by Viola Rivard
She had to get her pot back.
Though vaguely aware of being alone, she still looked to Shan's side of the bed, glad to find it empty. While she might have liked to say, “I told you so” she didn't think her pride could handle anyone seeing her like this. She had always presented herself as a strong person. The past few years, she'd even started to believe it. But mornings like this were a reminder of who she used to be. A reminder of trauma not adequately handled.
With her clean hand, she touched Shan's side of the bed. It was cold.
She noticed then that the bindings were untied. They'd come off of one wrist and hung loose on the other.
How considerate.
Careful to keep her bloodied hand steady, she stood and made her way out of the bed. She left her shoes where they were and went to the fire, which was nothing but glowing embers. She tipped her hand over an orange log and listened to it sizzle. As the smoke rose, she felt as if she'd performed some sort of evocation, and the thought gave her a chill.
The sky was pale blue, but it could have been any hour. Gray clouds blotted out the sun, threatening to burst. Harper could not think of a more miserable way to wake up.
True to his word, Shan had left food for her. The thin, stringy pieces of venison jerky were hard at first bite, but quickly became soft and succulent as she chewed them. When she was finished, she washed them down with a pouch flask of water and then went outside to find somewhere to relieve herself.
There were too many trees clustered in front of her to be able to see the valley below. She took in her immediate surroundings, first looking for any sign of Shan, and then sparing a glance at the male pacing farther down the hill. He had red hair, a cluster of berries in his hand, and a look of deep concentration on his face as he mouthed words to himself.
Harper watched him for a minute or two, and then extended her foot, pressing down on a fallen branch until it snapped. At the same time, she pretended to notice him for the first time. He looked startled, and then gave her a tentative smile.
Hello, dearie.
“Hi,” she said, waving her non-bloodied hand.
Smile widening, he waved as he ascended the hill. As he came closer, she took in his minor details, such as his clean-shaven face, tidy clothes, and blue-green eyes. Harper seldom got out of bed for redheads without a European accent, but she would have made an exception for him. He was big and handsome, but also nervous.
“You're taller than I thought you'd be,” he said by way of greeting. He extended a hand. “I'm Cade.”
Harper accepted his hand, but made sure to preface the handshake with a touch of shy hesitation.
She gave him an uncertain smile. “I'm Harper.”
“I know. Joana is in my camp. She told me all about you.”
At the mention of Jo, Harper felt a weight lift from her. She wanted to grab him by the collar, drag him down the mountainside, and make him take her directly to her friends.
Play it cool.
“Only good things, I hope.”
“Just how good of friends you are, and that you live together and go to the same school, and you like berries. These are for you, by the way. I picked them myself. They're a bit overripe. You should probably eat them soon.”
Though she was used to making men blubber, Harper wasn't accustomed to a hot guy being so nervous around her. It was a much needed boost to her ego after the night before.
He held out the berries for her, but Harper hesitated in taking them. The first thing she did when being offered anything by a man, human or otherwise, was figure out why they were giving it to her. She knew that when wolves wanted to take a mate, they began courtship by offering a boon. From there, courtship could last anywhere from a few weeks to a couple of hours, depending on several factors. The boon was typically something large, like a whole kill, or precious, like gemstones. It was display of the male's unique capabilities.
Of course, sometimes berries were simply berries. Besides, if he was actually offering her berries as a boon, no one would be surprised when she shot him down.
She accepted them graciously.
“Do you think you could take me down to visit Jo? I think I might get lost on my own.”
“Sure,” was his quick reply. “Do you want to go now?”
She lifted the berries. “I'll put these down and grab my shoes.”
Cade frowned. “You'll be staying here, then? Tonight, too?”
His nostrils flared, and she could hear the gears in his head turning. He wanted to know if she was planning on shacking up with his alpha. Harper realized that she didn't have a clear answer to that question herself.
You're not having sex with him. It would be bad. Probably good, but very, very bad. You didn't go to Harvard so that you could sleep with the first insanely good-looking alpha male to come along. Besides, he tied you up. Remember that? Don't forget that.
“Harper?”
She smacked her head a little too hard. “Sorry. I'm still recovering from yesterday. It was all very stressful.”
“I know,” Cade said, placing a hand on her shoulder. “But everything's going to be okay. Are you hurt?”
He was eyeing her hand, which she'd stupidly flailed around as she'd spoken. She tried rubbing the blood off on her jeans. It had already dried and only a few flakes came off as she rigorously brushed.
“Oh this? I cut my hand on a rock. No biggie.”
“Would you like me to look at it?”
“Not necessary. Let me go get those shoes.”
She dashed back into the den, placed the berries on the tray where her food had been, and grabbed her boots from the foot of the bed. She must have grown accustomed to Shan's scent while inside the den, because it hit her with renewed force when she returned. She dawdled, untying and retying her shoes, and then sighed in defeat.
“Oh, to hell with it.”
She crawled onto the bed and grabbed the rolled up fur that Shan had used as a pillow. Pressing her face to it, Harper took a long drag of his scent, and then a second for good measure. By the time she placed the pillow down, her body was warm all over, her insides tingling.
