Chapter 213: What Do You Like About Her?

Calis was seated on the ground outside the communal shelter, his back against a support post.

He had two cubs in his lap.

He did not understand how exactly they had gotten there, but here they were.

Althea and Nadia had just waddled up to him and climbed directly onto his thighs.

Nadia had grabbed his hand and was currently using his index finger as something to grip while she hiccupped quietly. Her chubby face was blotchy and damp from crying, and every few seconds, a residual sniffle shook her small body.

Althea had her tiny nails hooked into his loincloth with a grip that suggested she had no plans to move.

From time to time, she patted his ear, which she had smacked earlier.

He had held cubs before, but never like this. And it was even stranger that they had walked up to him like this.

Xavi and Ermin sat near him.

Both males looked heavy with exhaustion.

Calis had been watching them for some hours now.

They were well coordinated. Both males had taken charge of watching Tera’s health while also directing the beasts to patrol the area to make sure there was no corrupted beast nearby.

Calis himself had sent his wolves to bury that piece of flesh, using sticks to avoid touching the corrosive flesh. He had instructed his fastest wolves to run the perimeter and scan for any sign that the creature might have followed Tera through the portal. He had done the things a leader should do.

But it hadn’t felt like enough.

He had especially noticed the distinction in her mates’ actions. They had put taking care of her before trying to find the beast for revenge.

They had been tending to Tera while Calis had been watching from outside the circle that he desperately wanted to be inside.

Calis admired how they worked, and it made him feel inadequate.

Because his main priority had been to hunt down the monster first, and by the time he had returned, he had arrived in time to see how the males had been tending to Tera alongside the other clan members.

“I wish she would stop.”

Xavi’s words pulled Calis out of his thoughts.

The bear beast male’s voice was quiet.

“We have enough. We have shelter. We have food. The cubs are healthy, and we are barely being hunted down by those monsters.” His golden eyes were fixed on the trees ahead, unfocused. “I do not need her to build something constantly. I just want her to be safe.”

Ermin was sitting with his knees drawn up, his tail limp on the ground beside him. He reached over and placed his hand on Xavi’s shoulder, pressing once.

Calis looked at both of them, and a wave of guilt rolled through his chest.

Tera had gone to the swamp to find materials for the wolf pack in the first place. She had gone there because his territory needed resources that didn’t exist nearby, and she had risked her life because of this.

This was partly on him.

Calis looked down at the two cubs sleeping in his lap.

His taking Tera earlier added to this clan’s troubles. If he hadn’t taken her that day at the lake, she would never have been at his pack. She would never have tried to get his pack important resources, and she would never have gone looking for those strange things.

“My… my wolves will take over the watches,” Calis said.

It was the only thing he could offer now.

Xavi and Ermin turned to look at him.

“Please, focus on watching over her. I will gladly do all I can in making sure you don’t have to worry about this detail.”

The offer hung in the air.

Xavi studied Calis for a moment. The bear’s golden eyes moved from the wolf’s face to the two cubs nestled peacefully in his lap, and something in his expression shifted.

“Thank you,” Xavi said.

Ermin slowly nodded. “We appreciate that.”

A stretch of quiet passed between them until Xavi spoke again.

“What do you like about her?”

Calis stiffened.

The question had come from nowhere. Xavi’s tone hadn’t changed. He was still looking at the trees ahead, his massive frame settled against the shelter wall as if he had asked something no more significant than the time of day.

But it had caught the wolf leader off guard.

And then, like a key turning in a lock, Calis finally understood why they had approached him earlier.

He had been so confused when Xavi and Ermin had asked him so many probing questions. What did he think about the way Tera ran her clan? Had he noticed how she always checked on the females before eating? What was his opinion on how she handled disagreements? Did he think she was a good leader? Did he look down on her because she was shiftless? How did he really feel about other beast types, and so many questions he had found hard to keep up with.

At the time, Calis had answered honestly, attributing the questions to the Dow clan’s strange social habits.

It was at that moment they had heard Tera’s screams.

But now, sitting here with her mates, their behaviour in the afternoon now made sense.

Ermin had also looked surprised by Xavi’s question, but his attention had shifted to Calis with strong curiosity.

Calis looked down at the cubs in his lap, feeling a bit nervous for some reason.

He didn’t want to displease her mates.

“She sees things,” Calis started. “Things that the rest of us miss.”

Ermin frowned, puzzled by such a generic answer when he noticed Xavi looking intently at Calis now, who was looking somewhere else and pausing to gather his thoughts that had been sitting inside him for weeks.

The panther calmed down and decided to exercise some patience.

“When she came to my pack, she did not just see wolves who needed water. She saw that our females were in pain, our cubs were too quiet, and a few other things I had not given much thought. She looked at the way we lived, and she understood, in days, what I had failed to notice in years.”

He smiled bitterly.

“She is considerate in ways I have never witnessed. The way she treats everyone, your clan, you, your cubs… Even my wolves who were strangers to her. I have never seen such a form of leadership before.”

Calis found himself speaking more than he had intended, but now that the words had started, they would not stop.

He thought over how she had acted in such a way that a lot of his wolves had eagerly wanted to follow her. He had admired her strength, her thoughts, and the way she handled things despite a lot of the elders’ poor behaviour.

And she made their lives so much better since they’d met.

His voice dropped.

“And she did all of it while being shiftless. She has none of the things I was raised to value, and she is the most remarkable female I have ever known.”

He stopped, and for a moment, only the distant sound of the settlement filled the space.

Then, quieter still, he added a little detail about Tera’s eyes. Whenever she looked at her mates, he had never wanted someone to look at him like that more.

[Calis’ Favourability: 78% → 80%]

And then he droned on with more words, bringing up whatever details he could remember.

Ermin and Xavi stared in stunned silence.

They had never seen the wolf talk so much before.

Ermin was staring at Calis.

The guardedness that had been his default posture toward the wolf leader had cracked open, and underneath it was genuine surprise.

What happened to the wolf leader they had met months ago?

He did notice Calis had changed a bit when they had recently gone to help the wolves with their farm, but it felt like he was looking at an entirely different person.

This wolf genuinely cared about Tera.

Ermin glanced at Xavi.

The bear’s expression had shifted. He was also surprised. Xavi had gotten a hint about Calis’ feelings towards Tera, but he didn’t know it had been this intense.

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