around me and Dad went out to the hunting grounds and he gave me lessons,” she explained.
“Well, do you think you could pass along some of those lessons?”
“Sure, BUT you have do something for me first.”
“Fine, what is it?” he asked dryly.
“A simple little task, all you have to do is admit that I’m the best, and I’ll give you some lessons,” she said.
“No. Way. Ain’t gunna happen,” he said defiantly.
“Kay, I guess you can go ahead and starve then,” she said with a sly smile parting her lips slightly.
“Ok! I’ll do it!” he said finally giving in after his stomach growled in protest.
“I’m waiting,” she said, egging him on.
“You’re the best,” he mumbled.
“I’m sorry, what?” she asked, actually hearing him the first time but just wanting to make it hard for him.
“You’re the best, Ok!” he yelled at her.
She giggled,“I know.”
“Now, about those lessons,” he reminded her.
“Right, come over here,” she said as she walked over to the field with all the mice in it.


“Alrighty, I’m going to give you the crash-course in hunting. First I want you to get into a stalking stance like mine,” she told him.
“Like this?” he asked her, getting back into his akward stance but trying to correct it after seeing her's. “Close enough. Now I want you to pick a target, and wait for it to come close,” she instructed.
“Alright, got one,” he told her, anxious for what to do next.
“Now i want you to lower yourself to the ground, but keep your stance, and don’t make a sound,” she instructed further.
“Alright,” he waited for it to come close enough to ensure a good catch.
“Now…go for it!” she yelled, quietly enough though to not startle the mouse.
“Heeyaaaa!” he yelled out as he gave chase. At first he was losing his prey, but gradually caught up to it.
“I got you now!” he yelled as he made a leap for it. When he landed, he opened his paws to find a pretty big rat between them. He smiled and yelled to Angel, “I got him! I got him!”
“Not bad for your first real try!”
He laughed and picked up the rat in his teeth and carried it back to where Angel was.
“Here, you can have this one. Now that I know how to hunt the right way, I want to catch more,” he said. “No thanks, I’m full, I caught two more while you were tryin’ to catch that one,” she told him.
“Are you serious?! God your good at this!”
“Yeah well, I’ve had practice.”
He quickly ate the one he caught, and went back out for some more. The whole time he was hunting, Angel was watching.
‘Man, he’s good at this! He’s picking this up much faster then I did! Its no wonder why Dad wanted him as the next alpha,’ she thought to herself.
She was awakened from her thoughts by Dante waving his paw infront of her face.
“Hello? Anybody home?” he asked sarcastically.
“Huh, what, what did you say?” she asked a little startled.
“Well I was just sayin’ that we should probably find some shelter soon. It’s startin’ to get dark,” he told her while looking up to the darkening sky.
“Oh, ok yeah, sounds good. Lead the way.” she also looked up to the sky as she got up to follow him along with a new objective in both of their minds, find shelter.





15 minutes later…





“Dante! I don’t think we’re goin’ to find anything out here! And it’s starting to get darker!” she told him. “Hold on, I think I see something up ahead,” he replied back to her. As they got closer, the image started getting clearer through the lightly falling snow.
“It’s a cave!” Dante shouted to Angel. They took off running full speed towards it, but stopped at the entrance of it.
“Do you think it’s already taken?” Angel asked Dante.
“Yeah, it is, and by a bear,” He told her, sniffing the entrance to the cave. Angel gasped. “Don’t worry! It hasn’t been here in a long time. Probably abandoned it,” Dante assured her.
“Well, as long as nothing else lives here, then ok.”





5 minutes later…





Dante and Angel were curled next to each other in the back of the cave, trying to get away from the biting cold outside. A blizzard was starting to blow in and was making the temperature drop fast.
“Hey Angel?” Dante asked.
“Yeah?” she replied.
“Do you--do you think that dad is still alive?” he asked her.
“I have know idea Dante,” she responded truthfully.
“But we didn’t find his body anywhere, which means that maybe he isn’t dead,” he told her with some hope in his voice.
“Yeah but we didn’t exactly look around very long either,” Angel pointed out.
“Oh, right…” the hope in his voice disappearing just as quickly as it had come.
“Look all I’m saying is, don’t go and believe that right away. Maybe he is and maybe he isn’t, but it could just lead to disappointment.”
"Well do you think that at least some of our pack is still alive?” he asked.
“I wouldn’t doubt it, but like I said, don’t get your hopes up just yet,” she told him. Dante just lay there thinking about everything that had happened today after that question. Thinking about how happy everybody was just a few hours ago, and how quickly everything had been torn apart to end up like this. About why exactly Dustin ran off and if he was ok. If his father was truely still alive or not. But most importantly, about what the future held for him and Angel. And many other things.
“Hey Angel?” he asked.
No response.
“Angel?” he asked a little louder.
Still no response.
He looked over at her and heard light snoring coming from her and he knew instantly that she had fallen asleep. He smiled at her and laid his head back down to try and follow her lead.


Dante was almost asleep when he was awakened by what sounded like heavy footsteps. At first he didn’t think much of it and thought it was simply his imagination, a lot had happened today after all, but a few minutes later he heard it again and it sounded a little closer than before.
This time he got up to go check out what could possibly be making that sound, if anything actually was. He stuck his head out of the entrance to see if his eyes could pick up anything and was surprised by how much colder it had gotten.
He was about to go back inside when he heard the sound again, even closer this time. Dante spun around and looked around everywhere. This time though he thought he saw something but he couldn’t tell exactly. If there was something there then he couldn’t make it out, because it was hidden behind a fairly large tree.
He was about to go check it out, but one step outside told him otherwise. It was too cold to go find out if anything was out there. He turned to go back in but after only a few steps he felt hot breath on the back of his neck.
He froze.
He didn’t know what to do, should he look and see what it is or should he stand still and hope nothing happens. He finally got up enough courage to turn and look. After he saw what it was he wished he hadn’t.
He came face to face with a Kodiak bear.
He noticed that it wasn’t very old but that didn’t matter much, it was still about 4x his size, and it didn’t look too happy.
The bear reared up and let out a loud roar, slashing at Dante’s face, but he managed to dodge the attack and run to the back of the cave.


“Angel! Get up! We've got company!” Dante yelled to her.
“Huh-who-what-where?” she woke up startled.
“Angel we’ve got to get out of here!” he told her franticly.
“Why?! What happened?!” she asked confused.
“That!” he yelled staring at the bear who was now in the back of the cave.
“OH MY GOD!” Angel cried out.
The bear reared up again and turned its attention on Angel.
“No! Angel run!” Dante shouted to her, but the bear wouldn’t let her past.
“I can’t, the bears in the way!” she yelled back. The bear swiped for Angel’s chest, but she was able to dodge it at the last second.
“Damn it! Well then it looks like theirs only one way to get out of here then!”
“Dante your not serious!” Angel said in disbelief.
“You got a better idea?” he asked while trying to dodge another swipe from the bears claws.
“Well…no”
“Then we’ve got no other choice,” he said and jumped at the bears neck.


The bear easily knocked him aside and into a wall. Dante fell unconscious as soon as he connected with it.
“Dante! No!” Angel yelled to her fallen brother. Anger and adrenaline now coursing through