No one should smell that good.
She got up and left the den. Cade's nostrils flared again, and she knew he smelled her arousal.
With a touch of timidity, she asked, “Are you big?”
Cade's mouth opened and closed. “Huh?”
“Big enough that I could ride you,” Harper said. “You know, in your wolf form?”
“Right,” he said with breathy laughter. “Yeah. But I've never had a human on my back before. I'd be worried you might fall and I wouldn't want you to get hurt.”
She patted the side of his arm. “I promise, I'll hold on tight.”
A moment later, after awkwardly suggesting that Harper turn while he undressed, Cade had shifted, taking the form of a russet wolf with blue-green eyes. He was bigger than she would have expected, a little larger than the average beta wolf. He didn't strike her as being in a position of authority. She decided that with such a large pack, there was greater diversity in size at all levels of the pecking order.
She didn't hold on tight. Though he was mostly muscle, there was a patch of loose skin between his shoulder blades and she kept one hand on it, prepared to tighten her grip if necessary.
Cade went down the hill at a pace that was just above meandering, and several times she had to stop herself from telling him to speed it up. Riding on him, her mind kept wanting to drift back. When she managed to wrangle it into focus, Harper pulled up the map from the night before.
She hadn't taken it from Shan, not in the literal sense. Instead, she'd downloaded it into her brain and was able to recall the mental image with stunning clarity.
Her freshman English teacher, Mrs. Smith—no relation, had labeled Harper's ability as having an “eidetic memory.” Harper had met plenty of people who claimed to have a photographic memory, but hadn't found a single one that could summon details with the speed o
r clarity that she could, save for a man with high-functioning autism that she'd dated while in college. Oddly enough, that had been her most successful relationship to date.
Her ability to recall lines of text with only a single reading and recall images after a brief glance had catapulted her through high school, landing her in college two years earlier than her fellow classmates. It had helped her eke through undergraduate studies while also going through her alcoholic phase, and then fly through her master's while regularly falling asleep in class.
As she examined the map, she noticed a few pack names that were familiar to her, and many that weren't. Near to where they were now was a large patch of territory. There was no scale by which to measure the distance, but based on the land formations that were familiar to her, she calculated that the territory was at least a hundred square miles. There were several names, but all of them had been stricken out.
Farther north, there was a region of a similar size that was particularly detailed. There were a dozen land formations—lakes, ponds, mountains and gullies to name a few—all drawn with careful detail and named in flowing script. At the center of them was a tiny depiction of terraced land with “The Steppes” written beneath them.
Given the level of detail, she presumed that region had to be the pack's home territory. She wondered what they were doing so far south. When packs roamed, it was typically due to the scarcity of food. But if they had agriculture, that shouldn't have been an issue. Furthermore, they should have been back home farming. After all, wasn't autumn the harvest season?
There were too many missing pieces for her to form a clear picture of what was going on. She recognized that she was filling the gaps in her knowledge with speculation, and decided to wait until she had more information.
There seemed to be fewer wolves about than there had been the night before. As they descended into the valley, she saw several hanging around the remains of last night's campfires, talking and laughing with one another. Somewhere, she could hear one of them singing out of tune, and another playing a drum.
In spite of the tribal atmosphere, she noticed a few of them were wearing human clothes—jeans, fitted t-shirts, and hair accessories. One fast talking shifter was even wearing a pair of sunglasses as he fired off a sensationalized story about an escapade with a female.
As she and Cade passed, none of Sunglasses's listeners were paying attention to him. Everywhere they went, heads turned, eyes watching them with unabashed interest. Though Cade walked at a leisurely pace—he was probably enjoying the attention—Harper didn't bother climbing down. Her legs were still sore from yesterday and she didn’t mind being carried about.
She heard Jo before she saw her, talking about one of her favorite subjects, second only to mixed animal prints. Jo had a distinctly cutesy voice that had annoyed Harper when she'd first heard it, but by now she'd grown quite fond of it.
“Let me set the scene. The year is 1914. The place: Sarajevo, Bosnia. Two men. One is Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to the Austro-Hungarian empire. The other? Nineteen-year-old Gavrilo Princip, who until that point had been only a minor player in the Serbian nationalist movement. Their meeting would set off a chain of events that led to over 41 million deaths in World War I, and subsequently, another 50 million deaths in World War II. Upwards of 100 million people wiped off the face of the earth, all because Princip just happened to be in the right place at the right time, completely by accident. I know, right? Look at my arm, I'm getting goosebumps!”
As they rounded a small hill, Harper saw Jo sitting on a log beside West. Viper and Rosa sat farther down from them, eating cooked trout from sticks.
“Don't try telling her that World War I would have started regardless of Ferdinand's assassination,” Harper said, climbing down from Cade's back. “She'll talk your ear off for an hour on that one point alone.”
Jo was instantly up and barreling into Harper. They wrapped their arms around each other, Harper remaining distinctly more composed.
Once her sobbing died down, Jo said, “Any speculation on what else might have caused World War I is pure conjecture.”
“I know, Jojo,” she said, kissing the top of Jo's head.
