I ignored him, crouching down and offering her the food, keeping my movements slow and unthreatening.
"The male will recover?"
"Yes. The break was clean. I set it properly. Just needs time and care." Daska paused, and when he spoke again his tone was pointed. "She's stubborn. Should have asked for help hours ago."
"She's strong," I corrected quietly.
"That too." Daska's expression softened slightly.
"How is her leg?" I asked, not taking my eyes off her.
"Worse than I thought." His voice was tight. "Infection's setting in, but I caught it early. I've used most of my traveling supplies on her and the male. I'll need to get into my full stores at home if she needs more treatment."
Concern washed through me.
The female was watching our exchange with obvious frustration, unable to understand. I could see her trying to read our body language, our tones, piecing together what she could from context.
Intelligent. Observant.
I reached out before I could stop myself and gently tilted her face up to meet my eyes. Her skin was soft under my fingers, warm despite the cold, and the bond flared at the contact like someone had stoked a fire in my chest.
"You need to take better care of yourself," I said, knowing she couldn't understand the words but hoping my tone conveyed concern. "Let us help you."
Her lips parted slightly, her eyes widening. For a moment we just stared at each other, and I could have sworn I saw something like recognition flash across her face. Like she felt it too, this impossible pull between us.
I wanted to kiss her. Wanted it with a desperation that bordered on pain. Wanted to lean down and claim her mouth and taste her and show her without words that she was safe now, that I would protect her, that she was...
Unsuitable. Impossible. Wrong for the pack.
I forced myself to pull back, breaking the contact. My hand felt cold without her skin under it.
My mother had told me once that physical touch reinforced and strengthened the mate bond. That's why newly mated pairs were encouraged to take several days away from the pack after bonding, to indulge in as much physical contact as possible, to cement the connection that would sustain them through a lifetime. She'd smiled when she said it, remembering her own mating to my father. Most females returned from those bonding days pregnant, she'd added. Though that was becoming less common now, with so few wolves finding their mates and our numbers slowly dwindling.
The image flashed through my mind unbidden. The female soft and round with my pup growing inside her. Her hands resting on her swollen belly while I pressed close, protecting both of them from the world.
But I couldn't give in. Couldn't let myself get closer because as Torin had voiced, wolf packs didn’t take in humans, and announcing a human mate at the summer gathering would be disaster.
The thought made my stomach turn.
The gathering happened every year when the herds returned north. One moon cycle when all the packs in the region came together to trade, share news, settle disputes, and reinforce alliances. It was critical for survival. No pack could thrive alone. We needed those connections, those trade relationships, those carefully maintained bonds of respect and cooperation. They already talked about us because of Daska, gossiping about how we'd broken tradition, about how bears didn't belong in wolf packs. It didn't matter that Daska contributed more than most full-blooded wolves. It didn't matter that he'd earned his place ten times over as our healer. He wasn't wolf, and that made some alphas nervous.
But Daska was a shifter still, and he maintained a low rank within our pack. A human as the mate of the alpha, that was different.
This was the kind of thing that invited challenges.
I thought of Karik. He'd been testing boundaries for years, probing for weakness, making subtle moves to expand his territory at our expense. He was ambitious and ruthless, always looking for an opening. If he thought I was distracted by an unsuitable mate, if he sensed weakness...
He'd challenge me. Formally, at the gathering where everyone could see.
And if he won, if he killed me and claimed leadership, my pack would be absorbed into his. Our territory divided. Our wolves scattered or subjugated. Everything my father had built, everything I'd spent ten years protecting, gone.
You can't risk them. Not even for her.
The thought sat like ash in my mouth.
But there were other consequences too. Alliances that depended on mutual respect and perceived strength. Trade agreements that could dissolve if other packs decided we were too strange, too other, too willing to break with tradition. We couldn't survive a winter without those trade networks. Couldn't protect our territory without allied packs willing to help defend borders.
One unsuitable mate could cost them everything.
