"I intend to protect my pack. I am the alpha, Daska. These people trust me to protect them, to keep them safe. Taking Ellie as my mate would endanger everything, I cannot risk that.”
The word sat between us, heavy and impossible.
Cannot.
Notwill not.Notchoose not.Cannot. As though the choice had already been made for him, years before she'd arrived, years before either of us had known she existed.
I stared at him for a long moment, at the set of his jaw and the rigid line of his shoulders, and felt something that had been quietly building in my chest over the last weeks finally coalesce into something clear and cold and sharp.
"You are telling me," I said slowly, "that you will watch her leave."
"Yes."
"You will stand here and watch her walk out of this territory, out of your life, and say nothing."
"Yes."
He turned, and the look he gave me was not unkind. That was the worst of it. There was no coldness in it, no dismissal. Just a terrible, exhausted patience, the look of a man who had already had this argument with himself a thousand times in the dark and had lost every single time.
"You intend to refuse a fated bond," I said slowly. "You intend to look at what the Great Mother herself has given you and say no. You were made to lead. Not to suffer."
"Sometimes they are the same thing."
CHAPTER 17
ELLIE
The rhythmic scrape of stone against hide had become meditative. Back and forth, back and forth, working the caribou skin until the membrane peeled away in translucent sheets. My hands had learned the motion over the past two weeks. Firm pressure, consistent angle, following the grain. The elder women no longer watched me with quite so much scepticism.
Well. Most of them didn't.
I caught myself putting weight on my injured leg without thinking, then marvelled at it. The scar tissue pulled when I shifted position, a tight reminder of how close I'd come. But the pain had faded to background noise, and the stiffness only bothered me in the cold mornings. Daska truly was an incredible healer. He'd gone off earlier looking for roots to replenish some of his supplies and I smiled at the thought of the big, tender man with those deep brown eyes, wondering when he'd be home.
The thought caught me off guard.
I paused mid-scrape, stone tool hovering over the hide. When was the last time I'd thought about my apartment? My job? The coffee shop on the corner where I'd gone every morning for two years, where they knew my order before I opened my mouth?
It felt like remembering someone else's life.
"Ida."
I looked up. One of the children—Mika, a gap-toothed girl of maybe six—grinned at me and pointed at the skin I was working.
"Ida," I repeated, testing the word. Hide or skin, I presumed. "Yes. Thank you."
She giggled and ran off, braids flying. Three other children followed her like ducklings, their laughter bright against the constant backdrop of camp noise.
I'd been practicing with them every day. They were relentless, enthusiastic teachers, delighted by every mistake I made.
"El-lie!" Pym, a boy who had the look of Jarak, came barrelling toward me with something clutched in both hands. "Ika! Ika!"
He thrust the object at me. A carved bone, smooth and polished, with markings I couldn't read.
I took it carefully, turning it over. "Ika?" I repeated.
The children collapsed into giggles.
Pym's older sister Sera covered her mouth with both hands, shoulders shaking. She leaned close and whispered a correction, slowly and clearly. "Ikka."
