of my predicament. Rejected by my true mate, and lusting after another shifter instead.

  I scratched at my stomach, trying to rid myself of the odd pull as we walked. I shook my head as if I could clear the thoughts physically from my brain and tried to focus on where Kaden and I were headed. We weren’t doing combat training today, which was equal parts a letdown and a relief. Instead, we were walking the perimeter of the Ophiuchus pack territory for some reason he hadn't explained yet.

  I glanced over at Kaden, who trudged beside me in a black shirt and jeans. I wished I could have been mated to someone like him, rather than Jordan. At least Kaden had never looked at me with such cruel eyes, and he'd never injured me either.

  But he wasn't my mate.

  Who was I kidding? I wanted Kaden anyway. He was hot, and everything an alpha should be, and I would gladly fuck him just to relieve some of this constant pressure between my thighs. If I didn't do something about it soon, I thought I might implode.

  Kaden glanced over as if he felt my stare, and I could have sworn his lips twisted down. Despite the chemistry between us, Kaden was always the first to pull away and made it very clear with his actions that he didn’t want me.

  “How’s cleaning going at the school?” Kaden asked as we continued walking through the forest. It was a warm day in early July, and the sunlight filtered through the trees and warmed my shoulders.

  "It's fine," I said, surprised he was bothering with small talk. "I like to see Stella with the pups."

  Stella had an amazing gift when it came to the children. That was one of the first things I’d noticed when I’d stepped into her kindergarten classroom. I’d spent too much time simply watching her teach and the children interact with her, before remembering I had to actually clean the room I was standing in.

  I'd spent days cleaning the place, all except the huge fucking snake they had in one of the rooms. No way was I getting near that thing. I couldn't believe they actually had it at the school, where it could hiss at the children walking past. I suspected it was thinking about eating them, but Stella told me the snake was harmless. Sure.

  I was still getting used to seeing wolf pups at the school too. It was incredible to see a child running around, only to have a wolf there a moment later. It seemed to happen mostly when they got upset. I’d never had to deal with upset baby shifters, but the teachers had a good handle on it. They seemed used to the extra work of running down a small wolf that could outpace even the fastest adult in human form.

  "What are we doing out here?" I asked.

  "I want to show you the different routes we use for patrols and show you what sorts of thing to watch out for when you're on duty."

  My eyebrows shot up. "Wow, that almost sounds like you might actually trust me a tiny bit."

  "Don't get your hopes up. This is as much a test as anything else."

  Of course. Everything was a test, and no one would tell me what my grade was.

  As we got further into the forest, Kaden said, “Most of the packs have no idea where we live, and I'd like to keep it that way. The mystery surrounding us has kept us safe for all this time, but we need to be prepared for an attack, now more than ever. After the most recent Convergence, we might be targeted now, especially with the upheaval." He paused and rested that heavy gaze upon me. "And with you here.”

  I met his eyes with a ha
rd look of my own. "You did want to use me as bait."

  He grunted. "And we will, once we're ready."

  We kept walking, trudging uphill and through some mud, and I couldn't help but think this would be a lot easier as wolves. When I'd hiked before, I'd always had my camera, or at least my phone, to make the journey more fun, but now I had neither of those. Maybe if I was a good girl, Kaden would let me have a phone again. I let out a heavy sigh and he shot me a glance.

  "What is it?" he asked.

  "Nothing. It's just... I wish I had my camera.” There wasn’t any response, so I just shook my head and continued. “I majored in photography in college, and I loved taking photos of nature. This forest is so beautiful I'd like to capture it too, but, well, no camera."

  “What happened to it?” Kaden asked, surprising me. “Was it left back at the Convergence?”

  “No, it was smashed before that. I got on the bad side of the Cancer beta’s son, and he and his mate decided it would be a fun way to torment me. I had some photos on my phone as well, but…well, I guess I lost that too.”

  His hard blue eyes raked up and down my body. "Are they the ones who gave you those scars on your body?"

  I flushed at the unexpected question, embarrassed he had seen so much of me, including all the things about my body that brought me shame. "A few of them, yeah."

  "And the others?"

  The anger in his voice shocked me. I swallowed and said, "Most of them were from my father."

  Kaden growled, a low and terrifying sound that raised the hair on my arms. "If he wasn't already dead, I'd kill him myself for that."

  I froze, his words echoing through me. "I...you would?"

  He kept walking, falling into silence once more. I stared after him for a moment, trying to wrap my head around what he'd just said, before chasing after him. Did he...care for me? Or was he just pissed off that an alpha would treat their pack member—their daughter—that way?

  I caught up with him and felt a connection between us, one I wanted to explore more. I found myself babbling, unable to stop. "I was lucky he let me go to college at all. The only reason he agreed was because my brother pressured him. Did you go to college?”