Coleman just nodded. They didn’t need words for this part.
He shifted back to wolf form, grateful for the simplicity of four legs and pure sensation. The run back to the pack house seemed shorter than the run away, as if his body was eager to return to the source of his torment.
The pack house came into view through the trees, warm light already spilling from the windows into the gathering dusk. Andthere, in the window of his office, a small silhouette was visible against the glow of multiple computer screens.
Still working. Still there. Still his, whether she knew it or not.
He paused at the tree line, watching her. She was leaning forward in her chair, peering at something on the screen, her expression one of fierce concentration. His wolf watched with him, a steady, possessive rumble building in its chest.
The full moon would rise in a few hours. The celebration—a traditional pack gathering under the full moon—was intended to channel the heightened energies into something positive. But tonight, it felt like a test. A gauntlet he had to run while every instinct screamed at him to turn back, to drag her away from the pack, to keep her safe and isolated and entirely his.
He turned away from the window and continued to the front of the lodge, forcing himself to focus on the immediate task. Get through the celebration. Maintain control. Don’t let the pack—or the elders—see how close he was to breaking.
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 pronouncedtonight. 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 hiseyes, 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?”
