Shan watched as Harper turned the staked trout so that its pleasantly browned side faced her. When she licked her lips, he knew that she would soon start picking at it before it was finished cooking.

“When I was a kid, I used to catch these with my bare hands,” she said. “They made up at least half of my diet. They were the only things I could hunt on my own. Well, once I managed to catch a goose, but I ended up taking care of it for a week and then letting it go. Then my cousin Lotus killed it.”

After opening up to him that evening, she'd spent the next few hours talking about her past in short bursts. He noticed that unless she got caught on a tangent, she would rush through the stories, conveying them in as few words as possible, as if she thought she would bore him. 

He kept resisting the urge to prod her for more details, or to outright tell her that he wanted to know everything about her, as he knew it would serve neither of them. He recognized that for her, talking about her past wasn't easy and he would have to appreciate what she did choose to share with him. He also knew that part of her appeal was the mystery, and if he found out everything about her all at once, he'd be robbing himself of the months or years it would take to come to know her fully.

“I was concerned you would be disappointed with fish,” Shan said.

Once she'd finished recounting the tale of her abduction, Shan had left her to collect wood for a fire and to calm himself. 

Silas was an ally. Shan might have almost considered him to be a friend. During the years that it had taken to get Halcyon Valley cultivated, he'd grown close with Silas, as he'd been far more cooperative than either of the Halcyon alphas. Whiteriver's hunting grounds had been at the mercy of Halcyon, which made Shan's proposal for an abundant food source highly appealing to the young alpha. It had been primarily Whiteriver wolves that had turned the fertile valley into the mecca of agriculture that it had become today.

He always noticed a certain antipathy between Alder and Silas, but he hadn't questioned it, mostly because it hadn't been relevant to him. Now, it both amazed and frustrated him that no one had ever mentioned the incident, or Alder's daughter.

After building a fire for her, he'd gone to fetch food. He'd opted for fishing over hunting. He'd already shifted once that day, and he couldn't afford to shift frivolously when they were out there on their own. They might have been in his territory, but it was too expansive to fully patrol and there was always the potential for danger.

“No, I'm glad,” Harper said, bringing Shan back to the present. “I love trout and anything bigger would go to waste. Although, I guess in your wolf form, you could polish off a buck in one sitting. How does that work, anyway? I mean, when you shift back into human form?”

“I rarely feed in that form. When I do, I have to wait until I digest what I've eaten and I'm stuck in my wolf form for the night.”

Hours ago, he wouldn't have anticipated that they'd be sitting around a fire and making easy conversation with one another. He'd been so angry with her, and he knew that if he dug deep, he could still find those feelings, but for now he was content to leave them buried. It was difficult to hold on to anger when she was so near to him, her scent accentuated by the warmth of the fire, her blue eyes soft and fond whenever she tilted her head to regard him.

Harper worried her bottom lip. “The first time you shifted, what was it like for you?”

“I don't remember the first time. I can only recall the pain that led up to it. I do remember the second time, though. It felt like being present, but detached. I could see and feel what was happening, but at the same time it felt like I was just a passenger in my own body.”

“That sounds awful.”

Shan shook his head. “It wasn't, once I got used to it. And the thing I remember most from those days isn't fear, but wonderment. Experiencing the world through the lens of my wolf was like being reborn, but without the fog of infancy. It's difficult to explain, but you'll understand soon enough.”

Her eyes drifted away and tension returned to her body as she began to retreat from him. She was quiet for a moment, idly picking at the browned side of her trout.

“So, when you're in your wolf form, you see everything your wolf does, and when you're in your human form, your wolf sees everything you do?”

Shan inclined his head. “Something like that.”

“So, assuming I actually have a wolf, do you think it's been watching me all these years?”

“I don't know.”

Shan wished he had an answer for her, but her experience differed so greatly from his own. 

While he watched her eat, he regretted not catching something for himself. When he'd left to find food, he'd thought only of feeding her and hadn't realized that he was also growing hungry. 

Harper had already started on the second half of the first when his stomach growled. The sound startled her and she looked up at him with rounded eyes, a flush creeping over her cheeks. She held up what was left of the trout.

“Were we supposed to share this?”

He shook his head slowly. “Eat. I'll find something later.”

“No, take it,” she insisted.

“I don't care for fish.”

