I’m never going to feel good about this, he thought, but I’ll just have to live with it—if I want to live at all. Because I’m Lucky, Lone Dog Lucky, and I’m going to survive.

Before he could gnaw it over for another instant, Lucky stood up. He took a deep breath. Then, shaking himself, stretching lazily and clawing the ground, he padded idly over to the hunters’ den and began to scrape at his own soft hollow, as if simply adjusting it to his needs.

Surreptitiously he nosed a few tangled bits of Mulch’s hair into a straggly pile. With a deep breath, he licked it into his jaws. It caught on the sensitive flesh inside his mouth, tickled his throat. Lucky wanted to gag, but the horrible sensation of the hair against his teeth was as much to do with his feelings, he decided, as the taste of Mulch’s fur.

It didn’t matter how carefully he checked that no one was watching; as he crept through scrub toward the tree where the food lay, he felt as if every eye in the Pack was on him—two yellow ones in particular. Don’t look around. Behave naturally! But when he cast a last glance over his shoulder, he was as sure as he could be that he hadn’t been seen. Alpha lay on his favorite rock, his eyes closed and Sweet curled against him. The others were relaxing, grooming one another, exchanging the day’s news, settling arguments, playing idle games, or staging mock-fights. The larger of the male pups, Squirm, was wrestling with his sister, Nose, nipping at her with his harmless milk teeth, while the smaller male, Fuzz, chased his tail determinedly, his short legs scrabbling in the dirt. Moon and Fiery watched them proudly, their attention fully focused on their pups.

It was now or never, and never was not an option. Lucky brushed his tongue against the deer’s flank, trying to dislodge the hairs in his mouth. He spat and dribbled as best he could, but though some of the hairs had stuck to the deer, more of them had stuck to his teeth, caught in the gaps between them.

No! Lucky began to panic, pawing at his muzzle, clawing at his teeth, all the time trying not to look too agitated in case one of the other dogs noticed. The hairs were sticky and stubborn, clinging to his tongue and the soft skin inside his mouth till he wanted to be sick. And wouldn’t that give him away, he thought, half in fear and half in a sort of excitable panic.

At last! One of his claws hooked into the tangled hair and pulled it free of his mouth, and he licked the rest of it against the deer’s leg. He rubbed a last strand from his nose.

And now?

Lucky peered around the tree again, his breath in his throat, but still no one was paying any attention to him—not even Omega. Whine’s so sure of himself and his plotting, Lucky thought with resentment.