Harper (Destined for the Alpha Book 1)

by Viola Rivard

  Acutely aware of everyone watching his antics, Shan stopped short of pulling her into his lap for a more thorough inspection. He had already decided that there was no way a person could naturally smell so pleasing, and there had to be something on her somewhere, a lotion or spray, that could account for the smell. Later, he would find out what the fragrance was, and he would make certain to procure it in bulk.

  He indulged himself in running his fingers through her hair, before gently twisting it and reapplying the elastic. Then he moved back to the knot of the gag. She stared up at him, meeting his gaze unflinchingly. Her eyes were almond-shaped, her irises a deep and inviting shade of blue. He didn't fail to notice the dilation of her pupils or the way her nostrils had flared when he'd first touched her. She was attracted to him.

  Not surprising.

  When the gag came off, words burst from her mouth as though the gag had been a dam holding them back. Her voice was raspy from disuse, her tone replete with righteous indignation, but the sound of it sent a prickling sensation up his spine.

  “I told him we weren't there to fight. I warned him multiple times that I would defend myself if he attacked me. Yes, I laid him out and broke his arm, okay, fine. But I was defending myself. You can't punish me for defending myself.”

  Shan tensed, preparing himself to block Gareth's strike, if necessary. A second later, Gareth's fist clenched, but it remained at his side as he glared down at the human, his breath still coming in heaves.

  “Lying bitch,” Gareth said through clenched teeth.

  She looked between Gareth's fist and his eyes and gave him a smug smile. “How about you untie me and say that again, hot shot?”

  “Oh my God, can you please stop?” said the other human female in an urgent whisper.

  “I could snap your neck right here and now and be done with you,” Gareth growled.

  And Shan saw that he would, consequences be damned.

  “I'm positively quaking with fear,” she flatly replied. “How about I give you a few days to go tend to that fucked up arm of yours, and then I'll let you try beating me up again. Maybe next time, you'll actually get a punch in before I—”

  Whatever idiotic thing she was going to say next was muffled behind the gag as Shan replaced it. Had his arm not come between them when it did, he had no doubt that Gareth would have struck her in the proceeding moment. He kept his arm between them even after the gag was secured, lifting her up by the shoulders and placing her in front of West.

  “Take this one back to my den before she gets herself killed. I'll be along shortly.”

  He took one last look at her fierce blue eyes before West led her away. His gaze lingered on her retreating form, paying particular attention to the curves of her legs and backside.

  Once she was gone from his sight, he took a minute to compose himself. He recognized that her scent had another quality, one that was all her own, that no perfume could bestow upon her. It tugged at his insides, in a way that was all-too familiar to him.

  He wanted to mate with her.

  Annoying as it was, it was nothing out of the ordinary. Not every female piqued his interests, not even most of them, but from time to time, one would come along that would cause the gulf between Shan and his wolf form to narrow. During those times, the urge to take a mate could become dangerously consuming.

  It had been well over two decades since Shan had become capable of siring offspring, and a solid decade past the point when most males saw fit to take a mate. He was not old, and given his unique biological makeup, he could very well remain in his current state of vitality for many decades to come.

  However, he couldn't dismiss his human blood. No matter how thin it might be, it could come back to strike at his longevity. If that were the case, he could have as few as another eight to ten years to reliably produce offspring. On the surface, it seemed like a generous amount of time, yet Shan knew all too well how quickly the years slipped away. He could remember being twenty-eight as if it was yesterday, and not a quarter of his life ago.

  His pack mates were eyeing him speculatively, no doubt smelling his arousal. Only Gareth was oblivious, too wrapped up in his private rage to notice anything else. He paced back and forth, his left hand still fisted, while the right was limp at his side. He really needed to have that looked at.

  “Gareth, calm yourself,” Shan said, mostly to redirect the focus of the others.

  “She lied to you,” Gareth said. “Lied through her lying teeth. I could have killed her. I could have easily killed her.”

  “Of that, I have no doubt,” Shan said. He didn't point out that Gareth faced easy opponents on a daily basis, though as of yet, none had succeeded in breaking his arm.

  “What are your names?” Shan asked, startling the remaining humans.

  The female gave a shaky reply. “I'm Jo-Joana. This is Ian, and my friend, she's...you're not going to hurt her, are you? Please don't hurt her, she really didn't do anything wrong. I swear, none of us did, aside from breaking the law coming to the reservation but I think that's something that should be handled by human authorities. If you take us to the nearest town, I swear, we'll turn ourselves in.”

  As she spoke, Shan rubbed the bridge of his nose. He knew that the woman would give him any information he wanted with very little provocation, but at the moment, he did not have the patience to question her. His mind was already ahead of the present moment, stretching beyond the limits of his perception, to his arrival back at his den, where the blue-haired spitfire would be waiting.

  Sound judgement told him that he should interrogate both of the humans, and then find out if their stories aligned with the third's. But in a rare moment of impulsivity, he decided against it. He could compensate by thoroughly questioning one human, and then conferring with the keepers of the others.

  Shan said, “Take the male back to your camp, Gareth. And then go straight to Gwen. Listen to and obey her, otherwise you're going to lose that arm.”