When they came apart, there was a wet spot on Harper's coat. Cade had shifted and went to stand beside West, who had risen from the log.
West asked, “Has Shan decided if you will stay?”
Harper cocked her head. “You haven't talked to him?”
“He's been gone all morning,” he said. “I assumed he was still with you.”
There went those damned nostrils, trying to find out if she and Shan had slept together. It annoyed Harper how shifters so casually parsed through scents, but she knew that if she had the ability, she wouldn't hesitate to use it.
“He was gone when I woke up. He did untie me this morning, if that tells you anything.”
“He tied you up?” Jo asked.
Harper said, “Let me guess, you didn't get the stranger-danger treatment?” She glanced around again. “Where's Ian?”
Jo frowned. “I haven't seen him. West says he's with the Enforcers.”
“Enforcers? Am I supposed to know what that means?”
Cade explained, “It's Gareth's faction. They're responsible for upholding the laws.”
Harper snorted. “That ass clown makes the laws?” She quickly demurred. “I only mean, he seemed like such a bully.”
“He's not so bad, once he gets to know you,” Cade said.
“This is the Scout faction,” said Jo. “They're sort of like the pack diplomats. They go on expeditions to towns and meet with allied packs. There are also separate factions for healers, hunters, and growers. Harper, this pack is gonna blow your mind. They have hierarchies within the hierarchies. Shan has his five betas—Gareth, West, Kalla, Eko, and, um—”
“Merry,” West supplied.
“—and Merry. Each of them is responsible for a faction, acting as an independent alpha male or female with his or her own beta and omega wolves.”
“I'm a beta in the Scouts,” Cade said. “Viper, too.”
The aforementioned female raised her hand lazily.
“That's amazing, Jo. And believe me, I seriously am crazy excited to learn more, but right now, I think we need to roll back on the cultural studies and go find Ian.”
Jo looked to West, who was shaking his head.
He said, “Shan put your friend in Gareth's care. It is not so simple as going to collect him. We would need either Gareth or Shan's permission.”
“You're a beta male, aren't you?” Harper put her hands on her hips. “Can't you, I don't know, throw your weight around or something? How about the two of you go? I'll even come with.”
At that, Viper chortled. “No one's going to fuck with Gareth for you, little lady. He's a bitch to deal with when he's on his own, but now he's back with his thugs and goons. Just stay away. Don't put up a fuss and he'll soon enough forget about your friend. You start whining, and he'll keep him just to spite you. You really piss him off, and maybe, I don't know, your friend has an accident. The kind where he loses his head.”
While Harper was telling herself not to panic, Jo took her hand and squeezed it.
“There has to be something we can do,” Jo said.
West said, “Your friend could ask Shan to intercede. He seems to like her well enough.” His eyes moved up and down Harper's body, more speculative than leery. “There's no guarantee he'll be willing to get involved, though. He gives his betas a lot of freedom to do as they please and rarely strong-arms them unless they're breaking a law.”
Speaking as if from experience, Cade added, “You could probably go to Gareth yourself, plead his forgiveness, and then ask for your friend back. He usually comes around once you publicly embarrass yourself.”
“Won't work with this one,” Viper said. “You see how badly she fucked up his arm? No. He'll want recompense. Blood. I doubt he'd take anything less than her in exchange for her friend.”
Harper threw her hands up. “Why does Shan even have a guy like him as his beta? He's clearly crazy.”
Only West could divine an answer. “Gareth does do a good job of keeping the wolves in line. Since his appointment, there has been far less crime among our pack. Shan recognizes the value in having a head enforcer who is feared and he, perhaps...gives Gareth more leeway than he might other members of the pack.”
“I see,” Harper said. “Well, I can't say that I agree with any of that, but I understand. If you're sure he'll give Ian back, then I'll stay out of it, for now.”
“Good,” West said. “I wouldn't want to see either of you hurt.”
After nodding her understanding, Harper pulled at Jo's hand. “Mind coming with me? I have to pee and I don't want to go into the woods all by myself.”
Cade started to offer to join them, but then blushed and thought better of it.
They trudged into the woods in silence, getting as far away from the camps as Harper could stand to go before unbuttoning her pants.
Jo blinked as Harper squatted to pee.
“You actually have to pee? I thought you were going to tell me the plan to get Ian back.”
“Of course, I'm going to tell you the plan, but I also had to pee so badly. Oh my God, this feels so good. Okay, tell me where these enforcers are. Where's their camp?”
Jo rubbed her chin. “I think they're east. Or west, I forget which is which.”
“East is where the sun rises, west is where it sets. Remember the trick I showed you with your arm and the shadow?”
“Oh, right. But I think West is right. We shouldn't go over there on our own.”
“Yeah, let's just listen to your boyfriend while Ian loses his head.”
Jo started laughing.
“What's so funny?” Harper said.
“It's just, you're being mean to me while drip drying.”
Harper snapped her fingers. “Stay with me. Here's what we're going to do. That cute little redhead, Cade? I'm gonna get him to come with us. May take me a day to whittle him down. You work on West. I figure the two of them, plus as many tough guys as they can rally up, and we can go make Gareth give Ian back.”