Promise Of The Wolves Read Online Free PDF Page A

the oak tree. I closed my eyes, lulled by the rising sun and the happy exhaustion of playing with the other pups.
    Moments before my assailants attacked, I heard them and leapt to my feet. Unnan, Reel, and Borlla all pounced on me at once, knocking me flat on my back. I was unprepared for the attack and they quickly pinned me down and began to bite. To Yllin and Minn, watching sleepily from the shade, it might have looked like play. But the pups were not playing. Their teeth bit into me and they tried to crush the air from my chest.
    “Ruuqo was too weak to finish killing you, but we’ll finish,” Unnan growled.
    “There’s no room for you in our pack,” Borlla whispered as she tried to bite through my neck.
    Reel was silent as he tried to rip at my belly.
    I growled and bit and snarled and fought against them as best I could, but there were three of them and only one of me, and I knew that even if they did not kill me they could injure me severely enough to make me too weak to survive.
    Just as my strength was giving out, something knocked Unnan and Borlla off me. I bit Reel on the shoulder and scrambled to my feet. The smallpup had come to my aid and had so surprised his two littermates that they had fallen awkwardly onto the hard ground. Now Unnan had him pressed to the ground as Borlla prepared to rip at his throat. I leapt over Borlla, landing on Unnan, rolling him off the smallpup and biting into his ugly fur. He tasted like dirt. Borlla abandoned her attack on the smallpup and came to help Unnan. Together they pinned me to the ground.
    “Your father was a hyena,” Borlla sneered, standing over me, “and your mother a traitor and a weakling.”
    “That’s why she left you,” Unnan added, baring his teeth.
    Both pups growled and snarled, expecting me to be afraid of their larger size and greater strength. But I had been angry already when they ganged up on the smallpup. Their insults about my mother only made me angrier now.
    How dare they? A voice in my head was so loud I could not hear the sounds of the clearing. The stench of blood in my nose blocked all the scents of oak and spruce and wolf. Kill them. They are not fit to be wolf. For the second time, fury took me like the wind takes a leaf, and I threw off both pups. I would have killed them both, I know I would, but Reel had the smallpup trapped and I had to help him. When I tumbled Reel off him, the smallpup stood beside me, and together we faced the three of them, snarling. I heard Marra running to get help from the pupwatchers. I smelled hatred in Unnan and Borlla, and fear in Reel. I saw the smallpup looking at me out of the corner of his eye, with something like awe on his face. My back left leg bled from a deep gash I had not noticed in the fight, and I felt it weakening beneath me. The smallpup held his right forepaw up as if it hurt him.
    I looked over the heads of our adversaries to see Yllin racing back across the clearing followed by an angry Ruuqo. The other pups followed my gaze and Borlla, Unnan, and Reel spun around to face Ruuqo, dropping to their bellies. The pack had returned early from an unsuccessful hunt. As they drew close I heard Yllin speaking softly.
    “I’m sorry, leaderwolf,” she said, ears low. “They were playing, and then the big pups attacked. The smallpups fought only to defend themselves.” She paused, and dared to speak again, which I thought was very brave, since Ruuqo might be angry at her for letting the fight get out of hand. “They fought well.”
    Ruuqo raised his ears at her but did not discipline her. I could tell he liked Yllin. He let her get away with more than another young wolf might. His eyes swept over us.
    “No wolf deeply injures or kills a packmate without cause,” he said. “If you cannot learn that, you cannot be pack. All Swift River wolves know the difference between challenge fights and a fight to kill.” He turned to a cowering Reel. “What is the difference, pup?”
    Reel looked