ground.

Rage shot through my blood and flared up into fiery anger in my heart. I was surprised fire wasn’t flaming out of my ears. I could hardly believe it. I had been used again, and by the one I thought loved me and who I had loved back. Well, no more. My childish love for Jaydor was gone. My mind cleared, and all I could see was Cyan.

I charged from my hiding place and butted Jaydor in the chest, throwing him off Cyan. Jaydor crashed to the ground a few feet away, but no one rushed to help him. His supporters were weak.

I turned to Cyan and asked the stupidest question on Earth: “Are you okay?” Apart from some scratches and two deep bites Jaydor had given him on both front legs, Cyan seemed fine.

“Yeah,” he muttered, his blue eyes huge as he looked up at me. I knew he was wondering how much I had heard, but there wasn’t time for that now.

I spun around to see Jaydor heaving himself up from the snow. His gaze was icy, and no doubt mine was filled with fire. I said before that we clashed like fire and water; this was no exception.

“Luna,” Jaydor said coolly, “What are you doing here? Did you need applause for your contribution to this rebellion?” He clapped by smacking his paws together and then thumping them down on the ground, over and over. No one else joined in.

“We don’t need to listen to you try to be funny, Jaydor,” I spat, “There are only three things you need to do.”

“And what might those be?” he asked.

“One,” I cried, “Name Cyan the leader of these rebels and the new leader of the White Storm pack. Two, get as far away from here as you can.”

“And three?” he laughed nastily.

“Three,” I said coldly, “Never come back.”

Jaydor lifted his head back and roared with laughter. There were a few startled gasps from the crowd, and then some titters.

“Luna, your help isn’t needed anymore,” Jaydor said quietly, “You see, I have had it planned out from the beginning. We will sneak into Ice Moon’s cave tonight, kill her while she sleeps, and then I will become alpha while Cyan is the omega– I mean, beta wolf. You did nothing for us but speed up the process. Even so, for that you have my greatest thanks.”

“Traitor!” someone gasped.

I whirled around to see Crystal and Ice Moon at the edge of the crowd. Crystal was trembling with a livid expression on her face, and I guessed she had been the one who had spoken.

Jaydor saw his chance and leapt upon me, flattening me to the ground. I struggled and very nearly threw him off again, but he flipped me onto my side and pinned my neck under his paw. If I made the slightest move, no doubt he would crush his paw down to end my life. I lay still.

I could hear Cyan trying to get up, but his weakened, bleeding front legs weren’t allowing him to do so. I was almost blinded by my hatred for Jaydor.

“Traitor,” I heard Crystal whisper again.

“Me?” Jaydor said innocently, “You’re the traitor here. You weren’t supposed to wake up Ice Moon!”

“Jaydor, what is wrong with you?” Crystal cried angrily, “I didn’t think Ice Moon should be pack leader, but I didn’t think we should kill her! Listen to me, Jaydor! I’m your sister! Ice Moon is our mother! How can you kill your own mother?”

“She stopped acting like a mother the day Kalim died,” Jaydor said in a low voice, “So she is no longer my mother, but an insane leader who endangers us all unless I become alpha!”

An outraged silence stretched the tension lingering in the air.

Suddenly Ice Moon stepped forward, wading through the other wolves until she stood before her son. I could almost feel Jaydor’s glare at Ice Moon scorch my fur.

“So you wish to be alpha,” Ice Moon murmured in the calmest voice I’d ever heard her use, “That wish can only be marked by my death, now that I am an old wolf who will be no use unless I remain alpha. We will fight. My death will mark you the alpha and the new leader of the White Storm pack. Your defeat, but not necessarily your death, will mark my continuous reign as alpha until I pass on like your father, Kalim.”

“Mother!” Crystal cried, but I guessed she was silenced by a look from Ice Moon.

“All right,” Jaydor said slowly, “All right, Ice Moon. We’ll fight like you just said.”

“Since it is probable you will kill me, I would like to say one last thing to you and your sister,” Ice Moon murmured quietly.

“Yes?” Jaydor said warily.

“Jaydor and Crystal, I love you both. I’m sorry if you thought otherwise.” Ice Moon sighed. “At least now I will finally rejoin Kalim.”

I watched with the eye that wasn’t pressed against the ground as Ice Moon backed up a few paces and shifted herself to the ground, ready to spring.

There was a silence so sudden for a few seconds I wondered whether I had gone deaf.

