Raised by Wolves

Chapter 32

CHAPTER 32

WE WAIT.

And wait.

And wait .

I start to get cold, even with all my layers. I shiver. Move closer to my brother. Wish for the hundredth time that I had a thick pelt of fur.

“Call them again,” Holo urges. “Your howl’s louder than mine.”

I snort. “Remember when you sat in a tree for a whole day waiting for a woodpecker chick to hatch? City life did not ruin your attention span already.”

“But I’m so tired,” he says.

“Quit whining. Even if they’re six miles away, they heard us. But I think they’re closer. And if they want to come, they will.”

Annoyed, Holo sticks his tongue out at me. What a stupid human expression. I answer it with a growl. Because I’m tired, too, and I’m also scared. What if they don’t come?

“They’ll recognize us, right?” Holo whispers.

“Of course they will.”

“They won’t attack?”

“No, Holo. We’re still family.”

Aren’t we?

But I realize that’s not up to me to say. If you leave the forest, you become something else.

Maybe, to a wolf, you might even become an enemy.

Are we making a huge mistake?

There’s no way to tell. Not yet, anyway.

Wind rustles the leaves above us. Something skitters through the underbrush. A branch cracks.

Was that a pawstep?

I freeze. Hold my breath. Listen.

Everything’s dead quiet.

Suddenly I’m thrown sideways by impact. I land hard on the ground, and all the breath goes out of my lungs. I’m on my back, half-blind with fear. Something huge is on top of me. I can’t move. I can’t even breathe.

Sharp white teeth come snapping toward my face—I try to block them, and I feel my sleeve shred. I scream. Then a long warm tongue slobbers its way up my cheek.

Oh my God, I’d know that kiss anywhere.

“Harriet, you practically killed me! And now you’re getting me all wet!” I’m laughing and crying as the big female wolf licks my nose and mouth. Greeting me. Welcoming me back to the pack. I reach up and wrap my arms around her neck and bury my face into her thick, musky ruff. I didn’t even realize how much I missed her until now.

“Oh, my sweet girl, I’m glad to see you, too,” I cry.

Harriet yips and wags and wiggles. She licks the tears from my face. She keeps stepping on my arms and chest. I try to push her away but she’s much too strong. I laugh and try to duck out from under her paws. She headbutts me and knocks me over again.

“Ooof! Get off before you squish me to death, you giant, beautiful mutt!”

Finally she backs away from me, tongue lolling and tail wagging madly.

Ten feet away, a giant black wolf has her front legs wrapped around my brother’s neck in a bear hug. Or maybe I should say wolf hug. I recognize Bim, with her brother Ben off to the side, whining and turning in excited circles.

“I think Bim rolled in dead fish,” Holo gasps, holding his nose.

“Of course she did,” I laugh. Wolves will roll in anything that stinks. Dead things, rotting stuff, poop—the smellier, the better.

Ben trots over and greets me with a tail wag and a hard nip on my knee. Wolves play rough, and Ben never seems to understand that I don’t have a thick layer of fur. That I bleed much easier than his sister does. I wipe the blood from my leg as he starts sniffing eagerly at the backpack.

“Yes, I brought treats,” I tell him. Then I glance around. “Where’s your mom? Where’s Beast?”

Holo stops wrestling with Bim and looks up. Beast is the alpha female, the mother of Bim and her brother. She’s brave and bossy. Normally she’s the first to greet us. My pulse, which had finally gone back down after Harriet’s ambush, quickens again. In the wild, a wolf lives an average of eight or nine years.

Beast is seven.

“Beast?” I shout.

Bim’s ears go up, then down. Ben does a little dash toward the trees, then comes sprinting back, whimpering.

“Where is she?” I demand. I can hear the panic in my voice. I squint into the dark. Is that something moving by the line of trees?

Harriet starts whining and presses her shoulder against my leg. Bim and Ben yip and prance. The wolves are anxious.

And I’m filled with dread.

Then I see Beast coming out of the trees. Moving too slowly. Stopping and starting again. Turning to look back behind her.

“Is she hurt?” Holo whispers.

I squint.

And then I gasp.

There are two clumsy balls of dark-gray fluff following her. Nipping at her heels.

I sink to my knees—I can’t believe it. Beast has pups!

“Keep still,” I whisper to my brother. Beast loves us, but if we threaten her babies she’ll rip out our throats.

We stay where we are, barely breathing. The pups hop and stumble and fall over each other, tiny tails wagging. As Beast approaches, watching us carefully, the bigger one inches toward my brother’s foot. Then Holo coughs, and the pup yips in fear and trips over its own paws as it darts backward. Bim raises her hackles, and a growl builds in Ben’s throat.

Holo looks at me in alarm. Don’t move , I mouth.

The pup presses itself against Beast’s front legs. She bends her great head and licks it, reassuring it. The pup gives a tiny hiccup and prances forward again. Curiosity overcomes fear. It sniffs my brother’s feet, and then my fingers. Its sibling does the same. The cuteness might just kill me.

The pups are only a few weeks old, and this is probably the farthest they’ve ever been from the den. They were born deaf and blind. But soon they’ll follow their parents on the hunt, learning by watching. Sharpening their little teeth on the adults’ kills.

I hear the sound of fabric ripping. I turn and find Bim getting into the backpack. “Shoo,” I say, laughing. She darts away and I reach into the bag, pulling out cold hunks of raw meat and tossing them to the wolves. “There’s enough for all of you.”

Harriet tries to steal Ben’s steak anyway.

“I hope Chester doesn’t mind you took all this stuff,” Holo says, as a baby wolf gnaws happily on the toe of his sneaker.

“I don’t care if he does,” I say.

I’m full of love and full of relief.

The chief and Lacey could never adopt us.

This is our family.