turned.

“Good-bye… Snow.”

Talkeet walked into the cave.

All of the wolves, there were twelve of them in all, sat in a group in the center of the cave’s single chamber.

Talkeet walked in.

“Alright.” He said, “we need to find food, and we need protection.”

“Okay, stand in a line, and you two,” he said, tossing his head at the two wolves who’d had to be carried in a few minutes ago. “Move to the back.”

They did.

“Now,” Talkeet said, walking up to the first two in line. “We’re going to need some food if we’re going to wait out the storm here, so you come with me, we’ll go hunting. The next two in line are sentries. One right outside the cave, one about five yards out. Make sure you don’t lose sight of one another, you’ve got to maintain accountability of each other. If we grouped up, why wouldn’t anyone else. We’ve got to watch our backs. The two sentries will switch off every two hours, waking up the next person in line. Everyone else sleep. Get your rest.”

The first two sentries get on out there, and the two that I assigned to hunt with me come too.”

He turned and walked outside.

It had been two hours since Talkeet left the cave.

It was now extremely late, and Talkeet was feeling tired, dead tired.

He couldn’t stop until they had something to bring back to the group at the cave though.

They hadn’t seen a thing.

Talkeet knew that the two wolves with him had to be tired as well, but they didn’t complain, didn’t even tell him.

Like Talkeet, they knew what they had to do.

“They’re good soldiers,” he thought, “and me?”

Talkeet had never thought of himself as a leader, but…

Well, this wasn’t too bad.

“Ah, another group of travelers.”

The voice cut off his thoughts, and surprised him.

He turned, and saw a gray wolf behind him.

“We don’t want any trouble.” Talkeet said. “We’re just looking for food.”

The gray wolf nodded, as two more wolves dropped down from the rocks over head, surrounding Talkeet’s little party.

“So are we, and it looks like we found it.”

Talkeet turned to the wolves alongside him, who had turned to face the newcomers.

“Keep a tight perimeter.”

The gray wolf laughed.

“Expecting an attack, eh? Pretty good. I’ll be sorry to tell Dash that you didn’t make it.”

“You won’t have to tell my dad anything.” Talkeet growled.

“We’ll see.” The gray wolf said.

Then, all at once, they attacked.

The gray wolf leapt at Talkeet, as his friends engaged the others.

Talkeet was expecting the attack, and dodged it, snatching the wolf’s leg in his mouth, and turning, throwing him to the ground.

The wolf stood up, as Talkeet watched him.

“Lucky…” the wolf said, but he didn’t sound so sure anymore.

Talkeet attacked this time, and apparently the gray wolf was unprepared for this, as he made no attempt to defend himself.

Talkeet’s paws collided with the wolf’s face about six times, and then he fell to the ground.

Talkeet was on him instantly, he’d had his chance to run away.

In a few seconds, it was over.

Talkeet stood over yet another dead wolf, knowing that he had ended its life.

He looked behind him to see one of the wolves that had been hunting with him down, and the other fighting down the third attacker.

The second lay in the snow not far away, and he wasn’t moving.

The wolf finished his fight, and turned to his fallen friend, who moved.

Talkeet walked over, as the wolf helped his friend to his feet.

“I thought it was over.” The wolf said.

Talkeet nodded.

“Let’s go.”

The wolves walked out of the clearing.

The falling snow quickly covered up the dead wolves.

Chapter 8

Balto was awake.

It was very late, and he knew he should get some sleep.

But he couldn’t go to sleep.

Jenna was beside him, sleeping soundly.

He’d woken up about an hour ago, and he had been staring at her, unable to sleep, since then.

She was beautiful.

Balto couldn’t believe how stupid he’d been, how close he’d been to losing her.

Actually, he had lost her, and it had been the hardest time in his life.

His thoughts had been: “Me without Jenna is like tea without sugar, bland and tasteless.”

That was about right.

As he watched her sleeping there, he realized just how lucky he was.

His thoughts drifted back to all of the times they had spent together.

