Harper removed the battery from her phone and popped it back in. She said a prayer to the fickle god of technology, and then pressed down on the button to turn it on.

Nothing.

“Damn it.”

She took the battery out again, and then chucked it out of spite.

She'd already tried charging it. In spite of the cloudy days, the portable charger had managed to soak in enough sunlight to reach a half charge. Harper had plugged her cellphone into it, completely draining the charger, but to no avail. It was officially busted.

“So long, music, ebooks, and podcasts.”

Her iPad sat across from her, propped against the chest of Shan's belongings. It taunted her with its abundance of free space, space she could have used to load music, or episodes of her favorite television shows. Instead, it was full of dry academic reading; knowledge on agriculture and medicine she'd intended on sharing with Shan's pack.

She laid back on the dirt floor of Shan's den, her uninjured arm behind her head, and tried to remember the ways she occupied herself before the internet. All that came to her were vague memories of playing with dolls and sticks.

In its boredom, her mind gravitated towards a more stimulating subject: Shan.

He was courting her.

Apparently.

He was doing a pretty miserable job at it, considering she hadn't seen him all day. Not since he'd kissed her by the stream.

“It wasn't a kiss,” she muttered. “It was a peck. On your head.”

Yet it had the same effect on her body as if he'd seized her lips and plunged into her mouth. Even now, just the memory of his lips on her left her feeling aroused and wanting more.

Why did he have to be good-looking?

It would have been so much easier if he'd been some shovel-faced goon, like Gareth.

Her stomach growled, and it was a welcome distraction from her swirling thoughts. She'd skipped dinner that night, leaving Ian and Jo behind to take a walk. Now that they were reunited, her friends had joined forces in plying her with questions—mainly about how Harper had known to ask for Shan by name, and who were her “sources” within the shifter community? In all the turmoil, she'd hoped that they'd forgotten those tidbits. She'd had to fabricate another lie, though by now, lying to them came naturally to her. Regardless of whether they'd bought it, they wouldn't see the truth. The truth was the white screen and the lie was the movie she projected onto it. So long as the movie was playing and whether or not they believed what the movie had to show, they would never see the white screen.

While the walk was to clear her head, she'd done nothing but think of Shan. She'd searched for him in every camp, under the guise of analyzing the groups of shifters. The only camp she didn't venture to was the Enforcer one, as she'd certainly exhausted the last of her daily luck. When she found herself nearing West's camp again, she made a beeline for the woods and was scaling the mountain in the direction of Shan's den.

He still hadn't put a lock on the chest, but there was no dry wood for fire, so her hopes of exploring the genealogy tree were dashed. She spent some time sitting in the oak tree, and when she got too cold, she went down to fiddle with her cellphone. She drained the charger into her battery to no avail, leaving her without juice to charge the iPad, which had also died.

Being in the dark and without anything to distract her was always a bad situation. Her mind moved too fast, and she needed things to slow it down, lest it run away on her.

Deciding another walk was in order, she got up, grabbing a fur and tossing it around her shoulders. As she started out of the den, she stopped mid-step, the air fleeing her lungs in one heavy exhalation.

Shan was at the foot of the hill, staring up at her. Cloaked in the dark of night, his figure was a large silhouette, coming gradually into focus with each step he took in her direction. As he neared her, the wind tossed his fresh scent in her direction, and her body softened in anticipation of him.

Coming here had been a bad idea. It was the third drink, the one you knew you shouldn't take, but couldn't resist, as your inhibitions were already so thoroughly loosened.

“How is your arm?” he asked as he came to a stop in front of her.

“Hurts,” was all she could manage to say.

“Gwen said you needed stitches.”

Had he checked up on her? Or had that just been information relayed to him as a matter of course?

Harper nodded. “A few.”

He touched her. His large hand was unexpectedly smooth as he brushed it across the side of her face.

“I didn't think to find you here,” he said, speaking in a way that told her he wasn't disappointed.

Harper had to work moisture back into her mouth. “I'm sorry, for today. I acted rashly, and it caused problems for you and your pack.” She paused and took a breath, trying to remember what else she'd planned to say. “I want to stay and study your pack. Regardless of what you believe about shifter integration, I think that what you're doing here is important and significant, and humans should know. But if my being here is going to be a problem for you, then I'll leave.”

Her hair was down, and the tips of Shan's fingers caressed it.

