scars

Wicked climbed in silence as his pack mate regaled him with an eloquent and dramatic tale. The entire thing was fascinating, though the part about the lightning captured his attention more acutely than did the other details. As the black wolf described the scene, Wicked's lips twitched as another one unfolded in his mind's eye. He had not only seen a wildfire (caused by dry weather rather than than lightning in his case), he had capitalized on one. The strange scars on his face and neck seemed to tingle with the memory of carrying a limb engulfed in flames at one end, the heat singing the pale fur on his face. He would not put it down until he reached his destination: the edge of the meadow...

The silence following the Gamma's story snapped the pale yearling out of his reverie. "Do you think those missing perished in the flames?" Wicked paused a long moment, then couldn't help but share, "I saw a similar fire wipe out an entire pack. There were no survivors." He wasn't entirely certain of that. He hadn't seen anyone escape the smoke and flames, though Wicked had only stuck around long enough to assure the territory's total destruction. When he had turned his back on it all, the fire had still been burning...

"What about the pups?" he asked. Several youngsters had been burnt to death in his fire, he knew, but what about the spine's? "They all survived, didn't they?" Wicked knew about the Alpha pair's four sons. Iqniq hadn't mentioned losing any. The adults must have carried them to safety during the maelstrom. For the moment, it didn't occur to him that Tonravik had carried all of them, still safely tucked in her womb.