Chapter 9

Simon’s POV

With twigs, leaves, and some snow stuck to her brown fur, the young pup seemed shocked to see me. She barely looked like Cedar’s age, which concerned me. Where on Earth are her parents? Even Cedar couldn’t manage on his own in the forest, let alone with the approaching winter. Afraid of startling her any further, I froze in place, waiting for her next move. She seemed to do the same, watching me until she decided to back herself up near the bushes she stumbled out of.

I stayed put, lowering my head slowly as to seem less of a threat, not like I would cause her any harm anyways. She let out a faint low whine before turning and sprinting off.

I waited, and watched as her small figure hopped through the layer of snow that was piling up. I looked around trying to sniff out any trail of another wolf that could be her parents or even a family member, but it seemed like she was the only wolf out here. Even if this wolf was a young rogue, I found it hard to believe that she would be able to survive on her own in this weather. Regardless if her parents did attack me later, I decided it was best to follow her.

I didn’t immediately chase after her, keeping my distance while still maintaining sight of her seemed ideal. She’d probably run into trouble if she saw me following her or run into a volatile rogue. She stumbled a bit in the snow now and then, but she seemed confident enough to continue trekking through the terrain. I was quite a ways away from the cave, but I continued following her, hoping she’d find her family or some safe place to stay during this weather, but she continued travelling closer and closer to the lake near the foot of the mountain.

As we neared the clearing between the lake and the dense forest, I kept my distance even further, in case she spooked from seeing me following her. Despite running for what seemed like hours, she continued trekking through the snow towards the lake.

An audible crack sounded through the air, and that’s when I realized too late that I should’ve been trailing her far closer and more carefully. Shards of the top layer of icy lake broke off, jutting out into the air while the sound of thrashing water was the only sound I could hear.

I snapped out of the initial shock, and took off as fast as I could, rushing toward the lake hearing her continue to thrash and yelp. As I approached the banks of the lake, I stepped hesitantly on the thin ice before seeing her head bob dangerously longer and longer underwater. Her thrashing had been less drastic, and without much thought I jumped in, breaking the ice and plunging into frigid waters.

Pumped with adrenaline, the initial panic from seeing her falling in subsided, and I focused on breaking the ice around me and swimming towards her location. As she slowly seized thrashing, I dived blindly to grab a hold of the nape of her neck.

After failing once, and desperately trying to catch my own breath and tread water, I dived again, where I successfully grabbed a hold of her neck and pulled her toward the surface.

At this point the cold was starting to set in, becoming more difficult to paddle and hold both of our weights. I turned toward the bank where I had to manage enough strength to break the rest of the ice to make a path. It didn’t help that the cold wind shear was intensified by the mountain range and the increased snowfall. After what felt like an agonizing amount of paddling toward the bank, my feet reached the bottom, where at that point I basically dragged the both of us out of the lake.

With the adrenaline subsiding, the cold feeling throughout my body seemed to permeate and feel as if though I had been frozen solid. I knew it wasn’t safe for either of us to stay out in the open, especially in this foot deep snow and what appeared to be a snowstorm approaching, but the freezing temperatures was making it difficult not to just let it consume me.

The pup was still breathing luckily, unconscious, and I found it hard not compare her crumpled form to one of my siblings all those years ago, she looked to be just a little older than Monica, maybe even Austin’s age. Even her coat reminded me of Monica's, maybe slightly darker if anything.

I tried not to think too much about it as the wind shear intensified and a slieu of snow pelted us. My legs were getting numb and nearly crumpled, but with the last ounce of adrenaline in me, I grabbed her by the nape of the neck and continued to search for shelter.

Without the buoyancy of water, it certainly made the trek more difficult, along with the sheer weight of the lake water still soaked to our coats. Sadly I didn’t know of any caves this close to the lake, so I took her to the cave I usually slept in in hopes of a warmer and more secure shelter.

It seemed to be hours before I could make out the familiar terrain and path that led to the cave. Fortunately, the snow near the cave wasn’t as deep as the empty field, and luckily so, my protesting legs were just about at its limit.

Once inside, I rested the pup inside the cavern before shaking the rest of the snow off. I stretched my achy legs before going inside the cavern and curling up next to her, hoping whatever body heat I had would be able to stop her from succumbing to hypothermia.

Almost by instinct, I started tending to her minor cuts from running through the woods. The cold must have gotten to me too, as I kept picturing Monica curled up next to me, something we had done when she didn’t have a good handle on her shifts. She had thrown a tantrum when she was three, and I offered to shift into my wolf form to comfort her. The boys had kept teasing her about her uncontrollable shifts, so I grabbed my comforter and we had made a fort in the living room where we curled up in our wolf forms near the fireplace.

The young pup whined in her sleep, bringing me out of my memory. As much as I could dream and hope that this pup was Monica, it was futile, a mere hallucination. As the pup shook, I curled up closer, hoping her body temperature would increase.

As much as I didn’t want to fall asleep in fear of her freezing to death, the cold was taking its toll on me, making me more and more tired. As much as I tried to stop myself from dozing off, I eventually succumbed to, resting my head on hers in hopes it would provide her some more warmth.