Chapter 26 Uncontrolled #3
I was sipping my coffee, tired yet wide awake, when the entrance door burst open. I jumped to my feet, spilling coffee on the carpet as I put the mug on the table. The door had been locked before we went to bed. Thayer and I made sure of it.
Yet now the door barely hung on its hinges after the wolf walking inside literally broke into the cabin.
A feeling I couldn’t quite name expanded in my chest as I watched the wolf, with his silky, glistening bronze fur and bright arctic-blue eyes, padding toward me, his eyes set on my face like a hawk’s.
Footsteps announced Thayer coming into the living room. The wolf’s eyes remained solely on me as Thayer asked, voice sleepy, “What the hell just happened?”
I didn’t look at him, didn’t move, didn’t break eye contact with the wolf as I spoke softly. “Thayer, close and lock the entrance door, please, and go back to your room.”
In truth, I had no idea if that was what to do. Anais hadn’t prepared us for a wolf breaking into the cabin—especially the Alpha of the pack.
Thayer, to my utter relief, didn’t argue or question my command, and did as I said. Tomorrow, I knew he would demand answers, but for now, I focused on the wolf.
“Lucien,” I murmured, trying to make my voice as soothing as possible, like I’d done when I first brought him into my apartment what felt like a lifetime ago. “What are you doing here?”
The beautiful wolf didn’t respond. There was nothing in his eyes but pure fixation as he stared at me, as still as a statue. I could barely see him breathe.
I was completely at a loss, but I couldn’t give up. Swallowing hard, I slowly took a step forward, trying not to make any sharp movements. “Lucien,” I whispered now, “what do I need to do?”
Because why would he be here if he wasn’t in some sort of trouble? Lack of humanity or not, Lucien should spend the night roaming the forest like the others, shouldn’t he?
The wolf stared at me for a few more moments in complete, still silence before, to my utter shock, I saw his fur being sucked into his skin, followed by the paper-folding noise of him starting to shift.
“Lucien, no!” I hissed, eyes wide with fear, images of Kate in my head. “The full moon is still out! You should stay in your wolf form—”
My words cut off, my throat dry, when the gorgeous man appeared before me—his face so inhumanly beautiful, his sun-kissed body rippling with strong, taut muscles, easily towering over me as he got in my face, his eyes glowing an impossible bright blue.
I gasped. His gaze was so sharp and piercing, it rendered me immobile. It felt as though he was a predator on the hunt and I was his prey.
Which was exactly what we were. Werewolf and human.
At the full moon.
“Lucien,” I whispered, shuddering when he raised his hand to cup my face so gently, so in contrast to the almost beastly expression on his face, I almost whimpered. “Lucien, what’s happening?”
He opened his mouth, and a guttural voice came out, saying one word.
“Drew.”
Those beautiful eyes roamed over my face as though he was studying every nook and curve of my features, until they landed on my lips. Lips that I now parted when his gaze shifted, turning absolutely feral.
And for a moment, I forgot this Lucien wasn’t completely human, and a strong emotion rose inside me. Something mindless with desperation. “I’m the Eteria here,” I murmured, searching his eyes, watching his gaze sharpen. “You shouldn’t be controlled by the Eteria magic, should you?”
If his muscles were rigid before, he was now as hard as the wall he suddenly pressed my back against. His knee pushed my legs apart, settling between them, making me almost sit on his lap, while his hand lowered from my cheek to my throat in a gentle yet unmovable hold. His other hand settled on my thigh.
Heat flared up deep within me, almost bringing tears to my eyes with how much I wanted him there and then.
I wanted his knee to move up, to brush against me.
I wanted the hand on my thigh to slide to my butt and squeeze it roughly, possessively.
Those lips I’d been avoiding looking at out of fear I would long for them too much I now desperately wanted, needed, anywhere on my skin.
This abrupt, absurd, almost compulsive need for his touch broke me. “Let me go,” I said, my voice barely audible as I was too weak, too submissive under his strong touch, to put any conviction in my tone. “Let me go, Lucien.”
“It’s not your fault you’re my Eteria.”
I would’ve jumped if he hadn’t held me so strongly. His voice was like gravel. Barely human. Yet I understood him. I also saw the vehemence that entered his gaze.