again, I will personally rip out your throats and watch you die with a smile on my face. I’m done here.”

Slowly I slid my paws off their chests and backed away, watching them in case they decided to follow. Neither of them moved. They didn’t even watch me go.

I turned around and sauntered down to the entrance of the cave. I looked into its hollow chamber for the last time, before turning and breaking into a flying gallop, pounding over the frozen plain. I left behind my old territory and hurtled into the unknown, where nothing but snow and ice and silence greeted me.

A lightness came over me like raven’s wings, and a howl soared from my throat that raced over the tundra and expressed my relief to the world. I grinned almost happily. Happy birthday to me. I’m free. I’m free!

I loped on for a couple miles before scenting and then seeing a pack of wolves gathered together on a small piece of the Alaskan tundra. My first instinct was to run, but the pack’s smell snuck up my nostrils and bruised my brain with memories. It was the White Storm pack. Their leader, Kalim, had shown concern for me when I was a pup. Maybe he could help me now.

I started to run forward, and almost slammed into a gray wolf who seemed to appear out of nowhere. I tried to barge past him, but he blocked me every time. Then he pushed me back, and I saw I was surrounded by four other wolves. I cursed softly under my breath.

“You have invaded White Storm territory,” the wolf who had blocked me proclaimed loudly, “State your name, pack, and mission. Unsatisfactory missions will be dealt with accordingly.”

“I don’t have a name,” I spat, “And I don’t have a pack, either. I want to see Kalim so I can become a new pack member…and none of you can stop me.” I had decided the only way to lead a normal life as a wolf would be to join a wolf pack. And man, did I want to be normal, to forget everything about my very unordinary and most unfortunate past.

“No name?” one of the wolves echoed in surprise.

“Feisty little thing, isn’t she?” another of them chuckled.

I whirled around with a snarl and a warning glare to show him just how feisty I could be. Immediately the others barricaded me in with their bodies. I was about to take a swipe at one of them when the commanding wolf’s words caught me.

“Kalim has passed on,” he said, “Our new leader is Ice Moon. If you would like an audience with her, we’ll escort you there.”

I gritted my teeth to stop myself from breaking through the bodies caging me and running to see Ice Moon myself. Defiance wasn’t going to get me anywhere, even if it was my style of dealing with others. I gave the leader of the group the smallest of nods and forced an “Okay” past my teeth. He returned the nod and signaled the group with one paw.

Immediately the four wolves took one step away from me, and for a moment I thought I was free to go.

But no. They boxed me in, and so I was forced to march like a common criminal into Ice Moon’s cave.

Ice Moon sat staring into space on her throne of rock. She would have been an imposing figure if not for the path tears had cut through the fur on her face. Her fur was a dark red-brown with a crescent-shaped patch of white at her throat. She seemed to snap out of a sorrowful trance when the leader of my escort cleared his throat, and her dead brown eyes flicked over me. “Jaydor, who is this?” she whispered icily.

“She has no name nor pack, Ice Moon,” Jaydor answered, “She wishes to speak to you about-”

“Make me a member of your pack,” I demanded, pushing forward.

Ice Moon bristled, and her fur color reminded me vaguely of Roan’s. I forced myself to stay calm even as flames seemed to kindle inside my chest and behind my eyes.

“No name, you say?” she muttered coldly, “Perhaps we will have to settle for ‘Impertinent One’, since that is what you are.”

“I’ll choose my own name, thanks,” I snapped. The truth was, I hadn’t decided on a name for myself yet. It probably sounds stupid, but a name is more than a label. It was about the only thing in life I could control, so it had to be perfect. It had to reflect me. I wasn’t about to let Ice Moon take that freedom away from me.

“You wish to be a member of my pack,” Ice Moon mused, “Why?”

I sighed impatiently. “Look, here’s how it went. I was kidnapped by Roan and Soran when my mother, Aniu, gave birth to me-”

“Aniu?” Ice Moon practically shrieked. Then she seemed to put a mask over her face.

I eyed her suspiciously. “Yes, Aniu. Do you have a problem with my mother’s name or something?”

“Such an unusual name,” she gushed, but I’m not stupid. She knew my mother or she knew something about my mother that she was hiding. I watched her carefully as she said in a stiff voice, “Please continue.”

I told her the whole story, starting with the kidnapping and ending with my escape from Roan and Soran and my journey to her cave. When I finished I felt exhausted, as if a hurricane had whirled inside me and then spiraled out bit by bit.

