Shan's hand on her hip made Harper feel anxious as they arrived back at the camps. It should have been easy to push him away. At one point, she lifted her hand to swat at him, but as soon as her hand came in contact with his, it stilled. Her fingers spread out over his, and then moved to lace between his. He pulled her closer, until she was practically leaning on him as they walked.

Harper couldn't deny that being with him felt good.

She peeked at him from the corners of her eyes, and found that he was looking down at her. Not for the first time, she wondered what she could have possibly done to have him look at her with such naked affection.

“You should watch where you're going,” she muttered, trying to ignore the tickle in her belly.

Butterflies.

When was the last time a man gave her butterflies?

“I'll have to leave you for the day, but I'll spend time with you this evening.”

Why did he say that as if he were reassuring her?

“I'm sure I'll manage.”

Part of her hated how brusque she was being, but the only alternative was to indulge him, and she couldn't do that.

Her awareness drifted to her hand, which was still laced in his and wouldn't budge.

“If you need anything, ask for Oslo. He'll know where to find me.”

“Like I said, I'm sure I'll manage.”

“I'll be thinking of you.”

Harper tried to look anywhere but at him as heat spread over her face, from her cheeks to the tips of her ears. They'd just passed into the Scout encampment. She could hear chatting in the distance, but the campsites in their vicinity were empty.

“I'm sure you'll cross my mind at some point,” she said.

The truth was, she didn't think she'd be able to stop thinking of him and the thought of not seeing him all day was, well, pretty fucking miserable.

This is bad.

He stopped, his hand going to the back of her neck. Her body picked up on the signal before her mind could catch up, and she stood on the tips of her toes, meeting his lips as they journeyed down to kiss her.

She blocked out the negative voice in her head and permitted herself to simply be with him. She kept one hand on his shoulder for balance, but allowed the other to roam over his chest. She was greedy in her exploration, her fingers tracing each chiseled line. There wasn't an ounce of fat on him, and when she tried squeezing one of his muscles, she found it to be hard and unyielding.

Shan's head cocked to the side, his lips parting. Harper opened her mouth just in time for his tongue to sweep inside and curl with her own. In the same instant, he pulled her to him, and she could feel his hard length press against her soft belly.

It felt as though they'd only just begun when Shan started to pull away. Her hand bunched in his pelt and she beckoned him back with a whimper.

He didn't kiss her again, but he did rest his forehead against hers. For a moment, he said nothing, and the silence magnified the sound of her panting breaths. His eyes searched hers, and she wondered what he was looking for.

Shan said, “Make sure she has clothes that fit her.”

Harper was momentarily confused, and then she caught sight of Rosa standing a few yards away, peeking from behind a tree. She was quick to step out into the open, her wide eyes cast down at the ground.

“I—I may need to borrow some from one of the males,” Rosa said.

Shan lifted his head to look at Rosa, his expression perfectly blank. “Do you think I want her smelling like another male?”

Rosa was quick to shake her head. “Right. Feather is tall. I'll see if she has anything she can spare.”

“Good.” He turned back to Harper. “I'll see you this evening.”

Harper could only nod. She was still caught in the weird space between his stupefying kiss and of being caught in the act. Topping it all off was the unsettling feeling she got as he began to walk away.

She wanted to follow him.

“You're going to be his mate?”

Rosa was suddenly at her side, invading Harper's personal space.

“No, I'm not,” she hissed. “And don't let me catch you telling anyone about this.”

Rosa shrank back and nodded.

Harper said, “How old are you, anyway? You do know that two adults can kiss without having to make a lifelong commitment to each other, don't you?”

Rosa wet her lips. “It looked like a very good kiss.”

Harper rubbed the sides of her arms, her eyes scanning the direction Shan had left in.

“Are you okay?” Rosa asked.

Harper ignored the question. “Where are my friends?”

Rosa told her that they were at the healer's encampment, interviewing Gwen.

“Interviewing her? For what?”

“Uh...” Rosa paused and rubbed the back of her neck. “I'm not sure. But isn't that why you came here? To learn about our pack?”

