Tanya Huff is a bit hit and miss, with me. Sometimes I love them, and sometimes I bounce off of them. This one was definitely a hit.

So, Mirian is banker's daughter whose mother's main ambition for her is that she will marry into the werewolf pack who are their nation's aristocracy. This is technically possible, because Mirian is a mage, but unlikely, because she's kinda a diletante who hasn't gotten very far in any particular field, and everyone knows wolves get boners for powerful mages.

At the same time, their nation is at war. (It feels a bit Napoleanic, although all the nations and languages are made up.) Everyone is trying to pretend the battlefront will not reach the capital city, which becomes difficult when the capital city is mortared, so Mirian's mom is finally persuaded to stop shopping her daughter around, pack up, and flee.

Their evacuation is interrupted by enemy soldiers who kidnap some mages, wives of the werewolf pack (do werewolves ever marry dude-mages? It seems probable) right in front of them. Mirian sets off to try to bring word of this to the werewolves on the front lines, and falls into the company of Tomas, brother of the werewolf chief. Together they stumble around, hunted, kidnapped, pursued, etc., until finally they rescue the mages.

Also: If you are a person who enjoys reading werewolf AUs where someone says "You smell amazing" and you read f/m, you should definitely check this out. I think this story is 20% "You smell amazing!" by weight. At one point, a werewolf is so overcome by our heroine's amazing smell that he humps her leg. Or, as she delicately puts it, has 'an intimate encounter with her thigh.'