We left nothing, but our paw prints in the snow

Chapter 18

Chapter 18:

“What are you doing here?” I snarled, recognising the scent of one of my older brothers.

“The pack was attacked again. This time we weren't so lucky. I... I'm the only one left.” My brother looked down at his paws, sad.

“They're... dead?”

My brother's head sagged even lower, answering my question. I felt my own shoulders grow heavy.

“What do you want, Brother?” I was still the alpha of this pack. I still had to handle the situation; a foreign wolf in our territory.

“I'm a loner now. And I'm not ready to mate. I was wondering if I could stay with you for a while?”

Now I had to wait for the others to agree. Had to wait for one of the others to make the first move of accepting. Theoretically I could be the first, but that would be unfair, considering that he was my brother.

I heard Mate come up from behind. He walked right up to the new comer. My brother lowered his head even further, if that's possible, and Mate sniffed at him.

Mate tilted his head back and howled his acceptance.

Now I was free to do the same, and I did just that.

Others followed until finally the whole pack was howling. It was a beautiful song. The song of acceptance is always one of the more pretty, simply because it's a good deed that the song is telling us about. Each sound howled at the sky is telling a story and the song of acceptance tells a nice story.

“We need to spend more time together.” I hadn't noticed Mate had stopped howling and had come over to me only to tickle my ear with the sound of his breath.

I turned my muzzle away from the sky to look at him, “Yes, we should.”

“Come on then,” he tilted his head in the direction he wanted us to go in. “And by the way, your food's there.”

“Thanks,” I inclined my head.

We walked at a quick pace to where Mate had left the food. He watched me as I bent over it and started ripping the meat to shreds, swallowing the energy greedily. I felt the strength of the hare flow through my system. Once I had stripped it down to nothing but bones I started to play. It was one of my favourite games. I threw the remains of the skeleton up in the air. Mate leaped up, recognising the game, and caught it in his teeth, careful not to crunch the delicate bones. He in turn threw it into the air and I in turn leaped up to catch it in my mouth. I, however, wasn't careful. Ruthlessly I splintered the bones between my teeth taking joy in the crunching noise they made.

“Here,” I threw some of the bones at Mate. He caught them, crunched a bit, and ate the marrow. I did the same. The marrow, so yummy, so full of energy, more than the rest of the carcase can ever be. I licked the inside of the bones clean.

“Feeling better?” Mate asked, licking my snout clean of any remaining blood I hadn't noticed.

“Yes,” I licked back.

He slumped to the floor, which was still partially covered in snow, and unbelievably wet. I lay down next to him. “How're the cubs?” he asked pawing my belly gently.

“Give them a bit more time, Mister.”

“Whatever you want, Doe.”

“You haven't called me that yet.”

“I only just thought of it.”

“You odd wolf.”

“I think you like my oddity.”

“That makes you crazy.”

Mate shot me a wolf-grin displaying all his sharp fangs. “Fang, you remember NOT to teach our pups this kind of behaviour.”

“Fang?”

“I only just thought of it,” I mirrored his statement.

“You moose!” he yipped jumping on top of me.

“I preferred Doe,” I whined. “They smell nicer.”

“And you think I'm odd,” he teased licking my lips.

“Yes, I do,” I licked his cheek.

“Sister?”

Mate jumped off me and faced Brother. I rolled out of my lying position and got up.

“Brother,” I greeted in turn.

“Okay, New-Comer. You may be my mate's brother, but now you're living in our pack, meaning you follow our rules. We have few rules, but the ones we have are to be obeyed. Because female-alpha here is pregnant, and we're a young couple who should be having all this time to our-selves, one of our rules is that when we sneak a moment our two together, others from our pack don't disturb us unless there's a crisis.” That was the first time I'd seen him go all alpha over someone.

“Mate,” I warned with a growl.

“You're pregnant?” Brother asked me in disbelief.

“Yes, I am. Now if you don't mind, Mate and I were have some nice alpha time together, and we would like to resume our fun. You run off and play with the others. They show you how to get around.”

I rarely use my authority for anything. Maybe that's why wolves took me seriously when I did. Either way, Brother ran off with his tail tucked in between his legs, his ears flat against his head, which he held close to the ground.

“That was easier than I thought,” I slumped to the ground.

“Not to me. Wolves listen to me.”

“Brother was never a good listener.”

“He listened to you,” Mate slumped down next to me.

“Is that you submitting to my brilliance?” I teased.

“No,” he growled, horrified.

“Didn't think so.”

“Go to sleep, Doe, you need rest. Go to sleep,” he hummed from deep in his throat, hypnotising, lulling me to sleep. He repeated it a couple more times, and I felt my eye-lids growing heavy. Sleep was just around the corner, but I needed Mate to be closer to me. I needed him, like I needed air. I snuggled up to him, my belly pressed against his. Us on the outside, our cubs safely tucked in between us. With that in mind, I let my eyes finally shut and let sleep pull me into its warm, wet, cold, comforting embrace. A wolf should always keep one ear open, especially a pregnant one. But with Mate breathing against my ear, I submitted myself to total sleep. So instead of a wolf's usual light sleep, I slept like I'd seen only humans sleep. Deep. Oblivious.

It ended too quickly.