Harper (Destined for the Alpha Book 1) Read online

  “How pragmatic.”

  In his eyes, she could see that the spark of attraction had blossomed into something less fleeting. He liked her, and even though talking to him was exhausting, Harper liked him, too. She liked the surprise of him. He was so much more than she'd anticipated, and she now wanted to know everything she could about him—where he'd come from and how he'd become the man that he was. Unfortunately, Shan seemed to be equally intent on learning about her.

  “Where did you learn how to fight?”

  “In dojos, mostly.”

  “So, you know martial arts, then. Which discipline?”

  “Aikido.”

  “And aikido is?”

  It was the first thing she'd had to explain to him. She wondered if he was asking because he didn’t know, or if he was still trying to get a read on her. If it was the latter, it was a smart move. In this case, she couldn't very well lie.

  She told him about aikido, particularly how it focused on redirecting an assault, rather than initiating one, and how the aim was to defend oneself, rather than to injure one's opponent.

  “Yet you used these techniques to break the arm of one of my best fighters.”

  Harper pursed her lips. “He broke his own arm.”

  “So I heard. When was it that you found the time to become so thoroughly practiced in martial arts, while also obtaining a master’s in sociocultural anthropology from Harvard?”

  There was something distinctly mocking in that last part, but Harper was too tired to pick at the thread. She'd probably end up admitting that although she was an accomplished martial artist, her fighting skills did not protect her from being torn apart over and over again in her nightmares. Or that while she held a master's degree, she could not hold on to a job to save her life, and she'd sabotaged nearly every relationship she'd ever been in.

  “I learned aikido when I was in high school. My foster mom thought it would teach me discipline. She said it was either that or I go home, so I started—”

  “Go home to where?”

  It was definitely time to stop talking to him.

  “To my uncle's. He raised me after my mom died.”

  As a general rule, the dead mom topic was a conversational dead end. Harper was fully prepared to turn on the waterworks if Shan continued to tug at the seams of that topic.

  “And you didn't want to live with your uncle?” he surmised.

  “You're getting awfully personal with these questions,” she said testily. “What does my family have to do with...whatever it is you're doing.”

  He was either trying to interrogate her or seduce her, maybe a combination of the two.

  “You're asking to enter my pack, study it, and disseminate potentially sensitive information to the outside world. If I am to consider your request, I'd like to know what sort of person you are.”

  “Fair. But you're not going to figure that out tonight. I'm worn out. My brain is running on fumes. I need rest.” As an afterthought, she added, “And food, too. Meat.”

  There went his eyes again, looking her up and down, as if he hadn't already analyzed every part of her two times over. It at least gave her the opportunity to reevaluate him. When she'd been kneeling before him back at the camp, he'd seemed like a barbarian prince that had fallen through time.

  Just as Shan had wondered how she'd come to acquire her skills, she wondered how he came to do all that he'd done, while still being relatively young. He'd united packs across thousands of miles, created a standard set of laws, and brought about an agricultural revolution. With such large achievements must have come steep sacrifices, and she knew that just like herself, there were dearths beneath Shan's seemingly perfect facade. After enough time with him, she would be able to peel back the surface and see the pits of neglect, the regions of his life and character that had been left unexplored in favor of other pursuits.

  “Hold out your hands,” Shan said.

  He had produced the bindings from earlier. Harper at first wondered where he'd gotten them, and then what he'd said hit her.

  “You can't be serious.”

  He gave her a humorless smile.

  After a moment's hesitation, Harper held out her wrists. “This really isn't necessary.”

  She watched grimly as he bound her wrists. They were bound in the front, with a simple knot that seemed more symbolic than anything else. She didn't think it would take her long to get out of them.

  “Don't try,” he said, as though reading her mind. “Trust is earned, and you have a long way yet to go. Let this be a start.”

  He stood, offering his hand to help her. Harper ignored the hand and pushed herself up. It was a graceless movement, as her legs had officially gone on strike.

  Standing side by side, she was once again struck by how tall he was. She couldn't remember the last time she had to look up when standing next to a man. She was so absorbed in the thought that she didn't react immediately when he put a hand on the small of her back and guided her towards the fur pallet. Only after a few steps did she brush him off.

  “I don't need to be tucked in, thanks.”

  Shan moved past her, going to the furs and laying down. His large body filled most of the bed, but he left a small space at his side. He patted it with his hand, his eyes dancing with amusement.

  “You're not sleeping, too,” Harper said, as if saying the words would make it so.

  “I wouldn't be here if I wasn't.”

  Harper waved back toward the entrance. “But it's nighttime and you're nocturnal. Shouldn't you be out hunting, or howling at the moon, or something?”

  Shan cracked his neck. “Wolves are nocturnal. I am not, and neither are shifters. Rather, they are habituated to a nocturnal schedule. My pack has no such constraints. In fact, this is rather late for me. I'm something of an early riser. Now come and lay down.”

