“Don’t be like that!” She pawed the ground, then approached again, but he raised his haunches and she stopped in her tracks. “Please, Lucky. I’m so sorry for everything. We haven’t even had a chance to talk alone since the dogfight. I have to talk to you.”

Lucky made as if to leave and she called after him. “What I said to Alpha was true. I was a fool to attack the Wild Pack, and even more of a fool for doing it without warning you.”

Lucky raised his muzzle. “And the foxes?”

Bella dropped her head. “That was a terrible mistake. And I should have spoken up for you when Alpha told you to leave the Pack. I really wanted to, but . . . I just felt like, more than anything, I had to do my best for the Leashed Dogs. I was scared of what would happen if Alpha attacked us or kicked us out. I didn’t know how the Pack would survive. Can you forgive me?”

Lucky felt a tug in his chest. He tried to chase it away with an angry growl. Bella stayed silent when Alpha cast me out, he reminded himself. She let me carry the worst of the blame for the dogfight. She betrayed me! What she did was unforgiveable.

His tail shot out behind him and he tried to walk away, but he hadn’t gone three dog-lengths when she called to him again.

“Yap . . . ?”

Lucky stopped in his tracks. In an instant he was at his Mother-Dog’s side, his littermates jostling against him in a jumble of soft bodies. He turned and met Bella’s eye. Her long snout was low and she gazed up at him, her eyes large and sad.

Lucky sighed. “I know that you did it for the Pack. Your heart was in the right place. It always is.”

“Can you forgive me?” she repeated in a whisper.

“Come here,” he replied. She bounded up to him and licked his muzzle, nudging and whining with relief.

I can forgive you, Bella, he thought. But I can’t forget.

He wanted to trust his litter-sister, but he couldn’t—not after everything she had done.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Lucky yawned and settled down in the long grass, listening as Mickey told Bella, Daisy, Bruno, and Sunshine about the state of their homes in the crumbling city. Martha was sitting some distance away with the Fierce Dog pups. The rest of the Pack was scattered around, resting before nightfall.

Lucky looked around appreciatively. The camp was every bit as good as Daisy had promised, with its sun-soaked meadow where the dogs had gathered, and a large cave at the edges of the forest where they could sleep in warmth and safety. Deep inside the cave was a nook selected to be the pup den, where Moon nursed Nose and Squirm.