He said, “You're concerned that I'll convince you to stay and become my mate.”

Harper blinked. “What? No, that's not what I said. I'm not concerned about that at all. I don't want you to court me. If I stay, I need to be focused on research and not—”

“I have a gift for you.”

“I don't want a gift,” she lied.

He gave her a cajoling smile. “Don't you at least want to know what it is?”

Harper rolled her eyes. “Of course I do.”

He led her into his den, his hand drifting down to rest on her hip.

“You didn't start a fire,” he noted.

“We were out of wood.”

The pronoun slipped from her lips without thought, and she wondered what was going on in her subconscious, that she was already lumping them together. Next, she would be calling it, “our den.”

Shan didn't comment on the slip. He guided her to sitting, and then told her he would be right back. He left, returning with dry wood only minutes later. Harper asked where he'd found it, but he didn't answer.

The first flames came to life in the fire pit, highlighting Shan's profile. Harper feigned interest in watching him work, but was really eyeing his bare arm. Not just the intricate tribal tattoos that swirled into one another, but also the contours of his large muscles and the way the shadows played against them.

Harper was thoroughly aroused by the time he'd finished with the fire. She kept the fur closed tightly around her, hoping it would hold in the scent.

He didn't appear to be wearing any clothes beneath his fur, and she didn't see him reach into any pocket, but as he moved back to sit beside her, he produced a small, leaf-wrapped package and offered it to her.

“For you,” he said.

Harper stared at it. “I said I wanted to know what it was. I never said I'd take it.”

He continued to hold it out for her, and after a few seconds, she gave in to her curiosity. She plucked the package from his palm and turned it over in her hand, finding it to be secured by a small grass tie. She gingerly untied it and folded the leaf, only to find more leaves inside, though these ones varied in size, shape, and color.

“Herbs?” she asked, frowning up at him.

“To help you sleep,” he said. “They work best as a tea, taken shortly before you lie down.”

Thoughtful. Practical. Nice execution.

It wasn't often that she got a gift like that, and when she did, she never knew what to say. Instead, she focused on what the gift represented. In this case, it had to be part of Shan's plot to court her, so she cut right to the heart of the issue.

“Why me?”

Shan needed no clarification. “I don't know. I just know.”

She thought he was being vague on purpose. If he stated reasons, she could counter them. If he cited only his intuition, then she had nothing to work with.

“Have you ever had a mate before?” she asked.

“No.”

“How old are you?”

“Thirty-eight.”

She would have said thirty, going only by the way he looked, but thirty-eight seemed more appropriate, given how many years he'd been an active force in shifter politics.

“What's taken you so long?”

“I haven't had the time.”

“And you have the time now?”

He gave the barest shake of his head. “On the contrary. I have less time than ever. But I think you're self-sufficient enough to handle that.”

Was he complimenting her?

“I have a master's degree,” she said. “That means I've invested my entire adult life into my education. What makes you think I'm going to throw that away to make babies for you?”

“What makes you think you'd be throwing your education away?” he countered. “Do you think my pack would have no use for your knowledge? That you would be nothing but a glorified bed warmer for me?”

That was precisely what she assumed, and she wasn't going to let him trick her into believing otherwise.

“So what, then?” she asked. “Do you imagine we'd be partners? That I'd be the alpha female of your pack?”

Shan choked on a laugh. “Hardly. You're far too immature. But with time, perhaps.”

Her face felt hot as she tossed the bundle of herbs into his lap. “Yeah, well, thanks for the tea, but I'm still not interested in being your mate.”

Before she could draw her hand back, he grabbed her by the wrist and pulled her toward him.

“You can stay and study my pack, under the condition that while you are here, I will be courting you.”

“And what does courting entail?” she asked, pulling her wrist back. “Are you going to keep giving me gifts, or will you expect me to sleep with you?”

He cocked his head thoughtfully, as though he hadn't yet considered those things.

“You will continue to share my bed,” he said. “But I will expect nothing else from you, except that you are not disrespectful towards me in front of my pack and that you don't accept anything from another male.”

“And when I'm ready to leave? How do I know you'll let me go? Or are you just assuming that you're going to wear me down?”

“I view your rejection to be a negligible possibility. It is much more likely that I will reject you.”

Harper snorted. “What? That's not how courtship works!”

