Prologue
Shadows fill an empty heart, as love is fading…
He was alone again. Always. Hadn't he always been alone? No, not with his family he'd not been. Not with her. She never would've abandoned him. Never. But by now, she probably thought he was dead.
He at first prayed to whatever deity would hear him to kill him, be it by wolf's fangs or bear claws, he didn't care. But now he was stronger. He lived by the ways of the wolf, he had to. It was a part of who he was, so why not let it consume him when he was most vulnerable, most needy?
She'd named him Aubrey, after her father, but when he was a pup, he'd been named Rusty by those that had taken in his mother and himself. He'd always hated the name but now it was all who he was. Aubrey, the dingo, was dead. Rusty, the wolf, was all that was left. And everyone knows one thing about a lone wolf: he was either a survivor or a savage.
This strange wolf was a mix of the two. He'd survived much, lived long, and now lived a savage lone wolf life. At first it'd bothered him, but now he no longer cared. No one cared for him anymore, so why should he have cared for anyone except himself? The meekness and docility that was once his nature had long since fled, as it inhibited his ability to survive.
But why did he still allow himself to hope? Why did he yearn to return to her, to find the one he once loved and prove that love he had for her still burned true to his very being? It was superfluous in every sense of the word. More than likely she'd never recognize him, not with his coat in the condition that it was or what he'd become.
He'd hurt her and he knew it.
No! A part of him screamed, he wouldn't! He couldn't! Not after the kindness and love she'd given him, the first he'd ever received from a human. But he knew, if a human would approach him, he'd kill them, plain and simple. They were as irrelevant as his heart had been once. Since being separated from her, the heart was no more than an engine that kept him going. He no longer felt anything.
Rusty stood atop of a high snow ridge and sniffed the air. There was caribou nearby, he could smell them. Perfect. He hadn't eaten well in almost a week, surviving on small animals like squirrels and the occasional rabbit or two. A caribou would last him a fairly long time, as he didn't eat much to begin with.
He followed the scent like he'd followed her. Rusty pushed her to the back of his mind. It was a time long since dead. He'd survived enough that he got along fine without her. He didn't need her anymore. Rusty had his instinct, his very will, and that alone was enough.
Rusty's heartbeat quickened as found the herd grazing through the light snow that covered the earth. All he needed to do was find one that was either sick or injured. Easy pickings, that was how he lived now. The wolf-dingo kept low, watching them on his rise. He couldn't smell any sickness, he couldn't see any injured. But Rusty knew it was impossible. There had to be at least one with some kind of defect that would give him an advantage.
Rusty moved away from his ridge, trying his hardest to stay hidden, or at least look uninterested. The caribou watched him regardless, always on the alert for predators. Rusty rolled his deep brown eyes.
"Screw this!" he thought, "Just attack one and hope for the best, dammit. You're better than this!".
He listened. The wolf-dingo turned and ran at the grazing heard with very wolf like swiftness. Most of his length was in his legs thankfully, the paws not as big as a wolf's but definitely bigger than a dingo's. Rusty caught up with a caribou quickly and had to take it down just as fast. He leaped, closing his eyes and of course hoping for the best.
His fangs hit their mark: the caribou's throat. Rusty held fast, his jaw and fangs strong as any wolf's, his teeth digging deep enough to almost pierce the larger animal's windpipe. But he wasn't as strong as he once was and inevitably forced himself to let go. It didn't matter, Rusty didn't despair. The caribou's neck was bleeding profusely, and soon it would be dead and his for the taking.
All he could do was wait as he tumbled into the lose snow, turning some areas of his red-brown coat to white. Rusty laid there, feeling slightly tired from his efforts. But he'd done it. Despite it all, the caution he'd had before wasn't necessary…
Like his heart.
Rusty heard the last pained cry of the caribou and pulled himself up. He shook the snow off himself and ran back to the carcass, ready to enjoy his hard won meal. For him, it was just another sign that he'd survived.