Ice Moon stretched her lips in a thin smile. “Well, well. I’m glad to see you got here safe and sound. Yes, you are welcome to be a member of the White Storm pack. Jaydor, show her where the pack sleeps. She deserves rest.”

He nodded and turned to go.

“Oh, and Jaydor?”

He stopped.

“Send a troop to the inhabitance of Roan and Soran. If they are there, kill them.”

“NO!” I yelled.

The whole cave was silent. Jaydor was struggling not to gape at me. And if I thought Ice Moon had bristled before, this was no comparison! It looked as if all her fur suddenly suffered severe gravity loss.

“You dare oppose your leader?” she screeched.

“Yes, I do dare,” I said as calmly as I could, “Because I’ve already…worked everything out with them. I’ve left them to themselves. You don’t need to kill them.”

“Since when does any wolf need to be killed?” Ice Moon answered dryly, waving me away with a few last words: “But with your impudence, you have just condemned them.” She turned her back, and Jaydor hustled me out of the cave before I could say anything more.

“Don’t push it,” he muttered to me, his voice rough and coarse, much different from the voice he had spoken to Ice Moon with.

“Look who’s talking!” I exclaimed without thinking.

Jaydor stopped in his tracks, and slowly pivoted around to face me. “You don’t have any respect for authority, do you?” he said lowly.

“Anyone who tries to boss me around doesn’t deserve respect,” I growled. Frankly, I didn’t think much of Jaydor. His personality and mine were like the clash of fire and water. He seemed too cold and stiff, too obsessed with rank and rules. I, on the other hand, had learned that to survive I had to be as disobedient and disrespectful as I could so as not to let my kidnappers get the better of me.

Jaydor and I stared at each other like wolves about to fight, but then he looked away and trotted on. I followed him into a cave entrance hidden in the hill by fallen branches and dirt and snow. Jaydor padded into a large stone chamber and up to a young gray female who was busy rationing out the meat to several other wolves. She stopped what she was doing to listen to him, and then signaled another wolf to take over her job. Jaydor and the female hurried over to me while I stood awkwardly, feeling exposed and enclosed at the same time. Seeing so many wolves together at one time, and feeling no wind rushing past my face, made me dizzy and lonely at the same time. I was an alien to this life.

“This is my sister, Crystal,” Jaydor said, “She’ll help you out until you’ve settled into pack life.”

“Call me Crys,” Crystal said warmly, her blue-purple eyes laughing with utter amusement of the world and all its inhabitants.

I nodded to her carefully. I had learned it was never too smart to trust anyone too much. Crystal’s cheer only made me more suspicious of her.

Jaydor excused himself to return to his duties, and I was left staring with hatred at Crystal’s brittle smile. How could she be so happy when the world, even her own pack leader, was full of turmoil? I didn’t understand her, or trust her.

“Jay said to find someplace for you to sleep,” Crystal told me, “After what he told me you’ve been through, I don’t blame him. You’re lucky that at this time of day the sleeping quarters are almost always empty. C’mon!”

I grudgingly followed her past the wolves getting their food, and they all stared at me as if I really was an alien. I glared at them as I padded past, but then I almost smashed into a stalagmite in my way. From there on I stuck to holding my head high and ignoring the others, but it was a relief to enter a narrow passageway and then a small, empty cave.

Suddenly my mind shut down. All my defiance and rigidness in my muscles dribbled away. Exhaustion over what had happened in the past few hours left me feeling boneless and weak. I stumbled over to a spot and collapsed, sinking into sleep like it was a warm blanket. Crystal was still talking, though.

“Well, now that you’re part of the pack, you need a name,” she was saying brightly, “What do you think we should call you?”

I was too tired even to make a smart-aleck comment about the prissy, girly names she was probably conjuring up for me in her mind this very minute.

My memories circled back to the nights when Roan and Soran, drunk on the blood of their prey, would raise their eyes to the moon and tell stories of Luna, the moon goddess, a female white wolf who watched over all wolves from the skies at night. She was doomed to an inferior fate, though, for when it came the time for day, she took to the shadows while her mate Fenris, the sun god, soared into the skies with his shining golden eyes and coat. His loud glory covered her own simple beauty, and she was destined to be overshadowed by him until her night came again.

That’s how I felt: unnoticed, overwhelmed, swallowed up by a pack name. I was no longer myself. I was a White Storm wolf. But I wouldn’t allow this to be my destiny. I wouldn’t let something