Page 26 of The Last Sanctuary
The last three wolves hung back.
Echo was spindly, with a straggly grey coat, a chunk bitten out of his right ear, and a perpetual slinking manner, an air of cowardice. He was the omega, the lowest wolf on the totem pole.
The other two were the alpha pair, Shika and Aspen. A brindled she-wolf, Shika had a savage, restless beauty about her. She was the fastest wolf, easily outpacing her life mate, Aspen.
Aspen boasted a magnificent shaggy ruff and a single dark stripe down the center of his muzzle. He was smart and calculating. He was utterly devoted to Shika and stood close to her. Their yellow eyes were fixed on Raven.
Alpha wolves weren’t the bold, aggressive type like some people thought. Aggression was the role of the beta, thealpha’s second-in-command. The alphas were the brains of the operation, the central nervous system that kept the pack together and working properly. The alphas were wary, cautious; they protected the critical knowledge and hard-won experience that kept their family alive.
The male never led alone; it was a partnership, like the parents of a family. That was the pack. Raven had always respected the hell out of wolves.
Once she’d lured the wolves to their den, she locked them in, then entered the double gates, hauled the deer carcass from the wagon, and dumped it in their enclosure.
In the wild, wolf hierarchy was established by who was allowed to eat what parts of their kill. Her father preferred to feed the wolves a whole carcass instead of joints of meat. Sometimes, they fed the wolves a calf carcass, but her dad liked to hunt deer for them instead of purchasing meat from the slaughterhouse or renderer.
Memories lay thick and heavy over every inch of this place. Everywhere she looked, she saw him: lounging beneath the sprawling oak with the wolves; striding along the flagstone pathways, trailed by a peacock or two; bent over the fences, checking for breaches; and driving the electric cart everywhere, hauling water, food, and hay.
Her chest tightened. For a moment, it was hard to breathe. She pushed the feelings away. She had too much to do to waste time feeling sorry for herself.
Raven released the wolves to their dinner.
It was bizarre to watch wolves eat. They snapped and snarled at each other, fangs bared in a frenzy of furious excitement. If one tried to take a bite from the wrong section, the other wolves growled and bit at him.
It seemed savage from the outside, but her father had explained that the higher-ranking wolves were teaching thelower-ranked wolves where and how they belonged, ensuring every wolf remembered their place in the pack.
The pack used food to maintain order. Each wolf had a spot—prized organs, neck, flank—which was earned depending on its rank and role within the pack. The parts of meat they ate affected the distinctive smell of their urine, which they used to signal identity, status, and role.
Her dad had described a pack in the wild whose natural prey had been so depleted, they’d been forced to catch salmon from the river to keep from starving. With every wolf eating the same thing, their urine lost their distinctive markers. Each wolf lost its identity. As a result, the pack descended into anarchy and collapsed.
By the time Raven moved on to the next enclosure, the sun was sinking below the tree line. Weariness tugged at her. Her muscles ached. Her belly rumbled. She forced herself to keep moving.
As long as there was work to do, she could keep the pain at bay, could ignore the darkness threatening to devour her the second she let her guard down.
The second enclosure also housed wolves, but these wolves were kept separate from the timber wolves. They were too dangerous.
There were two of them, one white, one dark. Luna and Shadow.
They were genetically modified. Though it was very illegal, a black market had sprung up around wild animals engineered with traits like meekness for wealthy bored housewives who wanted exotic pets, or for aggression, for the underground fighting pits.
To gain the advantage in the ring, their owners had illegally bred cloned wolves with modified versions to producea genetically superior hybrid wolf featuring increased size, strength, and a cunning, human-like intelligence.
When they were rescued last year from the fighting ring, no zoos would take them, claiming they were unnatural creations, cloned intellectual property rather than wild animals. That is, until her father had agreed to bring them to Haven.
No one ventured inside this enclosure other than her father. Last summer, Zachariah’s teenage nephew was sent to the hospital after he reached through the chain-link fence to scratch Luna when she rubbed her back against the fence. Luna had whipped around lightning fast and bitten off two of his fingers.
Wolves weren’t dogs. And hybrids weren’t even wolves. They were some nebulousother—beautiful, uncanny, and terrifying.
Raven stepped up to the fence, peering through the trees, searching the shifting shadows. Though she couldn’t see them, she felt their presence, knew they were watching. They were always watching.
“Come out now,” she said in a soothing voice. “I’m not going to hurt you. You’re not going to hurt me. We can be friends, if you want.”
Movement caught her eye, between two trees at the rear of the enclosure. A huge white creature appeared like a ghost. Luna was easily over two hundred pounds, her coat as pure white as driven snow. Her amber eyes fixed on Raven like she could see straight through her.
For a second, Raven forgot how to breathe. “There you are.”
A moment later, a shadow separated from the deeper shadows beneath the trees, forming into the shape of an enormous wolf. His broad shoulders and chest rippled with muscles beneath his thick, ink-black fur.
The black wolf raised his regal head. His muzzle was long and narrow. His amber eyes shone with cunning. His name fithim well, for he seemed to merge with the darkness, a shadow appearing and disappearing at will.