How far down the rabbit hole had she gone, that she needed Rosa to remind her of why she'd come?

“They're this way,” Rosa said, pointing towards a path up ahead. “Do you need me to bring you?”

“Nope,” Harper said, already trudging forward. It was in the opposite direction that Shan had gone, which was good. She needed to put as much distance between them as possible.

In spite of Harper's dismissal, Rosa followed at her side. “I'll bring you clothes as soon as I can find some.”

“Thanks, but don't go out of your way.”

“I'm sure that when we arrive back at The Steppes, Shan will have clothes made for you. We have excellent tailors.”

“Yeah, he mentioned something about that,” Harper said, picking up her pace.

Rosa remained in step with her. “If you become Shan's mate, you'll have the most incredible ceremony. I can do your body art, like this, but much better.”

She extended her hand, revealing intricate henna tattooing that reminded Harper of Indian mehndi designs.

Harper ground to a halt. “Okay, first off, keep your voice down. Second, I'm not becoming Shan's mate. And third, that's really cool and I definitely want you to do it for me. And what do you mean, ceremony? Is that like some sort of wedding?”

Rosa took her by the hands. “Yes, a binding ceremony is like a wedding, only better. Wolves mate for life. Our ceremonies are cause for great celebration. If Shan were to take a mate, I'd wager the festivities would last a week, at least.”

Harper's intrigue overrode her need to correct Rosa again. “The binding ceremonies are for people who are going to mate, or who are already mated?”

“Both.”

Rosa explained that most of the time, after a wolf obtained Shan's permission to take a mate, the ceremony would be arranged at once, typically by his family and friends, and could start as early as the next day. Sometimes, if the female in question was already fertile, the ceremony and festivities would be postponed until after the mating.

“And it isn't only for males and their human mates,” Rosa went on to say. “In fact, more often it's two of our own kind committing to one another. After the ceremony, they are allowed to take children into their home.”

“Like an adoption?”

Rosa nodded.

“Wow. Okay, hold that thought. I need a notebook. I should be writing this down.”

Her only notepad had been in her backpack, which had been MIA since they'd been taken captive. It felt like a lifetime ago that she'd been bound, gagged, and made to kneel before Shan.

Three days?

“You must become Shan's mate,” Rosa said abruptly. “You're perfect for him.”

Harper couldn't resist biting. “How so?”

“You're such a large woman. We were worried he'd never find a female capable of bearing him pups.”

Harper slapped a hand down on Rosa's shoulder. “Okay, forget the notebook. I'm going to keep going this way, and you're going to go in the opposite direction.”

“But—”

“Good talking to you, Rosa. Bye.”

Finally, Rosa took the hint and didn't follow Harper as she stalked away.

“Large woman,” she muttered under her breath.

The scent of burning sage grew thick in the air as Harper arrived at the healer encampment. With no more than a dozen members, their group was the smallest of the ones that she'd seen. Harper had heard in passing that the healers were in fact a rather large class, but most held permanent residences in Shan's territory, as only a handful of specialists were needed to run the annual circuit.

They truly were specialists. While the other wolves were out scouting or hunting, most of the healers remained at their camp, waiting to be needed. Such a thing would have been unheard of in a standard pack, where every member would be needed to fill multiple roles. In Shan's pack, such diversification was frowned upon and members were expected to concentrate their skills in only one area. Having split many years between her academic education and her martial arts training, Harper shied away from the notion that specialization was preferable to diversification, but she couldn't argue the evidence. The structure of Shan's pack was incredible, and whatever he was doing, it was working.

Ian and Jo were sitting in a semi-circle with Gwen and Lila. Harper had only met them in passing, when they'd bound her bite wound the day before. Like most of the wolves in leadership positions, Gwen appeared to be in her forties. She had straight blonde hair, clear blue-green eyes, and was attractive in spite of an overly long chin. Lila looked to be in her twenties and had a wide face, a small nose, and hair that was braided to her scalp. One of the youngest healers, she seemed to be something of an apprentice to Gwen.