  “If I lose it, I'm taking hers as recompense.”

  Shan waved a hand to dismiss him, knowing that the only option was to disengage. He then ordered Oslo to bring the female to West's camp, and she went without further protest.

  As soon as Gareth had cleared the area, Rosa spoke up in her mumbling way.

  “She is a very good fighter. I've never seen anyone fight like her, not in real life, anyway. It was like she knew what Gareth was going to do before even he did. Kind of like...” Her eyes lifted to meet Shan's briefly, before skittering back down to look at her toes.

  Shan looked to Viper, beckoning her to give her account.

  “Every time Gareth went in for an attack, she would move just far enough away to avoid it,” Viper said. “She was waiting for her opening, and when he tried jumping at her, she sidestepped him and...” She paused to laugh, looking over her shoulder as she did so. In a lower voice, she went on, “she pulled him in, knocked him on the ground, and pinned his arm behind him. Dumbass didn't realize what she was doing. When he tried to roll over, he snapped his own arm.”

  Though Viper had painted a clear picture for him, Shan had difficulty picturing how a human female, so slight of build, could have taken down one of his largest males. He wished he could have seen the fight for himself.

  “And is it true that she attacked him first?”

  Viper scratched her head, her gaze going unfocused. “I wasn't really all that close.”

  “Enough equivocating,” he said firmly.

  Rosa was quick to answer, “No. He tried to take her from behind and she fought back. Before that, she was saying something about them being researchers. Later, she said they came to share information with our pack. She asked for you by name.”

  That, Shan believed, was called 'burying the lead.'

  He leaned forward. “How did she know my name?”

  The females exchanged looks.

  Viper said, “She said something about having informants among our kind. We didn't ask her much. She
has a mouth on her, as you've seen. I had West gag her before she got herself killed.”

  “She had drugs,” Rosa blurted.

  Viper shook her head. “Just some pot. Well, a lot of pot, actually. Can I keep it?”

  “I don't care,” he said. “Did she have any weapons, aside from the knife?”

  “No, but she did have these.” Rosa extracted an iPad and a solar charger. “Can I keep them?”

  “Not a chance,” he said, taking them from her.

  He pressed the home button on the iPad and it lit up, displaying a picture of the three humans at some sort of bar or restaurant. They looked much the same, except that they were smiling in earnest and appeared far less bedraggled, and the blue-haired female was sporting hair that was pink and purple.

  He touched his finger to her face, tracing the curve of her jawline, and then swiped. A password form appeared. He stared past it, still looking at the female.

  “How was the movie?” he asked absently.

  He heard Viper swallow. “Sir?”

  “You heard me.”

  There was a pause, and then Rosa said, “It was scary. There was a clown that ate children.”

  Viper spoke over her, scrambling to explain. “I was going to tell you about the movie, it just hadn't come up yet, what with the humans being here and all. It didn't put us much behind schedule. West had some things to do in the mine, and you know how miners are about females coming down...”

  Shan stood, tucking the iPad under his arm. He placed a hand on Viper's cheek, or more aptly, on the side of her head, given the size of his hand.

  “You are getting too comfortable in your lies. Don't think I haven't noticed. Next time, ask.”

  She nodded, dumbly. “Yes, sir.”

  He patted her face. “Good.”

  There was nothing more to be said. He could hear them softly bickering in his wake, but tuned them out, already knowing what each would say. His thoughts once again pulled forward, towards the human that was waiting for him.

  Chapter 4

  Each step away from her friends was its own sort of torture. For a while, Harper affected Jo's shuffling gait, transmuting her frustration into her slow pace. West made no comment, though it was clear from the tightness of his jaw that he had far less patience for her than he'd had with Jo. After a few minutes, she fell out of the pace naturally, as the moment she stopped focusing on it, she would return to her customary power-walking.

  She considered trying to manipulate West. She'd already learned that his type was meek and vulnerable, and knew that it would be difficult to pull off, given that she'd already established herself as anything but. Furthermore, she had no clue what she'd do if she actually did manage to get free. In spite of that, she still found herself working at the bindings. Once she got those off, she could adapt to whatever came next.

  “Don't,” West said. “You'll hurt yourself. Let me.”

  They stopped, and he went behind her, removing her gag and then starting on her bindings.

  “Don't attempt to attack me. I'm saying that for your benefit. I am not trained in human fighting, but unlike you, I can turn into a wolf and I am highly skilled at combat in that form, as is Gareth. You are fortunate his pride stopped him from shifting, or there would have been nothing I could have done to protect you.”

  As the bindings fell away, he kept his hands over her bare wrists, holding them in place. “I don't want to harm you, but if I have to subdue you in my wolf form, there will be blood. Understood?”

  She nodded.

  He released her, and then removed her gag.

  She waited a few minutes before she said anything. After possessiveness, her second flaw was that for all of her intelligence and cunning, she could easily devolve into impulsivity, especially when she needed the latter qualities the most.

  “I need to be with my friends,” she finally said.

  Calm, articulate, concise. She gave herself a mental pat on the back.

