Gemeni.

“Thanks,” he said, “I thought I was gonner.”

She nuzzled him. Then tried to see through the snow, trying to spot their rescuers.

One of them, a red one ,that looked more like a husky than a wolf to Gemeni, walked up to the group.

“You guys okay?” He asked.

“Dash?” Drake said, “it’s good to see you.

“Drake?” Dash said, “wow, what are you doing out here?”

“We’re looking for you guys,” Drake said.

He noticed that Gemeni looked a little confused.

“Gemeni this Dash, Balto’s son.”

“Oh,” Gemeni said, “nice to meet you. You guys showed up just in time.”

“Well we heard the fight, and thought it might be someone from our pack, so we came to help.”

Dash looked up behind him at the rest of his group.

“Come on down here guys,” he yelled.

The three made their way down the hill. There were two grey ones and a brown one.

“Uncle Drake?” Melody asked.

“Hey Melody, how’re you?”

“Just fine, except for this storm,” she said. “Timbre, this is Drake, he’s a good friend of the family.

“Yes,” the brown wolf said as he stepped forward, “I seem to remember you talking about him.”

“Oh and this is my mate Shasta,” Dash said. The other grey wolf stepped forward.

“Nice to meet you,” she said.

“I don’t remember you,” Dash said, looking at Gemeni

“Oh,” Drake said, “this is Gemeni. We met about a week ago.”

“So you finally found a girl huh old man,” Drake said, jokingly.

Gemeni looked at the snow, little embarrassed.

Drake looked at her and laughed.

“Yeah,” he said.

“Hey have you guys seen Jenna?”

“Mom?” Melody said, “yeah, she’s back at the cave.”

“So she made it?” Gemeni said.

“More or less” Timbre said, “but we’ll tell you the story once we get to the cave, come on, you guys are gong to freeze.”

“Wait,” Melody said, “was dad with you?”

“Balto!” Gemeni said as she turned and ran to the tree.

He still hadn’t moved.

“He hit his head,” Gemeni said.

Well he looks okay,” Dash said, “Timbre can you carry him?”

“Yeah I think so,” Timbre said as he knelt down.

The other dogs and wolves helped pull Balto onto Timbre’s back. He stood up.

“Hey what are you guys doing out here?” Gemeni asked.

“We were looking for a yearling, who went out on her first hunt, just before the storm began,” Shasta said.

“Did you find her?” Drake asked.

Melody shook her head.

“And this was the last day of the search,” she said.

“That’s the way of things though,” Timber said.

“Come on let’s go,” Dash said, “I don’t know about you, but I’m freezing.” The group started walking back to the cave.

Chapter XVIII

“Aleu,” Shadow said as he walked up behind her. “What was with the look back there?”

“Shadow,” Aleu said,

“…”

“What,” Shadow asked.

“Something’s really bothering her,” Shadow thought.

“Aleu what is it?”

“I had a dream… a few nights ago.”

She paused.

“I was coming back to the cave, and everyone was gone.”

She took a deep breath and sighed.

“Everyone but Dash, Shasta, their pups Melody, Timbre, you and the kids….”

“So?” Shadow said.

A tear came to her eye.

“You were all dead.” She said.

Shadow didn’t know quite how to respond to this, so he remained silent.

“There was one other here, a black and white malamute, it must’ve been Steele, anyway all he would say is “Don’t help them.” I got mad at him and started yelling at him. I told him no one was here I asked him who I was supposed to not help. Then I realized that it must’ve been him who killed all of you. I asked him why, why he would do such a thing when I’d never even seen him before. He said “you helped them.”

“Well, Shadow said, “we can’t turn Jenna away.”

“No,” Aleu said, “we can’t. I’d never turn any of my family away. But we can make sure that Steele doesn’t find his way into the cave. Shadow I want your team on full alert, have them patrol every possible entrance. If you want to enlist some more help, you may do so, alright?”

“Yes ma’am,” Shadow said, grinning.

“Aleu smiled back at him and hit him playfully.

“Shadow,” she said, serious once more. “be extremely careful.”

“I will,” Shadow said.

