Moon Touched (Zodiac Wolves: The Lost Pack #1)(52)
“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.
I blinked, trying to reconcile Kaden’s tongue with my lessening pain. Was he healing me? I should push him away, or tell him that I was fine now, but I didn't. I’d never admit it to him, but I didn’t want him to stop.
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.