Chapter 25
CValarie
“Please,” I begged quietly through clenched teeth.
My toes were curled, thighs tight with need. I’d been on the edge of an orgasm for the better part of a half-hour now, and it didn’t look like I’d be reaching it anytime soon.
With a whimper, I pressed my head back into the pillow, fingers working furiously at my folds and clit.
What could possibly be the problem—I was wet. Wetter than I’d ever gotten myself alone. It wasn’t so hard, I’d found out, just days away from a transformation and with very real memories to call upon.
The problem was that I kept fighting them. Fighting the appearance of Gabriel’s concentrated gaze as he’d stared up at me, the surface of his tongue as he licked at me.
I just couldn’t recreate the same feeling myself.
With an angry groan, I snapped my legs together and rolled out of the bed completely naked, taking three long strides to try and cool down.
It was almost four in the morning. I’d been tossing and turning all night. Sleeping only lightly, and then frustrated, woken by the sensation of hands that didn’t exist running over my skin.
It was the wolf.
She’d gotten like this before, with John. More demanding. Back then, I hadn’t been able to control it and it had been part of what scared him away. But I paced my room now, knowing that if I were with Gabriel, he would be excited by this—by my hunger, how wet I was, how ready I was to jump him.
But he wasn’t here. And I wouldn’t seek him out.
With a growl, I stalked over to the dresser and ripped a drawer open, pulling out an old t-shirt that was a few sizes too big.
It barely touched my body—only rubbed against my collarbones and nipples, but even that was almost too much.
I bit back another whimper and felt a rush of wetness between my legs.
Everything in here was sensory overload: thick carpet between my toes, the warmth of the room.
I walked slowly out into the living area and checked Sophia’s door. The light was off, and moonlight spilled across the room.
Almost against my will, my eyelids drooped shut.
It was the pull of it. It had always been this way at home; the moon called to me more than anyone, or anything, else I knew.
Mom and Dad responded to it, Jason stayed up extra late when the moon was coming full, but with me it was different. I needed to be out there.
Walking quickly and silently, I pried open the biggest window and stepped out into the garden.
The feel of dirt beneath my bare feet sent a shiver running up my spine. I inhaled deeply, smelling the very bottom layer of leaves decaying against the earth. The night air made the hair on my arms stand up and I rocked up onto the balls of my feet, stretching.
The moon was only a fingernail’s width away from being full. At almost four in the morning, it was unmistakable in the sky with a slight red tinge to the halo around it.
The trees hushed in a breeze and the shadows on the ground shifted. But one continued moving after the trees had settled down.
I froze, vision shifting as the wolf surfaced. She was better at seeing in the dark and it was easier to follow the fast, lithe movements of whoever was slipping from tree to tree.
The wind was carrying in the other direction, and I couldn’t smell them. I wondered briefly if they could smell me. But their pace was steady, and I followed, leaning into the run, lips parted in excitement.
They skirted the edge of the garden along the walls and windows a few yards ahead of me. Dipping low under a copse of lilac trees, I felt better than I had all month. This is what I missed about home.
The person ahead sped up and leapt a pair of small stone walls that created a walkway between two wings. I followed, the grit of the rock biting into my skin.
This was a section of the palace I hadn’t been to before. It was the stretch of halls that belonged to the royal family—in the garden, I’d come across Gabriel’s rooms, but hadn’t seen this other side.
The figure darted toward the beginnings of a small forest, and I stopped, confused. Had that always been there? The trees weren’t particularly large, a mix of short, winding mountain laurel and young saplings. My eyes almost lost the person as they disappeared into the shadows.
With three bounding strides, the wolf crackled up my spine and I felt my ears lengthen, teeth growing slightly longer and sharper, making my jaw ache deliciously. The skin on my palms and feet grew thicker.
In the trees, it was even harder to see. I relied on scent now that the wind couldn’t take over, and the other person’s scent was earthy. Like some kind of deep spice. I thought of Ana and wondered if I was tracking her; if she had the same urges I did once the moon came around.
But just as the thought came to me, I rounded a corner and saw the individual leap a small boulder. For a moment, they paused on top, catching their balance, and I knew immediately that it wasn’t Ana; it wasn’t a woman.
