of relief as she began to catch her breath from her sudden rage. Wow, what a feeling . . . That must be the wolf in me, I guess . . .

“Yeah, sure it has,” Juniper scoffed back. “Now, let’s go! Our Alpha will place judgment on you once we get there.” She gave a gesture to Hickory with her muzzle, as if to tell him step away from the prisoner. Hickory moved his body from over Aleu, freeing her from the large lupine’s grasp; Aleu gasped for air and began to stand up to her feet with Geona’s assistance. “Keep a close eye on her, Geona,” Juniper reminded her fellow wolf. “She may run off again if any of us takes our eyes off her.” 

Geona nodded as she stayed to the side of the young stranger, but Aleu only responded with a few headstrong words of her own. “Oh, don’t worry. It’s not like I want to go back to where I came from anyway.”

“Come on now,” Hickory nudged Aleu from behind, much to her surprise. “We need to hurry if we want to make it home before dark.” Aleu turned around and gave him a glare to show her disapproval of the gesture from moments ago; the dark-brown wolf seemed unmoved by the female quarter-wolf’s sign of anger, but continued to watch from behind as Juniper took the lead for the group as they made their way deeper into the forest, mainly heading to the mountains east of Nome. 

Meanwhile, the leafy low branches had slightly tangled up the brown-gray hybrid as he tried to reach the mid-point of a forest pine. Balto grunted slightly as he got the tree’s limbs to release him from their grips. After quickly catching his breath, he placed his large beige front paws against the tree’s bark skin and clawed pieces off of it, making some sort of a marking to remind him of the way home.

“It’s getting darker now,” Balto noted aloud to himself as he could clearly feel the slight chill of the evening breeze start to whip against his grizzly coat. The sky was a faded reddish-purple, for the sun had covered itself under the shelter of the horizon behind where the father half-breed stood on the natural forest litter. He let out a worried sigh as he looked upward towards the heavens above him. “I just hope I find her safe.” 

Deep down, Balto was struggling with the thoughts of where his only child could be at the moment while also dealing with his return into the wilderness that he had chosen to swear off of journeying into after finding out that he was to enter the realm of parenthood.

I never realized that I would feel so lost out here, Balto thought to himself. He hadn’t been in the woods for over a year, and the wolf side of him seemed rather weak, especially since for the past year since the death of his mate allowed him to live amongst the humans instead of back aboard his grounded wooden boat like he always had since for as long as he could remember. I guess all that time with Rosy and the other humans has softened my wild instincts . . . The nearby cries of the woodland owls and birds signaled the beginning of the night, the awakening of the nocturnal creatures that had slumbered throughout the brightness of the daylight hours.  

“I have to find some sort of shelter,” the half-breed thought out loud, unfortunately realizing that as much as he wanted to stay out and continue his search for Aleu, the dreary feel of the forest and the chilled darkness that almost seemed to engulf him was a sign that he should wait until the sun’s light brightened his paths once more. “I’ll just have to trust that my baby’s okay out here tonight.” He sighed as a small rock cave, one that was probably used by female wolves to give birth and raise their pups before returning to their home packs, suddenly came into view from a mysterious night mist, which quickly dispersed once Balto finally noticed the cave. “Hmm, I suppose this cave will do for now . . .” He approached the cavern and sniffed around, hoping that it wasn’t currently being used by any other wild animals. Once he realized that the scent was quite stale and that the cave was indeed safe, Balto stepped into it, turned around from the inside, and laid on the rock that made a hard, uncomfortable bed. His front legs and paws kept his head slightly upright, but it was difficult for him to even fall asleep, for the worry he had for his only child forbade him to shut his eyes.

Oh, Aleu, he thought aloud as he watched the creatures of the night take wing beneath the stars and the branches of the forest evergreens in front of him. I shouldn’t have kept the truth about Jenna from you – I know that now. I just . . . I just wish you could understand how I felt about what happened and why I felt it was the right thing to do. It’s not my fault . . . or your fault that you could pass for a wolf in the eyes of others. And the wolf blood in us didn’t take your mother away from us – it was her time, unfortunately . . . and nothing can change that, no matter what we try.  

