• I crouched under the flat hidey-place that they put stuff on. The alpha was shouting at the b***h and she was shouting back. I whined. I knew this wasn’t how a pack acts. He was baring his fangs and she started to submit, but he didn’t care. He raised a furless paw and hit her muzzle. She backed-up and backed down, but he wasn’t seeing her submission. I whimpered again and ran from the hidey-place past him, and he hit me with his bottom paw. He had it covered in animal skin and some type of metal. It hurt. I put my ears back and yelped, but didn’t stop to show him my soft parts in submission. He would just hurt me more. I ran to the pup’s den. He was big for a pup, and the way he looked at the alpha made me think that he wasn’t a pup anymore. But it was hard to tell with their pack.

    “Did he kick you again Roscoe?”

    I couldn’t understand what the noises he made meant, but they felt like whimpering in apology. I wagged my tail slightly and licked his short little muzzle. He bared his fangs, but in a good happy way. My tail wagged faster, my bruised side forgotten for the moment.

    “Is he hurting her too?” This was noises like a soft whine. I think he was worried about the b***h; he was looking out to where she and the alpha were. I whined in reply, and laid myself across his legs. He was able to contort himself in ways I never knew how. Everyone in the pack could except me, but I was ok with it. I was just their protector. I used to bring them food, but the b***h always made keening noises and the alpha would hit me and bark loudly and angrily. The pup though would always slip me some of the food they hunted by themselves. It was so good, but it scared me when they went hunting. They would leave me, and I knew without me other packs would attack them and they would never come back. They had been lucky so far.

    There was a thud when the alpha left the den. The not-pup got up and walked out of his little den, and I jumped off his sleeping place and followed him. I will never understand why he walks on his back paws. I had tried it and it hurt them. It was a good thing to do though when they left food out for me on the high flat place. We went out into the main part of the den and I whimpered. The b***h was hurt, lying on the floor. I barked to alert the pup, but he walked away! I kept barking and licking her wounds. They were salty, but tasted all wrong. I circled her and barked, wondering where the pup was. He couldn’t leave her like this! He needed to lick her wounds, and go after the pack that hurt her.

    He finally came back and was holding a lot of stuff. He took a white soft thing that smelled like water and wiped it over her face. The red came off, but the blues and blacks stayed. I stood at attention, focused on the front of the den, just in case the pack that had attacked her came back. I’m pretty sure the alpha was probably fixing that.

    “Roscoe, he hurt her bad, we need to go. Want to go boy?” He sounded like he was howling softly. I sat up and looked at him. That one sound “go” always meant we were going outside the den. I liked going outside the den, but the b***h was hurt, and I wasn’t sure if it was a good idea right now. He left her and went back to his little den, and came back with a thing on his back. He went to the food place and got a lot of the hunt and put it in thing on his back. He picked the b***h up and we went outside. He put her and me inside the den that moved. The look in eyes said something I couldn’t figure out.

    Then he snarled, “He will pay.”