Jaydor sprang forward, and broke the silence by shouting, “Whoever wants Ice Moon dead, attack now!” Jaydor knocked his mother over, and soon fighting mother and son were lost in the barrage of wolves that came at them.

I swung myself to my feet and swayed as air rushed into my lungs. Crystal’s cry of “No!” rang through my head like a somber bell. I remembered Cyan, and whipped around, but the last I saw of him were his huge blue eyes staring at me before wolves leapt onto me and started attacking. Me! Why were they attacking me?

One look into their faces told all: they were overcome with blood lust.  They had waited a long time for this mutiny, and in their eagerness they no longer cared who they killed.

As I defended myself, a revolution struck me hard. I could never live in this pack. I could never live knowing my leader, Jaydor, had pretended to love me and then betrayed me. And I could never live among wolves who had tried to kill me, like they were doing now.

I heaved one wolf at Kamotz, who struck out blindly because of his one eye. A fight flared up between Kamotz and others he attacked aimlessly, and so I made my getaway into the night.

The anguished cries of dying White Storm wolves filled my mind as I struck out into the moonlit tundra. They filled me with as much pain and suffering as my wounds did.

I looked behind me to see I was leaving a trail of bloody pawprints. They gleamed darkly on the white snow, a dark sin on white purity.

I galloped silently across the wilderness, the wrenching cries fading as I left them behind. They didn’t fade from my mind, though.

The screams echoed through me and pounded in my ears as I ran on and on. With every step I weakened, and finally I stopped, visions of the rebellion flashing in front of my eyes.

My heart burst.

I sent up a long, sorrowful, hopeless howl for all the world to hear, and then I collapsed.

Pain jabbed at my front leg. I smelled blood, and the thick scent of a dying body. Was I dead? I felt like it.

Groaning, I opened my eyes to see a wolverine sliding its sharp teeth into my right front leg and taking a bite. My body jolted from the sudden pain, and the bearcat’s brown eyes flashed as they stared at me. For a minute I stared back, oblivious. Then the thought came: it’s eating me! I looked so much like I was dead that it had started to eat me!

With a weak whimper (which was meant to be a fearsome growl) I nudged the wolverine’s face with my paw (I wanted to hit him, but you know…)

It stepped back, startled, then advanced again.

I waited for the rage to rise inside me, to pour out into my limbs and give me strength…Nothing. I felt nothing. I was drained of my strength, my anger. All I could feel was helplessness as the wolverine began to claw at my side. I twitched and shuddered and closed my eyes hard, and suddenly memories shot back at me from the blackness of my mind. Luna. I had been Luna, and now I was betrayed. I would never find my family. I would always be alone.

I gave myself up to the cutting claws slashing me to ribbons and felt myself spinning into a cool whirlpool of death black and blood red…

A gunshot rang through my head, rippling the whirlpool until it blurred. My eyes snapped open. I was still lying on my side, and I expected to feel a bullet jammed between my ribs. At least the wolverine was still.

Footsteps thumped towards me, and a hunter knelt next to me with the butt of his gun on the ground. “Well,” he murmured, “Lucky I got here when I did.”

I closed my eyes. I didn’t care what he did to me.

I felt rough hands slide the dead wolverine off me, and then I was picked up and cradled against the man’s warm body, and wrapped in a corner of his coat. “Let’s see what I can do for you,” he whispered to me.

I suddenly felt sick, and my head started to spin. I spun down a long, black chute that either led to sleep or death. Only this strange man would be able to decide which one it would be.

His name was Mark.

That was the first thing he told me after he bandaged me up and I had recovered from my state of delirium. He told me many things as I lay by the fire of his remote cabin out in the wilderness, letting my wounds heal. Sometimes I was sure he was the loneliest man in the world.

As I lay listening and he sat running his hands over his gun, he told me about his past and how he had come to live in his hermit-like existence. He had committed several crimes, one of them a murder, and so he had run out here and built this house, and lived here ever since. In his running away he had only taken three things: a hatchet, a gun, and his dog Shannon.

His voice dipped and dove for hours as he wove a tapestry of his life for my ears to hear and drink in. While I listened, I had plenty of time to study him. Mark had a pale, slightly wrinkled face, but his brown eyes were kind, even if there was sadness behind them. His hair was a shock of messy brown with only a few streaks of silver. He couldn’t have been that old, yet he was hunched over like an old man and walked stiffly, as if he were made of wood instead of flesh. With all his aging traits and the tenderness with which he spoke of his dog Shannon, I could hardly believe he was a murderer.

Being alone for so long had made his mind