The realization hit harder than it should have. Made me feel suddenly, stupidly young, like a boy who'd claimed something precious without understanding what it was.
"Ellie," I said quietly, and heard how carefully I shaped the unfamiliar sounds. Testing them. Learning them. "I'll watch over Ellie."
Daska nodded, but his eyes stayed on my face a moment longer and I saw the question forming behind his eyes. The same question Ryke had asked.What aren't you telling me?
"Eat," I said again. He held my gaze for one more heartbeat, something unspoken passing between us that neither of us was ready to name. Then he took the bowl, retreated to his sleeping furs on the far side of the hearth, and ate with the mechanical efficiency of a man who knew he needed fuel but couldn't taste a thing. He was asleep within moments of setting the empty bowl aside, his body surrendering to exhaustion the instant he gave it permission.
Slowly, carefully, I sank down beside the platform. Cross-legged, close enough to reach her but careful not to touch. I'd promised myself I wouldn't touch her again. Every contact strengthened the bond, and I needed to be strategic about this, needed to think with my head and not with the desperate,howling thing inside my chest that wanted nothing more than to gather her against me and never let go.
My wolf surged forward,finally, the protective instinct I'd been choking back for days flooding through me in a rush. I wanted to wrap myself around her. Wanted to take the pain away. Wanted to snarl at anything that came near.
Mine.
"Easy," I murmured, not sure if I was talking to her or myself. "You're safe now. Just rest."
Her breathing hitched. Changed rhythm. For a moment, I thought she might wake. Her eyes moved beneath closed lids, fluttering open for a moment, and then another. Her hand moved across the furs, fingers reaching.
Before I could think better of it, I caught her searching fingers, closing my hand around hers, gentle but firm. The change was immediate. Her breathing eased andGreat Mother,the way it hit me. Like taking a breath after drowning. Her touch burning into my skin as her fingers tightened around mine.
She knows. She feels it too, this bond between us.
My chest felt too tight. Too full. I stared at our joined hands. My callused palm dwarfing her smaller one, her skin burning with fever but still sosoft, and something inside me that had been holding on by its teeth finally, quietly, broke.
I picked up the bowl Daska had indicated. Cooled water infused with herbs and a soft square of rabbit skin draped over the rim. I reached for the rabbit skin, dipping it in the water and using it to lightly sponge her face as gently as I could.
"I can't keep you." The words came out barely above a whisper. "I shouldn't even want to. You're human. You're from another place. You'll leave as soon as you can. And I'm..."
Alpha. Responsible for an entire pack. Already carrying too much weight to add one more impossible thing to the load.
My wolf spirit didn't care about logic or responsibility though. The human part of me fought with logic, the wolf part just knew I wanted her so badly it hurt. And I didn’t even know her.
"Live," I said instead, my voice breaking on the word. "Please. Just live. I'll figure out the rest later."
She didn't answer, but her fingers stayed tight around mine, and I stayed there in the firelight, holding her hand and softly dabbing her face to cool her flushed skin while the fire burned low, and told myself it was enough.
It had to be.
CHAPTER 13
ELLIE
The world came back to me in pieces. Warmth first, then the scent of smoke and earth and herbs. My mouth tasted like old pennies, and when I tried to swallow, my throat scraped. As more awareness returned, an ache spread across my entire body, with more intense pain along my right thigh. I opened my eyes to firelight playing across unfamiliar rocky walls that tapered up and over me to form the ceiling. A cave, but not cold and damp. It was warm and comfortable and familiar somehow…
Memories, choppy and distorted, flowed through my mind. Pain, and cold, so cold. I’d shivered and sweated. I must have had a fever. But then gentle hands, one holding mine, the other wiping my face with something blissfully cool. Daska’s? No, they weren’t as big as Daska’s, but I remembered his face above mine, a mask of concern. He’d been worried about me, I realised. His voice, low and soothing, speaking words I couldn't understand while he...
Oh God.
I reached down under the furs and confirmed my worst suspicion. I was completely naked. Heat flooded my face. He'd stripped my clothes and washed me with cool, wet cloths. He must have seen everything. The shame was immediate and suffocating, made worse by the fact that I could still feel the ghost of his touch.
He's a healer,I told myself firmly.He was saving your life. It doesn't mean anything.
But my face stayed hot anyway.
I tried to sit up and immediately regretted it. The world tilted sideways, my head suddenly too heavy for my neck and pain exploded behind my forehead. My right thigh throbbed—a hot, tight ache that made me grit my teeth. When I looked down, I found my leg carefully elevated on what looked like a rolled hide. Clean bandages made from some kind of supple animal skins covered the wound, bound with strips of leather. The ominous red streaks had faded away, and though it hurt, I no longer felt feverish.
Daska had taken care of me. Possibly even saved my life. Blood poisoning was no joke, even in the modern world.
Panels of hide covered the cave entrance, voices drifted through from the outside. I cocked my head, listening with wonder at the sound of children playing. The rhythmicthunkof something being chopped. A woman's voice calling out, followed by answering laughter. The kind of background noise that saidcommunityandsafetyandhome.