When they’d met for the first time, under that fence, later, the somewhat painful memory of their second meeting, when Jenna had joined her friends in ridiculing him, when he’d saved Rosie’s hat, just before the epidemic hit, the time that they’d spent under the hospital, and then, the bear fight, and the ice incident soon after…

That was a pleasurable memory.

When he’d come back to Nome with the medicine, their first kiss, the love that they shared for each other, the birth of their first pups, and Aleu, when the pups had to leave…

That was a little painful. Though they both had known that it would have to come, these pups were their first, and it was hard to let them go.

The birth of their second litter, when Balto had thought that she had died out in the storm, on the way to Shishmaref, the complete and utter joy that came from seeing that little piece of red cloth in the snow, and seeing her alive, comforting her when she had thought that Rosie hadn’t made it, the joy on her face when she learned that Rosie was still alive, watching her go over that waterfall, and feeling completely helpless, thinking she had drowned when he finally did find her. Her rescuing him from Ashe when he’d tried to fight her. Seeing Dash, their son, join Aleu’s pack, and take Shasta as his mate, comforting Jenna when they’d thought Dash had been killed, and then finding out he was okay. Dash and Shasta having their first pups, Timbre and Melody, their daughter, getting together, Steele’s attacks, comforting Jenna when she thought she’d killed Steele, the events that surrounded Trinea, and her lie about him and her, seeing her beat up by Gia’s wolves, the happiness she felt for him, when Balto was adopted by Luke, the birth of their third set of pups, saving her, and them, from Togo, the crazed dog from Applegate, and then… then losing all of that, all of those times, all the trust…. everything… over one night, the night he’d spent with Angel.

As he thought back, he still didn’t know why he’d done it, it had just kind of… happened.

Balto never remembered making a conscious decision to cheat on Jenna, it just… happened.

The next thing he knew, he was too far into it to back out, and then he woke up, and realized what he’d done.

Balto had decided to keep the event secret, Angel even said she wouldn’t tell anyone, but… when Balto had seen Jenna…. The trust she had in him, when he told her nothing was wrong, the complete and total acceptance of that fact, solely because he’d said it…. he couldn’t….

He told her.

Everything blew up then, Jenna eventually refused to even see him, his friends hated him, her father, once his friend, had been ready to seriously kill him….

And then?

Balto still wasn’t sure what had changed Jenna’s mind, but he was told that he had Max to thank for the majority of it.

And thank her he did.

It still hurt, and the wound was still there, Balto didn’t know if it would ever heal completely.

Jenna’s trust in him had been broken, and it still wasn’t healed completely. It bothered him badly that she always had to wonder if he was telling the truth now, or whether he’d….

A single tear welled up in his eye.

It rolled down his face to the edge of his muzzle, and fell, landing on Jenna’s nose.

She stirred, and opened her eyes, blinking a few times, and yawned.

“Balto? What’s wrong?”

“I’m so sorry Jen.” He said.

She yawned again, and a confused look came over her face.

“Sorry about what?”

“Everything.” Balto said.

“Balto,” Jenna said, “we’ve already talked… talked about Angel, I told you, I forgive you.”

She smiled.

“Just forget about it.”

“I can’t,” he said, “that was the single stupidest thing I have ever done.”

“Yes it was,” Jenna said, “but… well, I guess everyone makes mistakes, errors in judgment.”

Balto shook his head.

“That wasn’t a mistake, I…”

He sighed.

“I don’t know what it was, but it wasn’t a mistake. I’ve been sitting here for almost two hours, just going over all of the experiences that we have shared Jen, and then, in that one act, like one hour, I destroyed it all.”

Jenna nodded.

“But we’re back together now.” Jenna said, “and you won’t do it again, you learned from this mistake, right?”

Balto nodded.

“Never again, I definitely learned that lesson.”

Jenna yawned again, smiled, and nuzzled him, licking his neck.

“That’s all that matters.”

He smiled.

“I’m glad we’re back together again too, Jen,” he said. “I can’t live without you.”

“Just remember that.” Jenna said, laying her head on