Thank you Centex
Aiden from his mating instincts will always try to protect Ethan and for Casey it's a sense of duty. It wouldn't matter with knowing Ethan can protect them all, they would still try. Aiden is the strongest and largest wolf of his generation and a very formidable wolf. He could probably have taken the lunis wolf on his own without trouble, especially to protect his mate and with the help of Casey would improve the odds. A lunis and lupus wolf are pretty evenly matched, even if the lunis is in its larger lunar form. The catch is with it being feral. That adds a level of unpredictability of a wild animal that makes it exceptionally dangerous.
The Alpha's thoughts on Ethan are based on myths and legends he's read. It'd doubtful they could find anyone to actually train Ethan, though you never know. The druidic abilities would give him a mastery of nature, the way the horse reacted to him for example, Elemental abilites (or shaman) would give him control of things like freezing water to use it as a weapon but either name seems to overlap (I kind of base the two or three entities on some of the forums from WoW but it's up to the interpretation of the reader)
Ethan is dependent on Aiden, but only from the standpoint of he's rebuilding a life and a lot of the simple things we take for granted have not been part of his life. He's relearning how to be around people and he does like being cuddled and held by his mate.
As always, I love seeing your comments and thank you so much for this.