Her Match, His Fire

I am Eirik, Alpha of the Saltfjell pack, and I keep one rule: no one touches the lighthouse lamp. It marks our border, and the charter hidden in its lamp room is the only thing keeping my wolves on this rock. Then I smell smoke at two in the morning and find a woman on the stairs with a lit match. Her scent hits me before her name does. Mate. Ingrid claims she is only a stranded fisherwoman, but she asks the wrong questions and carries a Council seal in her bag. She has been sent to prove our charter is forged and erase my pack from the map. Every hour she stays, the bond pulls tighter. Every hour she stays, the evidence against me grows. The Council arrives with the next full moon, and the lighthouse is already burning.

Place and Time: The remote Lofoten Islands, northern Norway, in 1953, in the cod-fishing season of the midnight sun.