KAEL POV
She's dying in my arms and I have no idea why I care.
I pace outside Myra's healing chamber like a caged animal. Inside, the old healer works on the human female—Thalia—whose heart keeps stopping and starting like a broken drum. Every time it stutters, something in my chest clenches painfully.
This is insane. I've known her for less than an hour.
"Alpha." Rykan, my beta, appears beside me. His brown fur bristles with concern. "The pack is asking questions. Why did you bring a human here? They're myths. Stories to scare cubs."
"She's real enough," I snap, then force myself to calm down. Rykan's been my second-in-command for fifty years. He deserves better than my temper. "She fell through a dimensional rift. Someone in her world tried to kill her."
"So let her die." Rykan says it simply, without cruelty. "We have enough problems, Kael. The eastern clans are pushing our borders. Food stores are low. Half the pack questions your leadership since you refused Lysara's mating offer."
He's right. I know he's right. But—
"She asked me to make her death quick," I say quietly. "Not to spare her. Not to save her. Just to end her pain fast. Do you know how rare that is? Most beings beg and bargain and promise anything to live. She just wanted mercy."
Rykan's expression softens. "That reminds you of someone."
It does. It reminds me of myself twelve years ago, when my father's beta betrayed us to rival clans. When I was forced to watch my parents die slowly, poison burning through their veins. When the new alpha offered me a choice: join him or beg for death.
I didn't beg. I just asked him to make it quick so I wouldn't shame my father's memory.
He laughed and chose option three—beat me nearly to death and throw me in the wilderness to die alone.
I survived anyway. Crawled back. Challenged him. Ripped his throat out with my bare hands and took back my pack.
"She has honor," I tell Rykan. "In a world that threw her away like trash, she kept her honor. That's worth saving."
"Or she's manipulating you." Rykan's voice holds warning. "Beautiful females are good at that."
I growl before I can stop myself. Rykan's eyes widen slightly.
"You've known her an hour," he says carefully. "And you're already protective. Kael, that's not—"
"I know!" I snap. "I know it's irrational. But my wolf won't let this go. Something about her calls to me. Maybe it's because she's wounded and helpless. Maybe it's because someone betrayed her the way we were betrayed. I don't know. But I'm not letting her die in my territory."
Myra's door opens. The old healer looks exhausted, her silver hair matted with sweat and blood.
"Well?" I demand.
"She's alive," Myra says. "Barely. I've set her bones and stitched the worst wounds. But Kael, her body isn't healing like ours do. Humans don't have our regeneration. She needs days, maybe weeks of rest, and even then..." She trails off meaningfully.
"Even then she might not make it," I finish.
"She's so fragile." Myra shakes her head. "One good hit could kill her. A bad infection could kill her. A rough mating could—"
"No one's mating her!" I snarl, and both Rykan and Myra stare at me. I clear my throat. "I mean, she's under pack protection. Obviously."
Rykan mutters something that sounds like "this is going to be a disaster."
"Can I see her?" I ask Myra.
The healer hesitates. "She's unconscious. Her body forced a shutdown to survive the trauma. But yes, you can sit with her."
I push past into the healing chamber. Thalia lies on a bed of furs, so pale she almost glows in the firelight. Bandages wrap her left arm and her torso. Her fox-red hair spreads across the pillow like spilled blood.
She looks dead.
Then her chest rises with a shallow breath, and relief floods through me so strongly my knees almost buckle.
I pull up a stool and sit beside her bed. This close, I can smell her properly. She smells like fear and pain and something sweet underneath—like the moonflowers that grow near the river. Nothing like the musky, wild scent of beastkin females.
"You're an idiot," I tell her sleeping form. "I'm an idiot for saving you. We're both idiots."
Her hand lies limp on the furs. Without thinking, I reach out and wrap my large fingers around hers. Her hand is so small. So breakable.
"I don't know why you matter," I whisper. "But you do. So you have to live, understand? You have to wake up and tell me why a man would throw away someone with this much honor. You have to show me that surviving means something."
No response. Just shallow breathing.
I sit there for hours, holding her hand like an anchor. Pack members peer in occasionally, curious and worried. I ignore them all.
Finally, as dawn light starts filtering through the cave entrance, Thalia's fingers twitch in mine.
I lean forward instantly. "Thalia?"
Her eyes move beneath closed lids. Her lips part slightly.
Then her whole body convulses.
"MYRA!" I roar.
The healer rushes in as Thalia starts seizing. Her back arches off the bed. Her hand grips mine with impossible strength—no human should be that strong.
"What's happening?" I demand.
"I don't know!" Myra tries to hold Thalia down. "This isn't a normal reaction to healing. It's like something's fighting inside her body—"
Thalia's eyes snap open. But they're not the warm green I remember.
They're glowing silver. Wolf silver. My pack's color.
"That's impossible," Rykan breathes from the doorway.
Thalia's mouth opens and she speaks, but the voice isn't quite hers. It's layered, echoing, like two people talking at once.
"The bond... awakens..."
Then light explodes from her body.
I'm thrown backward, crashing into the wall. When I look down at my chest, glowing marks are burning themselves into my skin—ancient pack symbols I haven't seen since my grandfather's time.
The marks of a soul bond.
"No," I whisper. "That's not possible. Soul bonds require mutual choice. Shared trauma. Deep connection. We just met—"
But the marks keep burning, beautiful and terrible. And on Thalia's collarbone, matching silver wolf symbols glow through her bandages.
"Alpha," Rykan says, his voice shaking. "What did you do?"
"I don't know," I admit, staring at the impossible marks. "I just held her hand. I just wanted her to live."
Thalia's eyes flutter closed again, the silver glow fading back to green. Her body goes limp.
But our connection remains. I can feel her now—a faint thread connecting her heartbeat to mine. Her pain echoes in my bones. Her fear whispers at the edge of my thoughts.
She's in my head. In my soul.
We're bonded.
"This changes everything," Myra whispers, staring at the marks. "Soul bonds haven't formed naturally in three generations. The Moon Goddess herself must have chosen this."
"Or cursed us," I mutter.
Because soul bonds are permanent. Unbreakable. When one dies, the other follows within days.
I just tied my life to a human female who might not survive the week.
And the terrifying part? I don't regret it.
Thalia's hand twitches again, reaching out blindly. I take it without thinking, and the bond pulses warm between us.
"Live," I command her sleeping form. "That's an order from your alpha."
Her lips curve slightly. Almost like a smile.
Then her heartbeat stutters again, and everything goes to hell.