It was true, but he also wasn't very picky. He might have taken it if he thought it would be enough to satiate him, though there was also something else, an old instinct, but one that was new to him. He couldn't bring himself to take food from his female.

“What are we doing out here? I mean here, specifically.” Harper asked. She resumed picking at the meat, but with less enthusiasm. “Why can't you try teaching me to shift back at The Steppes, where there's food and a warm bed?”

“It would be too dangerous. There's no telling what will happen the first time you shift. It's better we're out here, where you can't hurt anyone.”

She wrinkled her nose. “You're not worried that I'll hurt you?”

“Not in the slightest.”

She rolled her eyes and then started to stand. Shan was quick to rise as well.

“Where are you going?” he asked. 

She held up the remains of the trout. “I was gonna go bury this somewhere so it doesn't stink up our hobbit hole.”

“Sit. I'll take care of it.”

When he returned a few minutes later, Harper had lain down, her body curled around the fire pit. His approach stalled as he debated whether to reclaim his spot by the wall or lay down beside her. Nothing about the former option seemed appealing, but he also knew that if he laid with her it would be difficult to stop himself from having sex with her. 

It had been three full days since they'd been together, once in the evening, and then again a few hours later. From a purely physical standpoint, there had been nothing spectacular about the sex. Both times had felt rushed; over too quickly for his liking, though he couldn't say which of them bore the brunt of the blame for that. 

Harper seemed to treat sex as if it were a race to the finish line, and Shan hadn't been inclined to correct her. As soon as he'd made up his mind to have sex with her, he'd been able to think of little aside from getting inside of her. For once, he'd taken no pleasure in foreplay, though he'd tried taking things slowly out of habit. Everything had fallen apart when she'd bitten him. At the time, it had surprised him that she'd actually went ahead and done it. Now that he knew what she was, it made more sense and it made her mark all the more significant to him. 

The moment he'd entered her was a dividing moment in their relationship, if not his life. In that moment, she'd gone from a female that he was courting to the one who definitely, unequivocally would become his mate. It had been a cerebral experience, one in which every fiber of his being was wholly engrossed in her. In the space between entering her and climaxing, nothing else in the world had existed except for the two of them.

The memory of that encounter floated in his mind as he laid down beside her. As he lifted his pelt to cover her, she shifted closer to him to rest her back against his chest. Within minutes she'd shaped her body to fit into the contours of his and he had maneuvered his arm so that she could rest on it like a pillow.

In quiet moments like this, Shan could almost believe that they were perfect for one another. Perhaps in another life, that could have been true. The more he learned about her, the easier it was to see the provenance of her dysfunctions. Now, he couldn't let go of the irrational feeling that he was somewhat responsible.

'I guess I shouldn't be that surprised. His half-sister Snow, she's fifteen and she's taller than me and she's about to be a senior in high school. She's so freaking smart that they're basically letting her skip secondary education. I wish I could send Shadow to school. Sometimes I worry that brain of his is going to be wasted out here. No offense! You're clearly really smart and...stuff. Did you go to school?'

He remembered now. Ten years ago, he'd had a conversation with Alder's mate in which she'd mentioned Snow. Taylor had the tendency to pepper conversations with unnecessary details, particularly when she was nervous or attracted to a male, and he'd already begun to tune out the superfluous. 

She'd been flustered, and he'd allowed her to carry the conversation, answering her questions and giving her advice on how to cope with her son's growth and burgeoning interest in reading. He hadn't paused to question the fact that either Alder or Hale had a daughter that was half his age, or that she was somehow a high school student, something that was exceedingly rare among their kind. 

If he had pulled on that thread, even just a little, everything would have unraveled. All he would have needed to know was that Alder had a daughter who had never been able to shift. From there, his interest would have been piqued and he would have been able to ask the right questions to determine that Harper—then, Snow—might have been like him. He would have made a point to return later in the year when she was there for a visit. The moment he smelled her, his suspicions would have been confirmed. He would have known what she was.

He could have helped her to shift, sparing her years of suffering. She could have remained with her father's pack, or better yet, come to join his. It would have been a strange dynamic, being so close to her while she was young; knowing she would be his mate, but also that she wasn't yet ready for such a thing. But he could have waited, all the while showing her that she was loved and cherished, knowledge that hadn't been properly instilled in her as a child. 

