Page 26 of Luna's Forgotten Vow

Needing more, I slip my fingers under, brushing against my clit unintentionally and my entire world thins to that small stroke. I bite my bottom lip to keep the moan inside but it escapes anyway.

"Slow. Explore yourself. You're too tense." His voice turns rougher. "You should be savoring it."

I press harder, my legs widening. My chest rises and falls faster now, the sensation twisting through me as hard nipples rub against silk.

Can't think, can't breathe fast enough.

"Fuck, that's it." I feel him shift on the couch. I wonder if he can see me with the lights off. To test that theory, I bring my free hand from where it grips the couch tightly to my breast and squeeze.

Soren makes a throaty sound that makes me want to do nasty things. Liar. Fucking, perverted liar. He's been watching me the whole time. I should be angry, but the thought only makes me hotter. "Circle it lightly," he says.

I ignore the order and push a finger inside. The pleasure is instant, sharp, spiraling and I cry out, riding through it, squeezing my aching nipples.

"Fuck," someone swears. It might have been me or Soren, I can't tell, but Soren suddenly snatches my wrist, pulling my finger out of me.

I open my eyes to find glowing green eyes, livid and hungry, peering down at me. "You taunt me so wickedly, Sera."

"And you lie to me so carelessly," I pant. "Do you like watching me come apart, Soren?"

His eyes shutter and he releases my wrist. I know I won't get an answer from him, but I will find out anyway.

My fingers return between my thighs and I stroke, following Soren's instruction now to the letter. He sounds angry, but his voice is huskier. Still, he doesn't stop doling out orders and I take them, because I know he expects me not to.

And as the pressure builds, my eyelids flutter again. I see his eyes trained on where I stroke myself and pump my fingers in and out. I see his nostrils flare in the dark and I cry out his name on purpose as pleasure, white-hot, impossible to contain consumes me.

I shatter, dangerous, violent spasms overtaking my body.

I'm not sure how, but somewhere between clenching and moaning, I must've dozed off, because when I wake up again, I'm against Soren's fluffy pillows, tucked in tight with the man nowhere in sight.

Sometime after dawn, I wake again. The room is bathed in pale light and smells strongly of Soren's cologne. I'll never understand how he moves around without waking me up in the mornings.

I notice a small wooden box on the nightstand and I can't help the smile that grows on my face as I extract the note from underneath it.

"When our mates take in with child, it is expected that we gift them items embedded with protective runes for their safety. It is only tradition and superstitious, but I had this made specifically for you."

I open the box and take out the necklace. The silver chain is delicate, the pendant cool against my fingertips as I lift it. The rune carved behind is in the shape of an angel's wings and my chest tightens, something unfamiliar swelling there.

There's no way he knows that my mother often called me 'Angel.'

CHAPTER 9

SERAPHINA

Over the next few weeks, I lose whatever suspicions I might have had that Soren knew more than he let on. We fall into an easy kind of relationship that seemed surreal at first but comfortable as time passed by.

He is rather difficult to 'not like', and I figured placing him in the friend zone would easily resolve the problem of my growing attraction to him. Not that it worked.

It began creeping on me slowly, when he took me on a morning run and laughed at me when I sat on the grass helplessly because I was seconds away from passing out. When he somehow always had a bottle of water in hand and held my hair up while I puked. When he lingered during the tutoring sessions he could attend when he wasn't away for his Head Alpha duties, annoying the shit out of me with his stern inputs and handing me a bowl of ice cream afterwards as an apology. When he trained me personally and forced me even a step further every day, by getting on my nerves until I could land a hit and more, then rewarded me with the weirdest heart warming gifts.

Like baby socks.

And soon, I couldn't tell when I began laughing more freely, or looking forward to having dreams or nightmares, so I could have an excuse to slip into my bedroom and fall asleep beside him while he worked.

Acknowledging that he was my comfort would make it real, and so, I called him a friend. Baby steps, I think.

The weeks blurred into months. My belly grew rounder. My body grew stronger. I ran miles longer every day with and without Soren. I attended pack meetings and my voice slowly began to hold relevance in rooms of people who once thought themselves better than me. I hosted revelries. Soren was right. Everyone seemed to come to heel when they thought I was carrying his child. But that was only part of it.

I learned the right words to speak and how to be heard. I learned to walk into a room and command respect. I learned politics, taught by the best tutors and Soren himself. I mediated, negotiated, oversaw.

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