Lila was the first to notice Harper. Her nostrils flared and then her head snapped up to regard Harper with rounded eyes. Gwen took notice and elbowed her apprentice, who quickly turned her eyes elsewhere.

I seriously need to take a bath.

“Harper, there you are!”

Jo leapt up and ran to her, flinging her arms around Harper as if they hadn't just seen one another last night.

“I was getting worried about you,” Jo said.

From his place on the ground, Ian waved and greeted her with markedly less enthusiasm. “Hey, Harps.”

Harper tried not to take offense. Part of the reason she'd wandered off the night before was that she'd had a hard time swallowing Ian's chilly mood. Far from being grateful that she'd liberated him, Ian's male ego couldn't handle that he'd needed her.

The last time their relationship had been this strained, it had been when Ian had been punched at a bar during the Super Bowl. Acting on instinct, Harper had laid the guy out, and to much applause. Ian, however, had been mortified, and hadn’t spoken to her for a week. When they'd finally patched things up, Ian had made her promise never to fight his battles for him again. Harper had agreed with her fingers crossed behind her back, and so, here they were.

Ian never stayed mad at her for long, but he could turn so cold and it felt like it would last forever.

“We're learning so much about the pack,” Jo said as she ushered Harper to the sitting area. A makeshift tent was strewn across the trees above them. It had kept the area dry during the snow and rain. “They have medicine. Real medicine. And the healers perform surgery!”

“Basic surgery,” Gwen said. “At best, we can remove a burst appendix, but if you need anything fancy, you're out of luck.”

Jo said, “Gwen is a doctor!”

“Like a doctor, doctor?” Harper said skeptically. “Like, you went to medical school.”

Gwen gave a patient nod. “I worked in family medicine for five years.”

Harper took a seat beside Ian. “Wow. How did you end up here?”

“One of her colleagues found out what she was and was threatening to expose her,” Jo said.

Gwen added, “I'd never set foot on a reservation in my life, and I wasn't about to. I came to the fringes because I thought I could hide here while things died down back home. I was working in a logging town called Charlesdam that was allied with Shan's pack. One year, I finally met him and he extended a generous invitation for me to practice medicine while also not having to hide what I was.”

“Are there others?” Harper asked, snatching the notebook and pen from Ian's hand. He knew he took shit notes and didn't protest. “More doctors?”

“I'm the only doctor, but we have a handful of nurses,” Gwen said. “There are many like me, though. Professionals who got tired of living dual lives. One of my good friends, Ellis, was an architect. He designed our granary and many of the homes we live in.”

As the morning progressed, Harper had a clearer picture of how the pack functioned and what their territory looked like. She had assumed that the pack was strictly divided into the factions she'd learned about, but they turned out to be more like guilds that encompassed much of the pack. There was a multitude of smaller factions, mostly for craftspeople, as well as a rudimentary welfare system that supported elderly and disabled pack members.

Ian and Jo were already up to speed on a lot of this. They'd spent most of the morning with Gwen and the healers, talking about life at The Steppes. Jo had also spent a lot of time with West and his scouts, and had learned a great deal from them. Even Ian, who'd spent much is his time tied up and gagged, seemed to know more about the ins and outs of Shan's pack than Harper did.

While Harper had spent a good deal of her focus plotting to get Ian back, she hadn't exactly switched back into research-mode once he was safe. Instead, she'd spent her night cuddled up with Shan and wishing he would just roll her over and have his way with her. Even now, as her pen moved furiously to jot down the fascinating details of the pack, she would have much rather been in bed with Shan. If there was even a moment's lull in the conversation, her mind would drift, going back to earlier in the morning when she'd tasted him and felt him pressed against her.

When she noticed Lila staring at her, her nostrils flaring, Harper realized that she was becoming aroused each time she thought of Shan. Gwen must have had more tact, because she'd gone right on conversing without missing a beat.

Harper handed the composition book back to Ian and then stood. “I just realized I haven't eaten anything.”

“I can get you something,” Lila said, moving to stand.

“No thanks. I have some food stashed away.”

She didn't, and she was hungry, but she wanted a few minutes alone to get a grip on herself.

