Chapter 16
Chapter Sixteen
The Pack Hall was alive with energy, primal, wild, almost visible.
Wolves moved with a predatory grace, their laughter deeper, their movements more fluid, their gazes sharper.
Harper stood near the edge of the huge room, clutching a cup of punch she had no intention of drinking, feeling like a biologist who’d accidentally wandered into a shark feeding frenzy.
Everyone had changed. Earlier today, they’d just seemed like a strange, rural community with a shared secret.
Now, they were undeniably other. Her analytical brain catalogued the changes: the way their eyes caught the light with a reflective sheen, the low thrum of their voices when they spoke to each other, the territorial spacing between them that shifted and resettled as people moved through the room.
They were beautiful and terrifying.
“Hey.”
She jumped, sloshing punch over her fingers.
Jared grinned at her, looking even more handsome than he had in the office, though the predatory gleam in his eyes was more pronounced tonight.
His dark hair was slightly longer, brushing the collar of a soft-looking Henley, and he held two bottles of beer.
“Want a real drink?”
“No, thanks. I’m good.” She gestured with her cup. “Punch is my… limit.”
“It’s just fruit juice.” He leaned against the wall beside her, close enough that she could feel the warmth radiating from him. “You’re hiding.”
“I’m observing.”
“Observing what?” His gaze swept over the room, then returned to her, his smile suggesting he found her more interesting than the entire pack combined. “The strange customs of the local wolf pack?”
“Something like that.”
“You should join in. The full moon celebration is the best night of the month.” He held out one of the beer bottles. “Come on. Live a little.”
She hesitated. Getting drunk with a werewolf who’d already made it clear he was interested seemed like a terrible idea. But standing here like a wallflower wasn’t helping either.
“Okay,” she said, taking the beer. “But only one.”
“That’s what they all say.” He laughed, a warm, easy sound that made some of the tension in her shoulders ease.
He was charming. Dangerously so. If she’d met him under different circumstances, before Adrian, she might have been tempted.
But the memories of Adrian’s possessive growl, of the heat in his eyes, of the desperate way he’d kissed her against the wall… they were burned into her.
“It’s nice to see you relax,” Jared said. “You’ve been buried in your office all week. We were starting to think you were a robot Adrian built to fix our internet.”
“I do enjoy my work.”
“Nothing wrong with that. But a pack needs to interact.” He tipped his beer towards hers. “Even the human consultants.”
They drank in companionable silence for a few minutes, watching the pack.
The music was louder than usual, a thumping rhythm that seemed to vibrate through the floorboards.
Several couples were dancing, intimate in a way that made her skin prickle.
The air itself felt thick, charged with something primitive and urgent.
“It’s the moon,” Jared said, as if reading her mind. “It pulls at the wolf. Makes everything more… intense.”
“Adrian mentioned that.”
He shot her a sharp look. “Did he now? What else did he mention?”
“He said your control gets… frayed.”
Jared laughed. “That’s one way to put it.” He leaned closer, lowering his voice. “It’s like being hungry. For everything. Food, drink, touch… The more you deny it, the stronger the urge gets.”
“Does it affect everyone the same way?”
“Depends on the wolf. Younger ones, like me, we tend to get restless. Antsy. We want to run, to hunt, to… play.” His gaze swept over her again, lingering in a way that was appreciative but not aggressive. “The elders, they get more grumpy, more stubborn in their ways. And the Alpha…”
He trailed off.
“And the Alpha what?”
Jared hesitated, glancing across the room. “Let’s just say it’s a good thing the Alpha has an entire territory to run across tonight. Otherwise, this much energy contained in one building… it could get messy.”
She followed his gaze. Adrian stood near the huge stone fireplace, talking with Coleman and Irene.
Even from across the room, even surrounded by people, he seemed isolated.
His shoulders were rigid beneath the dark sweater he wore, and he held himself with a tension that was visible even at a distance.
His attention wasn’t on the people around him, but on something else entirely.
Something he was trying to hold back. Something that fought for release.
As if he felt her stare, his head turned, and their eyes met across the crowded room.
The noise, the people, the entire world seemed to fall away.
There was nothing but the fierce, golden intensity of his gaze, a look so full of possession and hunger it stole the air from her lungs.
His jaw tightened, and a muscle jumped in his cheek.