  Harper remained at the foot of the bed for a full minute, her brain suddenly very much awake and performing a dozen different calculations. After she'd calculated that he probably wouldn't try to have sex with her, or that she probably wouldn't try to have sex with him—binding her had thrown that metric off a cliff—she reluctantly kicked off her boots and crawled in beside him.

  The furs were soft and inviting. She cuddled up in them, but kept her back pressed against the wall to keep as much space between her and Shan as possible. It amounted to about a quarter of a foot between them.

  “Will I be able to see my friends tomorrow?” She loathed that she even had to ask.

  “You will be free to seek them out in the morning, though I recommend staying clear of Gareth's camp.”

  As if that wasn't obvious.

  “Will we be able to stay in your pack?”

  “I have no incentive to let you stay.”

  “We can share knowledge,” she said. “Sure, maybe you don't believe in integration, but it's obvious you're partial to human innovations. And what we learn, we can use to at least help stabilize shifter and human relationships.”

  “I thought you were tired.”

  “I am, it's just...” She wet her lips as she considered her next words. “I generally sleep with the aid of a medicinal herb, one that your pack mate Viper took from me.”

  He lifted a brow. “You mean your marijuana?”

  Of course he would know what weed was.

  “I'm not an addict or anything. I just smoke a little bit before bed to help me sleep. It's very important. I was wondering if maybe you could go and get it for me.”

  Shan issued a laughing exhalation. “If you're tired enough, you'll sleep.”

  “She also has my inhaler, if you care at all. I could have an asthma attack and die.”

  He rolled onto his back, ignoring her.

  “You don't understand, it's not just to sleep, it's...” She sighed in frustration. “Forget it. It's obvious you don't care.”

  Petulance was the lowest form of manipulation, but what she sometimes defaulted to on the rare occasions that all-else failed.


  She almost confessed to him why she needed to smoke. Telling him about the nightmares might make him more sympathetic, but it would also make her seem weak. What was more, it was likely he would dismiss her, which would be upsetting. Throughout her life, she'd struggled to convey the intensity of her nightmares to people. Others would often minimize them, telling her not to stress over “bad dreams” or suggest that if it was so bad, she should get therapy or try a medication. If other humans didn't understand, why would the Big, Bad Wolf beside her be any different?

  Chapter 5

  Shan had lain down, absolutely certain that he could fall asleep next to the unfamiliar human female that he was highly attracted to.

  Strangely, he couldn't.

  The first hour, he'd been preoccupied with watching to see what she would do. She was awake for half of that. Once she'd finally stopped complaining and had been silent for a few moments, he’d turned to look at her. She lay, still as a statue, staring straight at him. Shan stared back.

  He didn't think he had ever held anyone's gaze for so long in his life. Most would flinch away. Not her. She stared at him for so long that he began to grow uneasy, wondering what she was seeing in the depths of his eyes. Her own eyes were easy enough to read. Irritation, frustration, and just a touch of anxiety that gradually gave way to fatigue, resignation, and a sadness he could not account for. Shan had been near to looking away when her eyes finally drifted shut.

  Then, he'd watched her sleeping. At rest, she looked completely different. All of her brittle edges smoothed out, making her soft and gentle. He'd spent a long time trying to figure out which aspect of her was most appealing to him. Was it her delicate bone structure or the perfect slope of her forehead? Most likely, it was her lips. They were exquisitely shaped; plump and generous, but not so large that they seemed out of place on her slender face.

  Regardless of what he decided to do with her, Shan would kiss those lips at least once.

  Not tonight. Tonight, he refused to so much as touch her. It would have been inappropriate. Of course, that didn't mean she couldn't touch him.

  As she drifted farther into sleep, she'd slowly inched closer to him. Shan rested his hand near her head so that as she moved toward him, the top of her bun brushed against the tips of his fingers. He wished she'd removed the elastic before she'd gone to sleep, because he wanted to bury his fingers in her hair.

  It was well into the middle of the night when he reached the zenith of his frustration. Unable to account for the intensity of his attraction to her, he'd mused that she might be nearing her fertile period. Though there'd been no indication of that in her scent, his arousal had surged at the mere thought of having a fertile female in his bed.

  That was when he'd come full circle, wondering why the hell he'd had her sleep in his bed. He wasn't even sure when he'd made up his mind about it. He'd even told West to return to collect her in an hour. West would have been arriving shortly when Shan had been escorting her to his bed, his hand grazing the small of her back. Shan had still been locked in a staring contest with her when he'd heard West approaching the den, pausing for a spell, and then quietly departing.

  At the time, he'd reasoned that she was already in bed, and it would have been cruel to expect her to walk back down the mountainside when she was obviously fatigued.

  In between bouts of being fixated on her, Shan recalled his brief encounter with West as he'd made his way back to his den. He had been in human form, as he most often was, and West had had to shift to speak with him.

  “I didn't tell you to leave her,” Shan said.

  He'd been using the walk to clear his mind and didn't appreciate running into West along the way.

  “I didn't see the point in staying,” West said. “She wanted to talk to you. Besides, she's too spent to go anywhere. I'm impressed she made it up the hill. I thought I was going to have to carry her.”

  West had smiled fondly at the memory, and Shan had felt himself annoyed.

