• It was the dead of winter, and the pack was barely holding on. The food was scarce, but something always came around to keep us alive. Rabbits were getting very dull, but it was the choice we had between life and starvation, so we always pick the bony little animal. Once and a while, we come across a deer, or a fox. When it happens, it’s the fast that get the meal and the young who are left to go hungry.
    I have learned to be strong. Mother and Father are gone, and all I have left is my own spirit and strength. The cold is numbing and my stomach is never really filled. But I push on, looking forward to spring. For spring is the reason we try to survive the winter. We remember the life, the food, the warmth of the sun on our bodies from the first light of summer.
    Day after day in the mind blowing cold land that is our home. But this winter is my first on the hunt. This is the winter that I become a grown wolf. I am a follower now, a disposable slave of the pack leader, Mauve.
    But I am not alone, for two other pups are in their first year of the hunt. The girl, Laika, is the daughter of Mauve. She is strong and fierce, but gentle and friendly when with the rest of the pack. She’s black and blends into the night.
    The other is Shale. He was the strange one, always off by himself, like me. He never liked the other wolves, and they never liked him. There were two wolves that no one ever spoke to, and that was me and him. Really, we were the same, no parents, no friends, and the whole pack hating our skins. Yep, exactly the same.
    He was always mumbling to himself, reminding him of the stories his father used to tell him. But the one thing that struck me as the most unusual was the color of his fur. He was the only red wolf in the region, his fur the color of crackling flames. And that was what set him apart from the rest.
    But I might be the most unusual. A coat of complete silver, not even one hair is any other color. And of course, the eyes, these stupid, violet eyes with highlights of burgundy.