His lips slanted. “That is precisely how courtship works. You have to prove to me that you are worthy of being my mate, just as I have to prove myself to you.”

“Well, then. This is going to be over pretty quickly, because I'm clearly not gunning to become your mate.”

Shan's hand was on the back of her neck before her mind registered what was happening. A second later, his lips were on hers.

There was always a measure of awkwardness in a first kiss. Harper was usually the initiator, and even when she wasn't, she always ended up taking the lead. She was particular about what she liked—no intermittent mouth breathing, no moaning or grunting, minimal tongue and saliva, and liberal nibbling. She had to convey all of this with only her mouth, as the few times she'd tried giving verbal instructions, feelings had been hurt.

Shan had been kissing her for a full minute before Harper realized that she wasn't in control. Each movement of her lips was a response to one from his, and she was struggling to keep up. Her attempt at taking control was met with a stern nip to her bottom lip. As she felt the tip of a canine tug at the sensitive flesh, a needy sound rose up from within her.

When he went to break the kiss, her grip on his hair tightened. It was only then that she realized her hands were buried in his hair, and that she'd moved half into his lap of her own accord. She let him go at once, doing the crawl of shame from his lap.

“I have another gift for you,” he practically purred.

Harper made a show of wiping her mouth, though she knew she wasn't fooling him. She smelled aroused even to her human nose.

“But you'll have to wait for it until tomorrow.”

She said nothing because she was still breathing too fast and heavily.

Shan seemed comfortable with the silence, even as it stretched on through the time it took for him to set up a pot and boil water.

Something about their encounter stuck in her mind, and it wasn't until he was crushing the herbs over the boiling water that Harper could put it into words.

“Your pelt. It felt...alive. Like it was attached to you.”

Her hand had ran over it on her trip up to his hair, and for an instant, it had felt like she was touching a living creature. It was warm, supple, and felt molded to his flesh.

“Would you like me to take it off?”

His back was to her, but she could hear his sultry smile.

Ignoring the teasing question, she asked, “What are you? A skinwalker?”

She was referring to the far less common, but documented creatures believed to be the forebears of modern shifters. Like the selkies of European folklore, their shift was tied to their skins. Evolutionary biologists theorized that this vulnerability had been their downfall, as they were easier to combat. All an enemy had to do was steal their fur and burn it, and the skinwalker would never again be able to shift.

“Not quite,” Shan said. “Though I am more closely related to them than to the shifters in my pack.”

He turned and presented her with a small, steaming cup of tea. Her willpower too drained, Harper accepted it without complaint.

“Was your father like you?” she asked.

She'd fully expected him to ignore the question again, so she was surprised when he said, “Yes. He, and my mother.”

“Really?” It was the most interesting thing she'd heard yet. “So, your females can bear children?”

“Yes. My mother bore six daughters with her first mate, and then had me with her second.”

“Wow, six sisters, huh? Could they have kids, too?”

“They might have been able to, but they all died before reaching maturity.”

He stated it as a matter of fact, but Harper still felt the need to tread lightly around the subject.

“I'm sorry. Did they...get sick? Or was it something congenital?”

“Neither.”

The word had an air of finality, and Harper accepted it. There were only so many ways that six little girls could die, and once you eliminated the relatively benign, all that remained was unspeakable.

“Do you have any siblings?” Shan asked.

Harper paused to sip her tea. It was too hot, and she burned the tip of her tongue.

“A few.”

She was startled when Shan laughed.

“It will not kill you to be forthright. Your secrets are safe with me.”

“I don't have any secrets,” she said.

“Your secrets have secrets.”

She blew out a sigh over her tea. “I have half brothers and sisters. I haven't seen any of them since I was a kid. I don't like talking about my family.”

“Then I won't ask.”

She glanced up at him, meeting his eyes for the first time since they'd kissed. He looked calm, content, even. She relaxed a little.

“Why anthropology?” he asked.

Finally, something she could comfortably answer.

“It wasn't my first choice. I wanted to go into politics. I've always been interested in changing public policies. But the more I weighed the pros and cons, the more I realized that a career in politics was mostly fluff and pandering, two things I suck at. I ended up choosing anthropology because the subject matter interested me and the degree had diverse practical applications.”

It was so strange, being able to talk to him like she would to any human. And unlike when men usually asked about her degree, he seemed genuinely interested.

“And how have you been applying your degree?” he asked. “Do you work?”

