I slowly lifted my gaze to the Alpha standing before me.
We'd spent twenty years side by side, yet his scent felt like a complete stranger's.
"What about me? Haven't I suffered enough? How do you plan to compensate me?"
After my dam passed, my sire took me to serve at a remote mountain outpost far from pack lands.
That's where I met Kael Stormhowl.
His dam had gotten pregnant outside of a proper mating bond, then been abandoned by her lover. She gave birth to him and left him with his elderly grandmother, the pack matriarch.
My sire took a liking to this quiet, hardworking pup.
Then one night, during a terrible storm, Kael knocked on our den door.
His grandmother, Selene Stormhowl, had died. His aunt Vesper Stormhowl wanted to invoke bloodline den-claims on the ancestral home and was casting him out.
Covered in mud, utterly wretched, he knelt on the ground and begged my sire to take him in. Said he'd serve like a low-rank wolf to repay the kindness.
My sire was still hesitating when I stepped forward and took Kael's hand.
"Father, let him stay."
From that day on, Kael became part of our pack.
He was sensible and never idle.