I started at the bottom of the wound and licked the area right below it. Kaden’s muscles rippled under my tongue, reacting to the touch almost instantly, and I heard him suck in a sharp breath. I chased his flinching skin, pressing my tongue flat against it. It was salty, the tang of iron overriding any natural taste I might have gotten had he not been bleeding, but not unpleasant. I wasn’t sure how exactly to do this, and the last time it had been done to me, I’d been too distracted to remember the exact motions Kaden had used.
Almost immediately, the wound seemed to close up beneath my tongue, and I continued my work, slowly but surely healing the entire area. When his breathing became more labored, I looked up to find Kaden’s head tipped back, exposing the long line of his bare throat, and his hands balled up into fists at his sides. The muscles in his forearms stood in stark relief from how tightly he was holding himself back, but he couldn't stop his cock from hardening and growing. It was so close to my tongue, which now traced lazy circles across Kaden's hip, that I debated taking a detour. I'd never sucked anyone's cock before, but I desperately wanted to try it with him.
When Kaden's wound was healed, I pulled back and gazed up at him, waiting to see if he would stop me. Lust clouded his eyes, and I smelled his need in the air, mixing with the scent of my own. My hands rested on his thighs, feeling the strength in them. When I swallowed, his eyes tracked the movement of my throat, and he drew in a sharp breath. It thrilled me, knowing he wanted me even when I wasn't in heat, and with the last sparks of adrenaline running through my blood, I felt completely wild. I began to lick my way up along his hip, then higher, tracing the hard planes and valleys of his abs, unable to stop now that I'd started. He'd never let me touch him like this before, not even when I was in heat. Just when I was about to circle one of his nipples with my tongue, he grabbed my arms and yanked me to my feet.
“As much as I like you kneeling in front of me, this is not the time for that," he said. "We need to get out of here."
I nodded, knowing he was right, and licked my lips, tasting him on them. "I told you I'd be the one healing you someday," I said, my voice breathless.
"You did a good job, especially for your first time." He inspected his hip. "I never should have doubted you."
I pressed my hand to his chest, staring into his eyes, my blood hot as it raced through my veins. "No, you shouldn't have."
We weren't just talking about the healing now, and we both knew it. Kaden met my gaze with a smolder of his own, his chest rising and falling as if he'd just run a mile. Then he yanked me against him, pressing our naked bodies together, and kissed me, hard. The shock of his lips on mine quickly gave way to pleasure and need, and I let out a little whimper as he opened my mouth wider and slid his tongue across mine. His kiss was rough and demanding, and I melted against his body, my hands sliding along his thick neck, feeling his hard cock wedge between my thighs.
My body answered, remembering his smell, the weight of his body against mine, and the unimaginable pleasure we'd shared between us. One of my legs lifted to wrap around him, getting his cock closer to where I needed him. Kaden’s hands tightened around my shoulders and I gasped, thinking he might take me right there against the wreckage of our car, with the bodies of our enemies at our feet. We were still high from our victory and the thrill of battle, the lust for blood and sex urging us on. I wanted nothing more than to feel Kaden’s cock inside me, to reassure myself that he was still alive and that he was mine.
But then his hands shifted position and he shoved me back. "Ayla, we can't do this."
"You're right, we should at least go into the trees so no one will see us if they drive past." I couldn't think why else he would stop this when we both obviously wanted it so much. My nipples were hard in the cool night air, straining toward Kaden, along with every other inch of me too, and he definitely noticed.
"No." He looked away and raked a hand through his hair. "You're still mated to someone else. It doesn't matter that he's your brother—you're still not mine."
His words were like a sharp blow to my stomach. I actually stepped back, so hurt by them, and it took me a second to realize why—because in my head, Kaden was mine, and I was his, even without a mate bond between us. But why would I expect him to feel the same? Especially when I technically belonged to someone else?
Kaden leaned into the car and rooted around inside until he emerged with some clothes. I watched as he threw on pants and a t-shirt in quick succession. Then he turned back to the car to find his shoes, which he dragged out of the wreckage.
“Get dressed,” he said when he turned to find me still naked.
I clenched my jaw as I grabbed clothes out of the bag and put them on. I understood why he denied me, but it didn’t make his rejection any easier to stomach. While Kaden salvaged anything else he could and put it all in his backpack, I found my shoes beside a dead wolf, where they'd fallen off while I'd shifted. The rest of the clothes I'd been wearing had been torn to shreds when I shifted, but at least these had survived. I checked the car again, and found my burner phone miraculously intact, along with my lip gloss. Thank the goddess for small favors.
As soon as I finished dressing, Kaden started down the road, heading in the direction we'd been driving, with his bag slung over his shoulder. I followed after him, leaving the car and the dead wolves for the Taurus pack to deal with.
They were allies of the Leo pack. I sighed heavily as I realized Jordan must have changed his mind about letting me go and had sent them after me. Kaden was right—Jordan didn't care about me at all, except as a prize to be won or a tool to be used. Brother or not, I was done defending him. If the only way out of this was to kill him, so be it.
Chapter Sixteen
We walked in silence for about an hour. For once, I didn’t try to break it. My emotions were too tangled up, and I was too busy trying to figure them out to even think of trying to get Kaden to talk. Not a single car passed while we were alongside the road, and our only company was the waning moon hovering over us. Finally, I was drawn out of my thoughts by the glimmer of lights on the horizon.
“Is that a town?" I asked.
Kaden still didn’t look over at me, but I saw him frown as he considered the question. “Looks like it. We’ll stop and rest there.”
“Oh, thank god,” I said. My whole body ached now that the last of the adrenaline fading. My wolf healing was taking care of it, but I was starving and exhausted and tired of traveling. We'd been driving or walking since dawn, not to mention in a bad car accident and then a battle for our lives, and all I wanted was to lie down for a while.
"How did the Taurus find us?" I asked, suddenly worried they might be able to follow us here too. "Was it the mate bond?"