Moon Touched (Zodiac Wolves: The Lost Pack #1)(68)

I twisted my arm to look at the pack mark better. I glanced up to meet Kaden’s eyes, and there was nothing but satisfaction in his gaze.

I was one of the snake bearers now.





Chapter Twenty-Eight





It was late into the night when the party finally began to wind down. Shifters loved to party at night under the moon, but eventually, most people headed to bed, and now it was our turn.

"Let's go home," Stella said, covering her mouth with a yawn. "I feel like my feet might fall off after all that dancing."

Home. It certainly felt like it now. Although things would change now that I was a full member of the pack. I wouldn't need guards trailing after me anymore, and I would probably have to find another place to live at some point. I couldn't imagine Kaden would want me there for much longer.

“I'm so excited you're one of us now," Stella said, as we walked back to the house. "I’ll have to show you how your poison bite and healing work.”

I blushed as I remembered Kaden’s tongue licking my wound closed. “I know a bit about those already."

"Right, of course. I'm sorry I bit you at the Convergence, but I made sure not to give you too much poison. I just wanted to knock you out, not kill you.”

I almost opened my mouth to correct her but thought better of it. What had happened between Kaden and me should remain between us. I wasn’t sure how much everyone else knew, but I knew that Kaden probably didn’t want it all broadcasted.

“Oh, another good thing," Stella continued. "Becoming a pack member will also stop you from going into heat every month. I know you had some issues with that at the last full moon. Now you'll only have to worry about that once a year.”

"That's a relief." Once a year was much more manageable. Except... Was that why Kaden had rushed to make me a pack member, to avoid having to deal with me going into heat again? My chest tightened at the thought that this was the real reason he'd fought for me to join so quickly. Not because I deserved it, or because I'd proved myself loyal, but because he didn't want to have to fuck me again next month.

We made it back to the house, and there was no sign of Kaden anywhere, though he'd left the party a while before we did. I wondered where Kaden had gone off to, if he was busy sulking in his room or taking a brooding walk through the forest, doing whatever alphas did to mark the park territory.

I sat on my bed after saying goodnight to Stella and touched the pack mark on my arm. I’d never carried the Cancer symbol, nor had access to the crab armor, but now I felt power running through my veins from the Ophiuchus healing lick and poison bite. I was really one of them, though I had a feeling I would never like snakes the way some of them did.

But did I truly deserve to be one of them?

A thump on my roof startled me. My mind immediately flew to an attack, and my heart started pounding. It came again, and I ran out of my room to see if either Stella or Kaden had heard it. Neither of their doors was open. I looked at Stella’s door and then turned to Kaden’s. I walked up to the door and knocked. “Kaden? Are you in there?”

No answer. I tried the handle. I had never been in his room since I was forbidden to even clean it. The door was unlocked, and I held my breath as I opened it just a crack. No one was inside. I looked around, finding it surprisingly clean and spare, without many personal touches like Stella’s room had. I did see a picture of what must have been his parents sitting on the desk next to a closed laptop.

“Kaden?” I asked again, just to be sure. The sliding door onto the patio was open, and I peered outside. Why was his door open? I walked out onto the balcony and looked up. It was a cloudless night, the stars glimmering brightly, and the moon still cast a pleasant glow over everything. I stared at it for a few moments before something caught my eye. A ladder. I remembered Kaden saying he had a telescope on the roof, and felt silly for thinking an attacker would be able to make it up there without alerting anyone.

I moved to the other side of the balcony where I could see him sitting on a flatter portion of the roof, his eye pressed to the lens of the telescope. On impulse, I climbed up to join him. I had to ask him about the real reason he'd made me a pack member, or I'd never be able to get any sleep.

He didn’t look up at me until I’d settled right beside him, though he must have heard me coming from a mile away. "I told you not to enter my room."

"I heard something and went to investigate." When he only grunted in response, I asked, “What are you looking at?”

“The Ophiuchus constellation is bright tonight." He motioned me forward and leaned away so I could peer through the telescope.

I didn’t know exactly what I was looking for and pulled back. It was just a jumble of bright stars to me. "Pretty."

He shook his head with a scowl. “It’s right underneath the Hercules constellation, which I’m sure you’re more familiar with. Ophiuchus comes from the Greek word that means serpent-bearer. It looks like a man holding a snake.”

“Right." I looked back into the telescope, squinting at the stars and trying to see anything that resembled a man. Kaden was close enough that I felt the heat of his body in the few inches of space that separated us, and it was hard for me to focus on anything else. The fact that he was my alpha now should have made me hesitant, but instead, it only made me crave him more.