Shan knew that it wasn't his fault, just as he knew that he couldn't unspool time and it was wasted time to even wish that he could. But as he laid there with Harper drifting off in his arms, he couldn't help but think that he should have found her sooner. The roots of her damage were so deeply entrenched now. He wanted to believe that by some magic of the mating bond, she would gain the sense of security that she so fundamentally lacked, but more likely he would spend the rest of his life pushing against her emotional barriers.

* * *

At some point before she'd fallen asleep, Harper had turned to bury her face in Shan's chest. Even in her drowsy state, she'd been fully prepared to have sex with him. She had very subtly televised this by crushing her breasts against him and running her bare foot up and down the length of his leg. Shan had responded with a rumbling purr, but had made no move to mount her. She had briefly toyed with the idea of mounting him instead, but everything about that move had an air of desperation that was so not her style. 

Although she'd spent much of her childhood sleeping in dens, she'd grown accustomed to soft beds and memory foam pillows. She relished those comforts, which is why it surprised her that falling asleep on the hard ground felt downright cozy, so long as she was nestled in Shan's arms and beneath his warm pelt. 

The first thing she noticed when she woke was how cold she was. She felt around for Shan and when she couldn't find him, she begrudgingly opened her eyes. She was facing the fire pit, but the fire had burnt out, not leaving a single ember behind.

When Harper exhaled, she noticed that she could see her breath. She sat up, rubbed her eyes, and then looked around. Moonlight illuminated the rock shelter and she could see that Shan wasn't there. When she turned to look outside, she saw that a light snow had fallen.

She stood and walked to the edge of the shelter, where stone ended and snow began. There were large footprints in the snow. 

Shan.

She lifted her foot and set it down in his footprint, aligning her heel with his. She had pretty big feet, but the tips of her toes barely reached his forefoot. 

Taking a few more steps, her legs strained to match his broad strides. She was surprised to find that her ankle was no longer sore, and soon she was practically hopping from footprint to footprint, her bare feet unbothered by the snow. 

Harper came to a stop as his tracks ended, replaced by the massive prints of his wolf form. She had to take a few steps of her own before she was standing at the edge of the first paw print. It was so large that she thought she could have lain inside of it and curled up, her entire body fitting in the big pad of his print.

Looking ahead, she saw that his paw prints disappeared into the darkened forest. As she stared into the woods, her pulse accelerated and the air around her became weighted. 

What am I doing?

The question echoed as much around her as it did in her head. She looked over her shoulder and saw that behind her the snow was untrodden. The rock shelter was gone and the clearing had been swallowed up by the forest.

She realized what was happening right before she heard the wolf howl in the distance. The familiar sound rattled her inside and out. She wrapped her arms around herself, her jumbled mind struggling to piece together the words that would free her.

“Wake up,” she said, squeezing herself as hard as she could. “This isn't real, it's just a dream. Wake up, wake up, wake up.”

Somewhere in the back of her mind, or maybe behind her, she could hear Shan's voice. 

“It is real. It isn't a dream. Stop fighting it.”

Harper had the sense that if she latched on to his words and the meaning behind them, she would never be able to escape again. Even as she contemplated them, the air grew even heavier, bringing her down to the ground. She put her hands on her head and cried out.

“Wake up. Wake up. Wake up!”

She was still crying out as she came back to consciousness. For a moment, none of her fine motor skills would heed her, and she could only flail and issue guttural sounds. 

Gradually, she became aware of her surroundings. It was still nighttime and the fire was still burning, though the tall flames had waned considerably. Shan hadn't left her side. He was holding her, stroking her hair and murmuring soothing words that might as well have been in a foreign language for all she could make sense of them.

It had been a nightmare, no different than any other that she'd had over the years. Tame by comparison, considering she hadn't been torn apart by a giant wolf. Yet unlike all of the other times, she hadn't woken with relief that she was safe and whole. She still carried with her the same sense of dread that she'd had in her nightmare. She felt no security or safety in being awake, or in being in Shan's arms.

She had pulled herself from the dream quickly, but something about it had been different than all of the other times. Always, as soon as she'd realized she was dreaming, she'd been shot back into consciousness like an arrow loosed from a tightly drawn bow. 

There had never been hesitation. 

There had never been doubt.