Back muscles bunched in the moonlight and the tapering torso gave it away. A bristle of hair between the shoulder blades. Then they were gone.
Luckily, running almost daily back home had done me good. It was easy to catch up now, even in the rocky terrain. This seemed to be an area littered with boulders and it was just as exciting to navigate as tracking the stranger was.
I caught their scent again just briefly; wolf, definitely wolf, and something fresh to it that I couldn’t quite place.
I skidded down the surface of a boulder, the skin on my heels tearing a bit, and then stumbled back as the other wolf spun on me.
We stood in a sort of clearing, circling one another.
Both of us were leaning forward in preparation for transforming, even though neither of us would tonight.
Full transformations were frowned upon unless it was the actual night of the full moon.
I glanced up through the thin branches and the wolf part of me knew, even if I hadn’t already known, that the globe of the moon wasn’t fully formed yet.
Carefully stepping sideways, I squinted in the dark. Now that we were before one another, it was clear I was the underling here. This other wolf was bigger, much bigger than I was, shoulders wide. I couldn’t see his face, but his hands clenched and unclenched as we moved.
“Stop,” he demanded gruffly.
I fought the urge to physically stop and wait for his next command. That was a red flag. Even if I didn’t know who this was, the urge to obey could only mean one thing.
I’d followed an alpha. My stomach sank.
“What do you think you’re doing?” he asked in a more human-sounding voice, and I stretched my jaw, trying to bring the shape back from the slight elongation so that I could form words easily.
“I needed to get out,” I admitted, the moon drawing the truth from me.
Wolves didn’t lie.
We could tease each other, mislead slightly in jest, but we could never outright lie. And I especially couldn’t lie to what I was sure now was an alpha.
Slightly more under control, I took a calming breath and smelled him.
Citrus.
It was Gabriel.
He panted twice before lunging forward and my hands barely caught his shoulders, pressing away from him, but he’d launched us back toward a boulder. My back scraped down it and I hissed, feeling the rough surface of the rock through the thin t-shirt I wore.
The breeze was cold on my bare thighs as I tried to scrabble against him and brace myself on the boulder.
“Stop fighting,” he demanded again, and I shivered with the need to obey.
But instead, I fought back harder, yanking his hair hard and biting into his upper chest.
His skin jumped under my teeth. It felt satisfying to surprise him, and surprised he definitely was. His grip loosened on my upper arms and with a slight struggle, I was free again and on all fours, starting to scramble away from him.
I yelped as he caught my ankle and tugged hard, dragging me across the ground. The half-dry leaves felt rough against my bare skin as the shirt rode up around my waist.
I felt Gabriel straighten behind me and knew he was getting an eyeful of my exposed rear. The transformation had shifted enough of me that I had an almost-full tail; not quite as thick as it would be with a full transformation, but undeniably visible now.
Gabriel’s hand on my waist pulled me back into a crouch and I kept my back perfectly straight as his other hand grazed my hip and then the base of my tail. I couldn’t help arching my back toward him and knew that he couldn’t help holding me even tighter and closer.
“I knew it was you,” he whispered, pulling my hair aside and burying his nose between my shoulders. “I could smell you the second you entered the garden.”
I shivered, hands braced in the dirt, waiting to see what he would do. His thighs were shifting behind mine.
“Did you… did you want me to chase you?” I panted, trying to fight the urge to arch my back more, press myself closer to him.
The confusion helped. It wouldn’t make sense for Gabriel to entice me into pursuing him.
That was the reverse of our roles; he should’ve been the one chasing me, as he had every other time.
He wrapped his hair in my fist and tugged, immediately making it clear once again who was in charge.
“Do you know what you’ve been doing to me?” he murmured, almost impossible to hear with the sound of the leaves in the wind.
“N-no,” I answered, rocking back on my heels a bit to feel his legs graze my ass. “Tell me what I do to you. Please, Alpha.”
I added the last hoping it would soften him up.
Because I did want an answer. It seemed like he couldn’t fight this anymore than I could, but that was strange.
Alphas were so controlling; some of the best controlled wolves in the pack, able to shift exactly when the moon became full, down to the minute.
“I haven’t even been able to leave my rooms,” Gabriel growled. “Every time I do, all I want is to seek you out. To hunt you down and have you.”