Lucky flinched, a cold shiver of fear passing through him. Looking around him, he met Bella’s questioning gaze. She thinks I’ve done the wrong thing too. . . .

Then he remembered how she had let Alpha force him from the Pack, and her foolishness in challenging the Wild Dogs with foxes. His litter-sister was not one to judge any dog’s actions.

The dog-wolf wasn’t finished. “You say you found the pups on their own?” he snarled. “The Mother-Dog was dead?”

“Yes . . .” Lucky shot a look at Wiggle, who had edged along his flank. Lick stood at her litter-brother’s side, with Grunt a pace or two ahead of them, next to Mickey.

“Why would the Fierce Dogs leave the pups behind? What if they come back to collect them and find that they’re missing?”

“I wondered that, too,” said Mickey. “But their scents had faded and the Mother-Dog had been dead for a full journey of the Sun-Dog, at least.”

Alpha gazed over their heads toward the cluster of pine trees. “That means their Pack is out there somewhere, roaming the wild. They could be anywhere. They could be up to anything.”

“But that would be true whether the pups were here or not,” Martha pointed out in her deep, gentle voice. She padded forward on huge webbed paws. She was easily as large as Alpha, though she was not using her size to command any dog. She lowered her panting, jowly face to the pups. “They’re so small,” she murmured. “They could grow up to be kind and brave. Who are we to brand them ‘bad’ dogs when they’ve barely had a chance at life?”

Lick trotted toward Martha and buried herself beneath the great dog’s thick, dark coat. Wiggle scrambled after her, followed by Grunt. Martha nuzzled the pups and they yipped in response, huddling together under her belly.

“They’re just pups; we should remember that,” said Martha. “And Lucky deserves our trust. He has brought Mickey back to us. We should be grateful that he’s here after how he was forced to leave . . .” She looked at Lucky sadly. “Things have changed since the Big Growl, and we’re all just trying to figure out how best to survive—it’s like Mickey said, we need to stick together.” She raised her great furry head to Alpha. “If danger does come to the camp, we can beat it as a Pack, and Lucky knows better than any dog how to defend himself.”

“The pups should be given a chance,” Fiery agreed.

Snap was softening too. “They haven’t done anything wrong, have they?”

Alpha turned his head, casting his fierce gaze around the circle of dogs.

He knows he’s outnumbered, thought Lucky. But if he insists that the pups be abandoned or killed, he may still be able to get his way.