“I'll come with you. I'm hungry, too,” Jo said.

Harper didn't have a good excuse for why Jo couldn't come. She offered a tight smile as Jo looped their arms together.

They headed down the well-worn path to the scout encampment. The group had settled in the valley only a week ago, but they used the area each year, as it was an ideal stopping point. The edge of their territory was a day's trek to the north, and then three more days until they reached the center. Harper's estimation of where their den was had been remarkably accurate, and if they hadn't run into the circuit group, they would have just been arriving at The Steppes.

As soon as they were away from the others, Jo rounded on her. Already on edge, Harper braced herself for an interrogation about Shan.

“This pack is amazing. I'm so sorry for ever doubting you. Coming here was the best idea ever. I don't care if we get arrested for coming here and I spend the rest of my twenties in a prison cell, this will have all been worth it.”

Harper laughed. “We're not going to be arrested. And if we are, I'm sure Ian's dad will bail us out. I'm glad you're enjoying it.”

“I have a thousand ideas for my thesis, which is pretty impressive considering I barely think straight with all of these hot guys everywhere. I mean, damn, have you seen a single one of these men that isn't jacked?”

There was only one set of abs Harper had been paying any attention to, but she wasn't about to tell Jo that.

Jo wagged her eyebrows. “Hey. Aren't you gonna ask me where I was last night?”

“Huh?”

“You were gone when I got back. I figured you went looking for me,” Jo said, squeezing Harper's arm. “I should have said something. I'm sorry if I made you worry. I thought we were just going to talk, but then he kissed me.”

Harper knew she was missing something. “You kissed Ian?”

Jo blinked at her. “Uh, no. I'm talking about West.” Her eyes were big and shiny as she said his name. “Haven't you noticed? We kind of have a thing. It's nothing serious. I'm not letting it get in the way of anything and he knows we can't sleep together, but—”

“Jo, he's old enough to be your dad, and if you think he's okay with just wanting to sleep with you, you're deluding yourself.”

Jo held her hands up. “Geez, I didn't think you of all people would drop the age card on me. And he's not that old. And how old is Shan, anyway? He's got at least a decade on you.”

At the mention of Shan's name, Harper's defensiveness went into overdrive. “What are you insinuating? There's nothing going on between Shan and I. In case you've forgotten, we came here to study their culture, not the insides of their mouths.”

As Harper spoke, the rosy color had drained from Jo's face, and was quickly replaced by splotches of red. Harper felt a deep stab of guilt. She might as well have been yelling into a mirror, for all that she was taking her own shit out on Jo.

“I'm sorry...” Jo said.

Harper shook her head. “No. I'm sorry. I get it.” Better than you realize. “He's sexy and intriguing, and more than you could have anticipated. In a way, you're proving our point. They're more like us than not.”

Jo's head bobbed. “When I talk to him, it's like I'm talking to any other man, except it's also not like that. He's more...I don't know, masculine, maybe? And he's so sure of himself. Most guys I meet don't even know what they're going to be doing in a year, but West just seems to have it all figured out. And it's not just him. All of them. They're so secure in themselves and their roles in the pack. I guess the thing that surprises me the most is that I sort of envy them.”

* * *

If not for her scent, Shan wouldn't have noticed Harper perched high on the oak tree. Her new outfit was made of animal skins and it blended in with the foliage, which had turned from green to burnished copper in the span of the day.

The clouds had given way shortly after sunset and from where he stood it looked like the moon was just behind her back. He didn't like how high up she was and he considered climbing up to collect her, but he doubted the branches around her would support his weight.

Perhaps what unnerved him the most was the way she had arrayed herself on the slender branch, with her body stretched cat-like across it, one arm hanging over the side and swinging back and forth, as though swaying on an imagined breeze.

He stood beneath her for a full minute before she pretended to notice him.

“What took you so long?”

“Have you been waiting long?” he asked.

Her shoulders twitched. “Dunno. Forgot to pack a watch.”

Shan placed his hand on the trunk of the tree. “Come down. I want to touch you.”