  “And you will be, once Shan has spoken with you and ensured you will pose no threat to our pack. You seem smart, if lacking in common sense. You must recognize that you're in no position to be making demands.”

  Harper sucked a tooth. “I've got loads of common sense. Buckets of it.”

  Combative, hyperbolic, defensive. She gave herself a mental backhand.

  West cast her a sideways glance, a small smile on his lips. He had nice teeth and an easy smile. She decided he wasn't that old. She'd probably dated professors that were older.

  “You have barely enough sense to fill a thimble,” he said. “You proved that by just coming here in the first place, without a gun or a proper male to protect you.”

  “I don't need a male to protect me,” she said with a haughty sniff. “I think I made that pretty clear.”

  “Yet, here you are,” he said, his tone distinctly mocking.

  “If I'm in a place, it's because it's where I want to be,” she shot back.

  “I thought you wanted to be with your friends.”

  Her lips flattened. He had her there.

  “Touché,” she muttered.

  While she collected her ego, Harper looked around the area, trying to get a better sense of where they were. If they'd been in a suspense movie and West had been any less congenial, she would have thought he was taking her out to kill her. They had trekked some distance from the campsites, in the direction of the mountainside on the other side of the valley. The space between the two mountainsides was not far. The valley spanned no more than three to four miles across, but to her tired legs, it may as well have been purgatory.

  She had thought her traveling was over when she'd been brought before Shan, and accordingly, her brain had fired off signals to her body, informing her tired muscles and joints that the hard work was over. As a result, she was walking on limbs that were half asleep, at once feeling over-taxed and numb.

  “Can you at least tell me if they'll be safe?” she asked.

  “Joana will be at my camp. I will look after her. Your other companion, he went with Gareth.”

  There was a pause, and then he said, “Gareth cannot harm him without Shan's consent.”

  It wasn't reassuring, but at the moment all she could do was hope that Gareth's antipathy towards her did not bleed over onto Ian.

  “How long until I can see them again?”

  West said, “That will be Shan's decision.”

  “Okay, well then do you have any advice for when I talk to him? Like, anything I can say to make him more amenable to not leaving Ian with that psycho pack mate of yours?”

  “Are you asking me how best to manipulate my alpha?”

  “'Manipulate' has such a negative sound to it. I just want to know how to make him more receptive to giving me what I want.” She punctuated the statement with a self-effacing smile, showing him that she was not—entirely—serious.

  She succeeded in making him smile again. “My only advice is to be honest. Don't lie, or think you can obfuscate, and in particular, do not lie by omission. Shan listens more to what you don't say, than to what you do.”

  Fantastic. Her entire life was a lie by omission.

  Harper hadn't realized they'd been scaling the mountainside until the trees cleared, revealing a view of the valley below and the dozens of glowing campfires. She saw the one that was larger than the others, and wondered if Shan was still down there, or if he was already on his way.

  The den was not what she'd expected. At the end of the clearing, it looked not like a cave, but a large hole that had been dug into the hillside beneath an oak tree. In her tired state, she wouldn't have noticed the entrance if they hadn't stopped directly in front of it. It was only a foot or so above the top of her head, and barely wide enough to fit a large shifter in wolf form.

  “This is your den?” she asked skeptically.

  “It is Shan's den.”

  She arched a brow. “He lives in a hole in the ground?”

  “This valley is not where we l
ive,” he said.

  She gave him an imploring look, but he wouldn't be pressed to say more on the subject.

  “Do you know how to start a fire?” he asked.

  Harper nodded.

  “Good. Go inside. You'll find a fire pit and, beside it, a kindling box. There's fresh wood there.” He pointed to a small pile of split logs stacked near the entryway. “Have the fire going by the time Shan arrives.”

  Harper's feet remained planted in place. “Wait, where are you going?”

  “I have other matters to deal with.”

  “So...” she looked from side to side. “You're just going to leave me here, far away from the rest of your pack, unbound and unsupervised, and you're not worried I'm going to run away?”

  “You came here to see Shan, didn't you? In any case, you wouldn't get far. If you have a fraction of the sense you claim to, you will do as I said and stay put.”

  He left without so much as a backward glance, shifting to his wolf form mid-stride and slinking away into the night. Harper continued to stand there for a few moments, fighting the temptation to run.

  “Too tired,” she whispered. “You're too tired, and even if you weren't, this is why you came, remember? You planned for this. You can handle this.”

  She knew it would be so much easier if she were well-rested. Exhaustion tended to magnify every doubt and insecurity, robbing her of her preparation and defense mechanisms.

  Reluctantly, she gathered the wood up. Even the act of bending seemed like too much.

  Beneath the scents of soil and roots, Shan's scent was everywhere. Even before she started the fire, she could feel heat creeping over her skin. Shan smelled good. Eat the cupcake and lick the wrapper good.

  That was going to be a problem.

  Her third and final flaw was that certain parts of her brain, namely the parts that controlled executive function, tended to shift gears when in the presence of a man she was attracted to. No matter what her higher aims, she would invariably start taking steps towards getting the object of her fixation into bed.