Harper scratched the back of her neck. “I...haven't really found anything that suits me yet.”

She'd taken several jobs since completing her degree, and had left them all. Even with her degree, her lack of work experience meant that she was only qualified for entry-level positions, which invariably put her behind a desk. Her restless nature clashed with office work, and within a few weeks she would be utterly burnt out.

“So how is it you know so much about humans?” she asked, hoping he would allow her to change the subject. “You don't sound like you grew up in the fringes.”

Shan considered her for a few seconds, and then said, “My parents moved frequently when I was young.”

“Did you go to school?”

“I was never formally educated. My parents taught me most of what I knew. The rest I learned from reading.”

Harper took another sip of her tea. It was bitter, but had a lavender aftertaste that she enjoyed.

“Where did your parents come from?” she asked.

“My mother was born to a tribe native to South Dakota. My father was born in a small hamlet in Finland.”

“The country, Finland?” she asked. “How did they ever meet one another?”

“How did you meet your friends?” Shan asked, smoothly cutting through her interrogation.

“I met Jo in college and Ian in a club.”

“A club?” he asked. “What sort of club?”

“A night club.” He didn't appear to fully understand, so she elaborated, “You know, dancing, dubious cocktails, music so loud you can barely hear yourself think?”

He gave no indication as to whether he knew what she was talking about. Instead, he asked, “What is he to you?”

Ah, so that's where this is going.

Harper could just imagine how full of himself Ian would be if he knew Shan saw him as competition. She considered telling Shan that there was something between her and Ian, but she didn't think she could lie that convincingly.

“He's a friend. Just a friend.”

She took another sip of her tea, emptying the small cup.

“Tell me about your nightmares.”

Harper was glad she'd just swallowed the last of the tea, because she might have spit it out.

“I don't want to talk about them,” she said, setting the cup aside.

“Do you ever talk about them?”

“There's no point.”

“When did they start?”

“If I tell you, will you stop asking me personal questions?”

“For tonight.”

She rolled her eyes and went to pour another cup of tea. Shan put his hand on her wrist to stay her.

“One is enough. Have some water, if you're thirsty.”

As he spoke, his thumb caressed the side of her hand, the gentle touch stealing whatever response she might have been able to formulate. She drew her hand back and folded it in her lap.

“When I was thirteen, some bad crap happened to me. Right after that, the nightmares started. I've tried therapy. I've tried medication. The best I can do is block them out.”

As she spoke, she could feel herself becoming embarrassed all over again. Talking about her nightmares was admitting a weakness, and Shan was the last person she wanted to be vulnerable with.

“There are healers in my pack that work on the mind. You will talk with one when we return home.”

Her brows lifted. “And you're just going to dictate that?”

He hooked an arm around her and leaned in as he spoke. “As your mate, I would.”

Harper tipped her head back, probably to kiss him, but the simple motion made her unexpectedly dizzy.

“Did you drug me?”

Shan put his hand on the back of her head to steady her. “It's a mild sedative. Come lay down in bed.”

Harper didn't protest as he lifted her up into his arms. The the side of her face fell on a panel of bare skin. Like most of his kind, his flesh was hot to the touch. She pressed her hand to his chest, eager to soak in his warmth.

She felt a pang of disappointment as he laid her down on the bed. It felt so good to be close to him. Her hand reflexively gripped his pelt, as if her small hand could hold him in place.

“I'm not leaving,” he said, gently prying her fingers from his pelt.

“Can you feel it?” she asked. “When I touch your fur?”

He rolled onto his side and covered them both with his pelt.

“Not when it isn't attached to me.”

As he spoke, his arm came around her, pulling her close to him. She couldn't bring herself to protest. It was all she could do not to turn and snuggle with him.

“I'm only letting you do this because that tea has lowered my inhibitions.”

Shan's breath caressed the back of her neck as he said, “So what is your excuse for this morning?”

At once, she remembered being cuddled close to him, his hand stroking her hair, and his hard length pressed against her thigh.

“I have no idea what you're talking about,” she muttered.

His lips grazed the back of her neck, and she wondered if it was an invitation. If she turned around, would he kiss her? And if he did, would she let him stop?

No.

“Sleep,” Shan instructed. “You'll need to wake early for your next gift.”

“How early?”

“Before sunrise.”

Harper groaned into her pillow. “Nothing good ever happens before sunrise.”