At a clan meeting elders pressure the Young Alpha to take a mate after he turned a hundred. They propose the she-wolf who tended him that night, but he insists none of the present females were involved. The crowd reels when they learn the other party was a human woman. Tension spikes when someone arrives with a hybrid pup left outside; pack members say the pup looks exactly like the Young Alpha. They rush to find the mother while the woman, leaving the child, apologizes and promises she will return.