However, . . .

His red eyes finally closed for the night, for his thoughts had worn him out. The day had been one that was filled with revelations and emotionally-draining situations, and now, it was time for him to recharge and prepare himself for the dawning of the next, in which he was hoping and praying that his beloved daughter would be found safe. 

His dreams, similar to the ones he had before Jenna had blessed him with a daughter and lost her own life because of the birth, that night were terrifying yet something about them allowed him to feel a strange sense of serenity.

Again, he was surrounded by darkness, with the pounding rhythm of his own heartbeat as background noise. Panicked by the fact that this may lead to another tragedy within his very small family, he gasped and started to run from the dark blackness that surrounded him; however, that only increased the pulsating beat that steadily rang in his ears 

What is this? He thought as he panted around the backdrop of unending night. I just hope this doesn’t mean I’m going to lose someone else . . . Balto had remembered that the previous nightmares that took place in darkness soon led to the death of his mate and five of his own pups; there was no way he would want that to happen again . . . especially since he hardly had anyone else. He closed his eyes with hot tears dripping down his cheeks, not realizing that a bright light, a warm and inviting glow that beamed a piercing blade of radiance into the harsh shade. A familiar, gentle tone of a female’s song entering his ears finally made Balto open his eyes and look towards the light with a soft smile on his face.

“All your worries, leave them somewhere else,

Find a dream you can follow,” 

Jenna? Balto saw the form of his mate in front of him, the light emanating from her like an angel in a heavenly vision from God. Is it really you, Jen? She smiled back at him, nodding her elegant head as a response; Balto felt at peace now, for the sounds and the darkness that had frightened him had vanished from his mind; his eyes were only on his beloved as he stepped towards her for a quick nuzzle of love as her melodious words continued to calm him.

“Reach for something, when there's nothing left,

And the world's feeling hollow,” 

Listening carefully to the lyrics of the song, he began to examine them and compare them to his own feelings. Well, I am worried about Aleu . . . She is our daughter, and now she’s angry and out here in the wild . . . Oh, I’m just so afraid she might get hurt or . . . worse . . . and that I’ll be too late to save her . . . I love her so much, . . . and yet I don’t know what to do any more . . . He sighed as he closed his eyes, but the sudden touch of his mate’s cool nose against his cheek and her beautiful song began to settle his troubled heart.

“Can you hear it calling?

Can you feel it in your soul?

Can you trust this longing . . . and take control?” 

Balto opened his gold and red eyes and looked into hers; her piercing amber-hazel eyes were more dazzling than ever as she gazed back into his, almost as if she were telling him, “It’s okay, Balto . . . You know what you have to do. You have no choice but to do what’s right for our daughter . . .”

“Fly . . . open up the part of you that wants to hide away,” 

But what can I do, Jen? His eyes asked back with a whine. He knew Aleu wanted some independence from him, but she was all he had left of Jenna. I can’t bear to let go of my last reminder of you . . . What if something happens to her? God, I’d start blaming myself if I learned she was gone too . . . He lowered his eyelids as his head dropped towards his paws, almost as if in shame.

“You can shine,

Forget about the reasons why you can’t in life,

And start to try, ‘cause it's your time,

Time to fly . . .” 

The song lyric ended and Jenna muzzled him once more, this time murmuring something in his ear in a sweet voice. “Remember who you and Aleu are, Balto – there’s wolf in each of you.”

Balto looked up with his ears now pricked up in surprise. Never before had anyone – well, maybe except for Boris when he went off alone to save the sled team – sounded proud about reminding him of his half-wolf heritage. He knew that Jenna loved him, despite his mixed blood; she was always a kind, pure soul that every dog loved to be around, so him saving her human was the least he could have done back then to keep her happy. He never would have guessed that she would choose him as her mate in the end . . . and that he would lose her only months later. 

His red eyes softened, but then his eyelids dropped again. “I know, Jen, but . . .”

“It’s time for the hero in you to shine again, love,” Jenna smiled again, interrupting her mate’s response. “I never minded that part of you at all, you know that, but now you must follow that wild nature within you and save our daughter.” She lifted her muzzle up