“Really,” Aleu said walking over to him, “don’t do anything stupid, okay?”

“I’ll be fine Aleu,” he said, “don’t worry.”

“Aleu!”

Aleu turned to see Dash running up to her.

Dash, did you find her?”

Dash shook his head, “but we did find someone else.”

Timbre entered the room then with Balto on his back.

“Dad?” Aleu said as she ran over to him.

Timbre gently slid Balto to the ground.

He still hadn’t moved.

What happened? Aleu asked.

“We were attacked by Steele,” a familiar voice said.

Aleu looked and saw Drake.

“Drake?” she said.

Aleu smiled.

“What are you doing here?”

“We came to help find Jenna,” a female standing beside Drake said.

“Oh, Aleu,” Drake said, “this is Gemeni.”

“Hi,” Aleu said.

She turned back to Drake.

“So what happened to him?”

We were attacked by Steele and he hit his head on a tree,” Gemeni said.

Jenna walked in the room then.

“Hey Dash,” didn’t know you guys were…”

She stopped as she saw Balto.

“Balto?” she said as she ran over.

“What happened?” she asked.

“We were attacked by Steele,” Drake said, “he

hit his head.”

“I think he’s coming around,” Shadow said.

Balto moved his head and groaned.

“He slowly opened his eyes.

“Wow,” he said slowly, “my head hurts.”

He paused.

“What happened?”

We were attacked by Steele,” Gemeni said.

“Steele?” Said Balto.

“Yeah,” Drake added, “you were out of it pretty quick.”

“Balto are you okay?” Jenna asked.

“Jenna?” Balto said, “Jenna!”

He tried to jump up, but he was still kind of woozy and he fell back down.

“Take it easy,” Jenna said.

“I.. I didn’t know if I’d ever see you again,” Balto said.

Jenna grinned at him.

He stood up, slowly this time.

“Aleu,” he said, “it’s good to see you too.”

“Ya feel alright dad?” Melody asked.

“I feel fine,” Balto said.

“It’s a good thing we found you when we did,” Dash said.

“Yeah,” Balto said.

“Grandpa!”

“I’m still getting used to being called that,” he thought as he turned around just in time for the three pups, Lima, Sheik, and Thunder to land on him.

The three of them romped around and played with him, chewed on his ears and crawled all over him, then they got bored with that and ran off to find something else to do.

“So I guess Steele is still out there?” Jenna said.

Balto nodded.

“We’re going to have to do something about that though. “As long as he breathes, you and I won’t feel safe anywhere.”

“Balto,” Jenna said, “can we do that? Can we really just hunt him down like that?”

“I don’t like it either Jenna,” Balto said.

“But dad’s right,” Aleu said.

Jenna still didn’t look too happy.

“We’ll talk about it later,” Aleu said, “for now who’s hungry?”

“I’m starving,” Balto said.

“Well come on,” Shadow said, let’s go eat.”

The group walked out of the chamber.

It was night again and Iimos was standing guard. He peered out into the swirling snow. He couldn’t see a thing.

He shivered. It was cold!

Usually this entrance wasn’t guarded, because it was so hard to get to, but apparently this Steele was a resourceful character. The entire security force was on high alert, and every entrance guarded.

He started thinking about other things, most notably the female he’d met the other day. “She was the most beautiful thing I have ever seen,” he thought. He wanted to tell her, but he hadn’t worked up the courage to do that just yet. She was awfully popular in the pack

“What if she doesn’t like me,” Iimos thought.

“Ah, it’s nothing to worry ‘bout buddy,” he thought to himself, “if she doesn’t she doesn’t, it’s not that big of a deal. You’re living without her now aren’t you?”

Suddenly he thought he saw something flit through the cloud of snow in front of him.

He walked out and stood at the edge of the cliff entrance. He looked out in the snow. He couldn’t see a thing.

He squinted and looked down. He didn’t even have time to cry out as he saw the malamute Steele, there on the ledge, for Steele hit him in the shoulder with his paw and dug in deep. Then he yanked the wolf off of the cliff. Steele didn’t hear the wolf hit the