Read Online Spirit of the Wolves by Dorothy Hearst - Free Book Online

had exiled my mother didn’t mean I didn’t have one. Every time I caught the scent of dusk sage on the wind or saw a slight wolf with pale fur, I thought of her. I knew that someday I would meet her and she would place her head over my neck and pull me to her and tell me she was proud of me. I would feel whole again. I’d never been more wrong about anything.
    I ran blindly, ignoring the scents and sounds around me. I started to wheeze, as if my lungs were filled with dirt, and I couldn’t stop. Tlitoo screeched something above me, but I couldn’t make out the words.
    â€œKaala!” Pell’s voice sounded as if it came to me through a windstorm. I’d run right past him without noticing. I stoppedand tried to tell him what happened, but I could only blink up at him. “What’s wrong?” He buried his nose in the fur on my back.
    â€œYou smell like Neesa!” he said. “You found her?”
    â€œI found her.” My voice sounded dead. We were in a stand of pine and juniper that smelled like home. Ázzuen and Marra pushed through the juniper bushes. They caught sight of my expression and looked from me to Pell and then back again.
    â€œShe found Neesa,” Pell told them.
    â€œIs she all right?” Ázzuen asked.
    â€œShe’s fine.” Anger overtook my hurt and shock. She had left me to fend for myself in the Wide Valley. She had let my littermates be killed and then told me to risk everything to find her. I closed my eyes and gathered my breath, trying to find a reason for what she’d done. I told my packmates what had happened, hoping that they would have some explanation for her behavior.
    â€œShe growled at me,” I said, holding back a whimper. “She bit me and chased me away.”
    â€œNeesa always was unstable,” Pell said. “She went to the humans and bred with a wolf outside the valley. She bore pups of mixed blood.” He stopped suddenly. I was one of those mixed-blood pups, and if she was unstable, that meant I could only be worse. He averted his eyes.
    Tlitoo glared at him. “Oafwolf,” he quorked.
    â€œShe attacked you, Kaala,” Pell insisted. “Her own pup. What kind of wolf would do that?” His eyes, when he lifted them to mine, were gentle. “When my father wanted to kill a wolf in our pack, he would invite that wolf to a meeting somewhere without the rest of the pack and then attack.Maybe Neesa was doing that. Or maybe she’s just crazy.” He pawed the dirt. “We should go back home. I don’t think Neesa has anything to offer us but trouble.”
    I was saying the same thing to myself, but I didn’t want to hear it from another wolf. I snarled at him.
    â€œThere has to be a reason, Kaala.” Ázzuen had been so quiet that his voice startled me. “She wanted you.”
    â€œHow do you know?” I demanded, still snarling. He lowered his ears.
    He had no answer. Because there wasn’t one. The image of her snarling face would not leave me. I’d left my home and led my packmates into danger because she had called to me, because she was supposed to tell me what I needed to do to keep the Promise. It was all for nothing. The Greatwolves would kill my packmates, and our humans, and the Swift River pack.
    And my mother didn’t want me.
    I tipped my head back and opened my jaws and allowed all my misery and sorrow to rise up from my heart and escape through my throat. I howled of loneliness and failure and my despair.
    â€œQuiet, Kaala!” Pell swung his head back and forth to look around the copse. Marra spun around to look deeper into the woods. Ázzuen took three steps toward me and then stopped, flattening his ears.
    â€œWhat are you doing , wolf?” Tlitoo demanded.
    I cringed. I’d just announced our location to every wolf in Sentinel lands.
    â€œWe should get out of here,” Marra said, shifting from paw to paw, ready to