  “I thought your interests were with the other female.”

  West was quick to backpedal. “They are.” He scratched the back of his head. “I mean, I don't know her well yet, but I'd like to. Besides, every unmated male in the pack is going to be after that one.” He nodded over his shoulder. “She's...”

  West ended in an awkward shrug. He didn't have to explain. He was certain that the males who had seen her that night were already debating who would have the right to court her.

  “These aren't like the normal females that join us. They didn't come to take mates. Remember that, and remind the others of it as well. There will be no courting without my permission.”

  Shan could almost tell himself that he'd spoken out of altruism, but he had a policy about lying to himself. For once, his motivations were entirely self-centered. She was his puzzle to solve, and he didn't want any other males sniffing around her.

  He wanted her all to himself.

  Her name was Harper. He'd never heard of anyone with that name, save for Harper Lee, and Harper was, in actuality, the author's middle name. When Harper had told him her name, he'd had the strange sense that he should have already known it, and he'd felt the first stirrings of familiarity with her.

  The sensation had plagued him throughout the night. He was unaccustomed to not being able to recall something. He kept thinking that if he looked at her at the right angle, he would know how he knew her, yet at the same time he knew that if he had met her, he would most certainly remember her.

  In the early morning hours, as the fire died out and the air became thick with moisture, Shan heard her whimper. He had only just stopped being aroused, and the sound had him fully erect before he could drawn in a breath. He sat up at once, swallowing and wiping the sweat from his brow. He took one last look at the gorgeous and presently untouchable female in his bed, and decided to go for a run.

  Shifting was not something he took lightly. Whereas the wolves could change their form between seven and ten times per day, Shan could shift twice before needing a large meal and a nap. Both conditions met, he could manage a third shift, but not without discomfort. According to his mother, the skinwalkers of antiquity lived almost entirely in human form, which was known, paradoxically, as pack form. It was the form that enabled a higher level of bonding and social interaction. His forebears even hunted in human form, saving their wolf forms—warrior form—exclusively for battle.

  Unlike the common shifters of his pack, Shan never felt the pressure to shift. Sometimes, when he felt threatened or felt the desire to mate, he could feel the wolf's desires as impressions, felt unclearly and across a great distance. The barrier between human and wolf was a vast ocean.

  That didn't make him human. Just as he had scant in common with modern shifters, he shared little with humans. If he went by his mother's boastings, then his kind was stronger, faster, more intelligent, longer-lived, and infinitely less humble than humans. If he went by his father's quiet example, then his kind was something near to divine. He leaned towards his mother's beliefs, if only because it was easier than trying to emulate his father's ideal.

  Tonight, he felt a flurry of impressions from the wolf. They fired across the ocean with an urgency that bordered on frantic. It was enough to give him a headache, and he knew he had to put some distance between himself and Harper Smith.

  As he began to stand, she whimpered again. This time, the sound was pained. He paused to regard her and saw that her hands were fisted. With measured reluctance he kneeled back down beside her, watching her eyes move rapidly beneath her lids. She strained against her bindings, her breathing accelerating.

  Shan touched the back of his hand to her forehead. It was cool and damp. As the scent of fear crept into his nose, he mused that he'd never smelled a dream before.

  Without thinking, his hand went to the side of her cheek, stroking it. The gesture was as much to appease his own urge to touch her as it was to comfort her. He started to say her name, but closed his mouth.

>   The nightmare would pass.

  Better he didn't wake her. She would be more frightened seeing him looming over her in the darkened den. Besides, there was a good chance she was dreaming of him. She'd put on a fine show of being brave the night before, had even been unabashedly attracted to him, but she was too intelligent to not be frightened of him.

  Careful not to disturb her, he untied the knot holding her wrist bindings in place.

  Don't make me regret this.

  And he wasn't sure if he would. She was too new, still too unpredictable to fit neatly into his schema of what was to come. Had he nothing better to do, had he been able to exercise adequate restraint, he would have been content to stay by her side all day, watching the things she did.

  Instead, Shan got up and greeted the morning.

  Harper woke to the taste of blood and the sensation of falling. The latter vanished as soon as she shot up and became aware of the bed and the feel of solid, steady ground beneath her. She tried to take in a breath, and then gagged on the coppery fluid that filled her mouth. She coughed into her hand, once, twice, and then ten more times until her lungs were clear and blood had puddled in her palm.

  At first, her more pressing concern was her arm. In her dream it had been shredded to the bone. Waking had dulled the searing pain, but she could still feel the pulsing aftershocks, even as she stared at the smooth, unblemished arm.

  Once she'd determined that she was in one piece, Harper took stock of her internal workings, noting that she was breathing quickly. Her heart was skipping at a much too fast pace, like a rabbit picked up and squeezed too tightly.

  Finally, she addressed the blood.

  She felt around in her mouth for some sort of cut or smarting wound that could account for an ounce of dark red blood. She knew she wouldn't find anything, and she didn't. It had come from somewhere inside of her. A part of her that was breaking down and would continue to do so, one night at a time.