That was, however, until Maky and Devo passed away. The family changed once more, and not for the better.

It happened on a rainy morning. Reika and Blaze both went hunting a roe deer, while they had left Daniel, who was one-year-old now, alone with the pups.

But a Wildcat came by. Without Daniel noticing, it managed to grab Devo and kill him with a single slash of its claws. It all happened so fast Daniel only knew what was going on by the time the Wildcat had already sunk its teeth in Maky's throat.

Mad with anger, sadness, and fear, Daniel had jumped on the Wildcat and pinned it to the ground, trying to protect Laika hopelessly. He didn't kill the animal: Reika had taught him that killing for revenge was one of the worst things a wolf could do.

Reika and Blaze, who had heard the commotion of the screaming cat and a growling Daniel, returned, only to find their sons dead and Daniel pinning the cat to the ground, trying helplessly to retain his grip on its strong shoulders.

Blaze didn't pause and approached Daniel, then killed the cat, after which he lost it at Daniel. Reika, however, stepped in and protected her son.

***

The weeks after that were not much less tragic. The grudges in the family were present once more: Blaze hated Daniel, and he despised Reika for loving the one who was responsible for the deaths of his sisters and brothers. Reika despised Blaze for hating her son, her innocent son. Of course he couldn't help it!

The only two who didn't seem to loathe each other were Daniel and Laika. The latter had been too young to understand what had happened to her brothers: In fact, she barely remembered them at all, and Reika nor Blaze nor Daniel liked to speak about them.

Blaze and Reika didn't want Laika to be the victim of their grudge, so they just kept pretending to love one another.

The worst thing, to Reika at least, happened when Laika was five-weeks-old. After bickering with Blaze, Reika had allowed Daniel, who loved his little sister a lot, to take Laika with him on a guided tour through a small part of the territory. As far as they knew, there were no predators around that could harm either pup, and Reika knew that Daniel would never cross the border.

However, Laika suddenly came running back to them in the late afternoon. It was then that Reika's heart broke forever. Daniel was gone.

They'd searched everywhere, and even Blaze had helped. They'd found faint scents of a catamount, which confused all of them. They hadn't smelled catamount here for over four years.

The only thing that they found of Daniel was his amber eye, lying in a pool of dried blood.

As soon as they saw it, Reika felt that she could never love someone again. She broke down beside the eye and cried for hours. She suddenly hated everything. She hated hated Blaze for never giving Daniel the love he deserved, she hated Laika for not staying with her brother, and thus not knowing what really had happened to him. She hated all of them. The wolf she'd had the closest bond with was gone.

"Reika, calm down!" Blaze said, putting his paw on her shoulder. He's also crying, she realized. But whatever it was he was crying for, she knew that it wasn't Daniel. "Reika, crying won't--"

Reika snarled. She attacked him, knocked him over, after which she ran away. She didn't know where she went, but away from Laika and Blaze.

It was midnight by the time she reached the meadows. She was far beyond her own territory, she knew, but she didn't care anymore. She bolted off, over the meadows, away from her old home, the home where she'd lived for so long and had given birth to so many pups. The place she'd shared with Blaze for so long.

I don't care anymore! I don't fucking do! Reika mentally shouted. She bolted past a closed chairlift pole, through another short part of an unknown forest, until she reached another meadow. There, not far away from an Alpenhaus, she stopped, sat down, and howled. She let all of her sorrow out, until a sudden BANG sounded from the human den. Reika's howl ended, and so did her life.