Luna’s Soul

Unwanted Desires

Gabriel could see in Lily’s face that she was beginning to accept what he was telling her. The fear, the shock, and the panic were still very visible on her delicate face— but the doubt had almost completely vanished.

As he waited for her to gather her thoughts and respond, he clenched his muscles. He was fighting the urge to run his hands across the smooth, exposed skin of her waist where her shirt had ridden up to expose her flat stomach. He was trying to keep his eyes at her face, but his wolf was screaming at him. He was very aware of the perfect fullness of her breasts, the way her neck gracefully curved into her narrow shoulders, the daintiness of her small waist, and the way her narrow hips flared out ever so slightly. The gap between her slender thighs had captured his attention, and the wolf inside him imagined how incredible it would be to be in between them.

He ripped his thoughts away from her body. He had no right. He had no right to want her— to want to mate her, to want to hear her panting his name— not now, when he’d just ripped her away from her entire life and she was standing here with a face full of fear and uncertainty.

As he continued to examine her tear streaked face, she finally spoke.

“Can I please call my boss?”

Her words stunned Gabriel. There was no emotion in her words— all monotone.

“Your boss?”

Anger flared in her beautiful blue eyes. “Yes— my boss. I don’t expect I’m allowed to leave and I’m supposed to work this week. He’s been really good to me since I got out of foster care, and I don’t want to screw him over by just not showing up. I want to give him time to fill my shifts.”

Gabriel stared at her, his eyes narrowing, trying to figure out where her head was. He expected more screaming and crying— he didn’t expect this. She was angry, but she was calm. Her heart was thudding at a normal rhythm. He didn’t smell adrenaline on her anymore.

There was something behind her eyes now, and it took him a long moment to indentify it.

Dread.

The emotion behind her eyes now was dread. As if this were another horrible thing in a series of horrible things in her life, and she’d just sat back and accepted it, knowing what was coming her way.

But as much as Gabriel wanted to give her what she wanted, he couldn’t. He couldn’t risk her sending out Morse code or something. The words he said next shattered his heart.

“I’m sorry, but you can’t call him. I can have someone send a text from your phone and let him know.”

“You have my phone?” She asked, mouth falling open in surprise.

“Of course I do. It’s in my office. I had to make sure it couldn’t be tracked. You’ll get it back when I can trust that you won’t do anything reckless.”

Her eyes flared. “More reckless than allowing a strange man who isn’t even a man kidnap me from my home in the middle of the night?”

Gabriel’s eyes flashed in irritation, the Alpha in him responding to the disrespect, but he squashed the feeling.

“Once again, I did what I had to do—“

Gabriel stopped talking when his Apple Watch lit up, and a text message popped up. It was Tobias, asking Gabriel to call him.

Gabriel stepped back from Lily, pulling his phone out of his pocket and quickly dialing Tobias’s number. Lily watched him curiously, with little to no emotion on her pretty face. Her tank top and sweats she wore were torn and clearly cheap— but she still looked like a goddess in the flesh standing in front of him.

Tobias answered on the third ring. “Alpha,” he greeted.

“Tobias,” Gabriel spoke. “What did you need?”

Gabriel was very aware of Lily’s listening ears. His eyes never left her face as he listened to Tobias.

“Rogues on the west border,” Tobias grunted. “They got a mile onto pack land before we caught them. We took them out quickly— but I think it was an organized attack. Too coincidental. I knew you were going to want to come see this— especially considering that border is closest to your home, Alpha.”

His heart rate sped as he stared at Lily. Small, defenseless, fragile Lily. The news of Rogues on their borders would have alarmed him before.. but now? With the most meaningful thing in the world standing in his home, with no way to protect herself? Gabriel’s hair stood up, and he could feel his canines start to try to protrude as his wolf tensed defensively. Mate. Protect mate.

He pinched the bridge of his nose to try to calm himself. The last thing Lily needed was for him to leave her here alone with strangers now, but he had no choice. He didn’t need rogues catching a new scent in his home. He had to look into this.

“Call Fawn and pull her from the pack house,” he instructed. “Tell her to come over here discreetly, and I’ll fill her in when she arrives. I want a full security team at my house while I’m gone, Tobias, and I mean full. I want guards at the gate and guards at every entry way to the courtyards and doors to the house. I want no mistakes to be made today.”

“I’ll have them to you in less than a half hour, Alpha,” Tobias grunted. “I’m on the scene a mile inland from the west border. I’ll see you when you arrive.”

Tobias hung up, and Gabriel was left once again staring at a very observant, emotionless Lily.

“You’re going somewhere?” She asked.

His eyes focused on the chill bumps on her arms, and then zeroed in on the way her n*****s were hardening under her thin tank top. She hadn’t worn a bra to bed the night he took her away. Gabriel imagined what they would look like, and what it would feel like to slide that fabric out of the way and expose her breasts. He wondered if she had ever been with a man before..

He sighed, grasping the throw blanket at the food of the bed and carrying it with him as he approached her.

He wrapped it carefully around her shoulders. “I have some business I have to tend to. I have someone coming to tend to you while I’m gone. I’ll be back in a few hours at the most, and then we can talk.”

She reached up and rubbed the side of her temple, wincing. “I don’t need a babysitter.”

He eyed her hand doubtfully. “Werewolf drugs are hard on the human body. I hope you’ll try to rest while I’m gone.”

“Well, you have yourself to blame for that,” she snapped.

“Look,” she spoke, and he hung on her every word. “I’m not saying I can explain why you calm me down or why I’m not freaking out right now, because I can’t. But let me make one thing very clear.. I don’t want to be your mate or whatever you want to call it. I don’t need you, I don’t need anybody. I’ve never needed anybody and that’s not going to start now. I’m here because you won’t let me leave, and because if I’m going by how my life has gone thus far, I know this is just going to be another way the universe is punishing me for whatever I did to deserve this.”

There was pain buried deep behind her sea blue eyes, pain that he knew went much deeper than the events of today. Pain that had been there for a very long time, and his heart seized in his chest. He wanted to tuck her into his chest and shield her from all of that pain.

He reached out for her before he knew what he was doing. He curled hus palm around her cheek, heat sizzling through his veins at the feel of her skin on his, and he forced his eyes not to look down at her cleavage and save himself a raging erection in front of her. His wolf wouldn’t win this battle, not today. He might have been part beast, but Lily was not— and she deserved and would get the most human part of him. He was rewarded by the way her body sagged slightly and her cheek gently leaned into his hand reflexively. She felt the bond. He knew she did. She felt something.

“I don’t want you to need me, Lily. I want you to need only yourself. I want you to want me, one day. Even if that day is decades away. My entire being desires it. But if you don’t ever want me, I will still keep you safe, and I don’t care if you want me to do that or not. So I’m sending someone over to care for you while I’m not here, and I will be back in a few hours and we can discuss things further.”

Painfully, Gabriel pulled his hand away from Lily and stood by the door, looking back at her.

“Don’t bother trying to get out; you won’t be able to. The guards here are for your protection.. even if you don’t see it that way now. You won’t make it out of the house.”

And with that, Gabriel bit back the guilt bubbling in his throat, turned, and left her alone in his bedroom.