Jared’s words came back to her: The more you deny it, the stronger the urge gets.
Adrian was denying it. Denying it so hard she could feel the strain of it from across the room.
A small, reckless part of her wanted to walk over there, to see what would happen if she pushed against that rigid control, if she offered him an outlet for all that contained energy.
Instead, she looked away, breaking the spell. She turned back to Jared, forcing a smile she didn’t feel. “So you said you like to hunt? What do you hunt out here?”
He seemed to sense the shift in her mood, but he let her change the subject with an easy grace. “Deer, mostly. Sometimes wild boars get too close to the territory. We’re the apex predators here, but we try to be responsible about it. The pack has a deep respect for the balance of the forest.”
“It sounds… wild.”
“It is.” He leaned in again, and this time she felt a prickle of awareness, an instinctive warning. “But a pack needs its den. A place to come back to after the hunt. A place to be safe.” He looked at her meaningfully. “It can get lonely out in the wild. Even for a wolf.”
She was spared having to respond by a commotion near the fireplace. Adrian had moved away from Coleman and was now speaking with Elder Howard. The elder’s posture was stiff with disapproval, and even from here she could see the anger in his gestures.
“They don’t like you being here,” Jared said quietly.
“The feeling’s mutual.”
“It’s not about you personally. Not really. It’s about tradition. About change.” He grimaced. “Howard believes that any deviation from the old ways will bring ruin. He’s been preaching that sermon since I was a pup.”
“He’ll change his mind when my security measures stop someone from draining the pack’s bank accounts,” she said, with more confidence than she felt.
“He’d rather be poor and traditional than wealthy and modern.” He paused, then added, “Adrian’s different. He’s willing to take risks for the pack’s future. Even if it means bringing a pink-haired human into the heart of our territory.”
“Is that why you’re talking to me? Because the Alpha took a risk?”
He had the decency to look slightly embarrassed. “Partly. But also because you’re interesting. You’re not like any human I’ve ever met. You’re not scared of us. You don’t flirt or simper or try to impress us. You’re just… you.”
Before she could reply, a presence loomed behind them. She didn’t have to turn around. She could feel Adrian’s approach like a change in barometric pressure—a sudden stillness in the air, a drop in temperature, the electric current of contained power.
“I need to speak with Harper,” he said. His voice was level, but the growl was there, buried just beneath the surface like a fault line.
Jared stiffened, every muscle in his body going rigid. “Alpha.”
When she turned, she saw the unspoken challenge pass between them.
Adrian’s jaw was tight, his eyes fixed on Jared with a predatory intensity that made something deep in her own DNA want to run and hide.
Jared, to his credit, didn’t back down completely, but he lowered his gaze in a clear gesture of submission.
“Of course,” Jared said. He set his empty beer bottle on a nearby table. “Harper. It was nice talking to you.”
“You too,” she managed, her heart thumping a frantic rhythm against her ribs.
Jared melted back into the crowd, and she was left alone with Adrian. The noise of the party faded to a dull roar. All her attention narrowed to the male standing before her, radiating a tension that was almost visible.
“Did you need something?” she asked, proud of how steady her voice sounded.
“I need you to stay away from him.”
“Jared? He was just being friendly.”
“He’s a young male wolf on the night of the full moon. Friendly isn’t what he’s thinking.” His gaze dropped to her mouth, and heat washed through her. “And you’re… distracting.”
“Me? I’m just standing here.”
“Exactly.” His nostrils flared, and she had the unnerving sense he was breathing her in, cataloguing her scent, her heart rate, the subtle shift in her body chemistry that betrayed her arousal. “You shouldn’t be out here in the middle of this. It’s too much stimulation.”
“What I’d like,” she said, lifting her chin, “is to experience the culture I’m supposed to be helping modernize. You can’t keep me locked away in a tower.”
“I can if I want to.”
“But you shouldn’t.” She stepped closer, into the space he’d claimed as his own. “Adrian, you can’t protect me from everything. I have to learn to navigate this world on my own terms, or everything we’re trying to build here will fall apart the second I leave.”
The muscle in his jaw jumped. “You don’t understand what it’s like. The moon… it amplifies everything. Every instinct. Every urge. Right now, my wolf is telling me that the male you were talking to is a threat, and the only acceptable response is to make it clear you belong to me.”
“And what are you telling your wolf?”