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About five minutes into the lecture, Carla poked me and snapped me out of my thoughts… Which were naughty.

Like picturing Ha-joon in nothing but a towel hanging low on his hips naughty.

“Seriously, where is your head?” she hissed under his breath.

I cleared my throat and sat up. “Nowhere I would admit.”

“Oh, I could scent that,” she drawled sounding like she was losing the battle to laugh.

Yeah, I couldn’t blame her.

Nottwo minuteslater she had to poke me again because I was back to picturing Ha-joon mostly naked.

The third time it was because I was so deluded that I had started imagining him stripping for me right there while giving the lecture. For the love of the gods.

Seriously.

Just…Seriously.

I might have laughed it off, but I realized I was actually distracting people. They scented so much lust off of me—or at least in the area—that it wasdistractingfrom his lecture.

Fuck. I needed to get a grip.

“Stop,” I told Carla when she was trying not to giggle. “I’m basically sexually harassing him and everyone here being so—”

She immediately lost her amusement. “That’s intentional and we both know it. This was an accident, and you’re overloaded. Enough. You don’t get to be down on yourself for something natural like lust. Now pull up a picture on your phone that you can’t be dirty in front of. It’s how I get a grip.”

That was actually really helpful and not just for myself. Female shifters had the highest sex drive of any supe because they were so affected by the lunar cycles, so any tricks old and powerful shifters like Carla had should be shared.

It did work, but I missed most of his damn lecture. What I did hear was amazing and compelling. By the time he showed the videos from actual patients and that him forcing shifters to change forms worked, my mind was on the medicine.

I was grateful for Joyce immediately asking a question to help me out, but I realized that wasn’t it and she was truly focused.

“Have you done any testing with potions or other specialties?” Joyce asked the second Ha-joon opened the floor.

“You mean before forcing the shift?” he checked, shaking his head when she confirmed that was what she meant. “No, only pain meds after. My last board didn’t want the stigma of forcing shifts to interfere with—”

“Their money,” Sean cut in, giving Ha-joon a look not to deny it. “You can talk honestly here. Just be out with it.”

He dipped his head to Sean. “With all due respect, Dr. James, but I don’t out people’s intentions, and most don’t trust that an Alpha shifter can truly sense that much. There was sound reasoning presented to me and that’s what I’ll say. Everyone can draw their own conclusions.” I thought he was going to leave it at that, but he went one. “Especially when people here don’t keep their mouths shut.

“I don’t burn bridges and certainly not with a hospital that supported me doing something people here were ready to immediately shut down. I’ve gotten pushbackhereand heavily from some. Yes, it was profitable, but I saved one of the board’s grandchildren, so that wasn’t about money to them.”

“Understood, and good on you for having integrity,” he accepted.

Ha-joon nodded and focused back on Joyce. “I have wanted to try a pain management and muscle reliever potion mix, but the ones I’ve worked with are too strong. Or take too long to take effect. I need the patient lucid, and by the time someone gets in front of me, waiting any longer is torture.”

“Yes, that would be painful for them,” she accepted.

He winced. “Well, yes, but I meant me.” He nodded when people froze. “I’m not sure I can explain it—I haven’t been able to so far but—”

“The pain of knowing you could have helped them sooner so they didn’t need to suffer is almost crippling,” I said without even realizing I was going to talk.

His gaze immediately snapped to mine and he slowly nodded. “Yes. My wolf is a protector and—shifters in pain in front of him is hard. Especially young shifters because we both hate the old mindset. Several of them even.”

Yeah, a lot of us hated those old mindsets as well.

He found me after the lecture and dragged me into the stairwell, backing me up to the wall. Ha-joon moved his arm tothe wall and his hand to my waist as he leaned in and sniffed me. “You’re killing me.”