It felt more like a need, one that had been building steadily over the long day. Tomorrow, he would find an excuse to have her stay by his side. It was the only way he was going to get anything done. When she wasn't with him, everything seemed dull and unimportant. That should have alarmed him, but he knew it would pass. He'd learned over the years that males were useless during courtship and the first few weeks following mating. He would not be in his right mind again until springtime, at least.

She pursed her lips, but started down. For all her grace, Shan's teeth ground together as he watched her slip from branch to branch with nary a pause to calculate. When she reached the last branch, she surprised him by jumping. He caught her easily, his hands fitting perfectly in the space between her hips and her ribcage.

Shan wasted no time in kissing her.

He'd been unsure about kissing her the night before. He'd been certain to a high degree that she would allow him and that she would enjoy it, but there had been the smallest sliver of doubt. She could be so unpredictable at times and she very well could have tried slapping him.

But she hadn't. There had been zero hesitation, as if she'd been waiting for him to kiss her. It was the same tonight. Her lips parted for him at once, eagerly accepting him into her mouth. Her lips were the softest he'd ever felt and the inside of her mouth tasted divine.

He had her pinned against the tree before he knew what he was doing. He never got carried away, never lost control, until her. He assumed it was because she was human, or because he'd begun courting her that his body was pulling so hard for him to claim her. It probably didn't help that she'd spent every night in his bed.

The scent of her arousal was thick in the air between them when he finally drew back. Her bottom lip puckered in a pout as he ran the heels of his palms across her cheeks.

“Are you marking me with your scent?” she asked, sounding more curious than annoyed.

“Yes.”

“But I already smell like you. Believe me, I've been getting weird looks all day.” She lifted a clump of her blue tresses. “It's mostly my hair. Or at least, that's when I notice it. I had to tie it up today because I would smell you every time I turned my head.”

He brought his nose to her hair and nuzzled the side of her head. “You recognize my scent?”

“Of course I do. You smell like...” She shrugged. “I don't know what. I just know that I like it. A lot.”

He took a final drag of her scent and then lifted his head to meet her eyes. She appeared concerned and was nibbling her lip tentatively.

“Is it the same for you?” she asked. “Do I smell really, really good to you?”

“Your scent is the olfactory equivalent of a siren's song.”

Her lips quirked. “That's the fanciest way anyone has ever told me I smell good.”

She looked away, took a breath, and then lifted her hand to his face. Her palm was soft and sweaty as it came down on his cheek in a quick stroke.

“There. Now I marked you.”

Shan wanted to kiss her again, but he didn't think he would stop and he knew she wouldn't stop him. It was incredibly frustrating. He could feel that he was making progress with her, and quite quickly, considering her reservations. Yet it still felt like it was taking forever for her to accept him. He could not remember ever being so impatient for anything.

“This isn't normal,” she said, looking away from him again. “I know what it's like to be attracted to someone and this isn't it. I barely know you, but...” She trailed off, running a hand through her hair. “I don't like this. It's too much.”

“We're bonding,” he said. “It's part of courtship.”

It was the best explanation he had, though it didn't feel entirely right. Courtship did tend to come with intense emotions, but Shan didn't think it could fully account for the way he felt for her. It didn't feel like he was courting a potential mate. It felt like she was already his. Like she had always been his, and he had only just realized it.

“Maybe that explains what's going on with you, but I'm not a wolf. I shouldn't be feeling like this.”

“Like what?”

In the space between his question and her response, his mind generated at least a dozen answers that she might give. None of them came close to what she actually said.

“I don't know, like I'm falling in love with you, or something.”

She clamped a hand down over his mouth, presumably to cut off his response. It was wasted effort. For once, Shan was speechless.

“I'm not saying I am falling in love with you, just that it sort of feels like that. I don't know what else to compare it to. It's really intense.”

She pulled her hand back and let it rest on his shoulder.

There were at least a hundred things Shan wanted to say, but it all led to one place.

“Come to my bed.”

She frowned. “I'm too anxious to sleep.”

“I'm not asking you to sleep.”