A/N: Yay a new chapter!

Humphrey's POV

As I followed beside Kate though the cold unknown forest my mind was busy on making a plan to tell her my feelings. I choked up once before and I really didn't want to do it again for the fear I'll miss my chance before we get home. I had gone through ideas like telling her tonight but I couldn't think of a way to say it without it sounding like "Oh hey by the way I love you". Which was fine but a little blunt, I wanted it to be a special moment for when I actually did say it. I began to think about possibly going on a walk together, oh wait we already are. This was starting to make me frustrated to a point where I just stopped thinking about it and focused on what Kate and I were walking by.

Although it was nothing different than what I saw earlier, still cold out with plenty of snow. I looked up to the sun and realized it was getting closer to setting, I must of had been thinking pretty hard since an hour just flew past. Since I knew that meant we still had another hour or so to go until she called it quits I decided to come up with an idea. I could see a small mountain that looked under a mile away and was perfect to have a race too. "So Kate, fancy a race?" I asked catching up to be at her side "A race?" She replied looking back at me.

"Yeah from here to that small mountain ahead" I said gesturing towards it with my head. I knew she wouldn't pass on the offer considering her competitiveness can get the better of her as I found out the last time we had a race. "You're on, just try and keep up" She said just as I expected "Hey I won the last time" I said back before we both began to run.

The thick snow didn't really help as my paws just sunk right into it as I ran but nonetheless surprisingly I was able to keep up. The last time we raced I managed to find a shortcut that put me much ahead of her but now it was all about who was actually faster in a straight line. After a minute or two into our race she started to pull ahead of me which I knew was coming since she had all the alpha stamina that I didn't. The top of the mountain drew closer with Kate having a good lead in front of me which she kept when I finally reached the top. "Woo, I should think twice about asking you to race next time." I said out of breath before I plopped down onto the snow that felt refreshing.

She laughed in victory "Yeah, the score is one to one now" She said walking over to me. "Oh no that means we need a tiebreaker" I said "Mmhm and what game should that be?" She asked. I got up on my paws and looked down on what lie ahead of us and saw a long downhill into a valley.

The obvious idea came right to me "Let's do something more my style..." I started before Kate knew what I was going to say "Log sled race?" She said. "Ah now you're thinking like an omega, yes first one to the bottom of the hill wins it all." I said, normally I was never this competitive but seeing her having fun was enough to make me do so. "Okay but only because the slope isn't steep" She said. I looked around and to our luck there was a hollow log that was already split in half not too far away.

"Well what are the odds" I said as we walked over to them and positioned them facing down the slope. "Ready?" I asked looking at her who was across from me holding her sled "When you are" She replied with a smile. I smiled back "Okay one, two, three... Go!" I yelled before I jumped into my sled and quickly gained speed followed by her. We were neck and neck as we left a cloud of snow behind us; I defiantly enjoyed doing this on the snow. You can get a whole lot more speed and turning was no problem at all.

It didn't take long before we were more than halfway to the bottom and I had the lead as I weaved around each tree that was in the way. But I was soon passed quickly by none other than Kate who had a slick smile on her face as she passed. All I could do was laugh as the slope flattened out reducing our speeds before coming to a stop next to each other. "Alright looks like the alphas take home the gold" I said getting off my sled as did she. "Woo hoo! What do I win?" She said happily "You get to catch us dinner" I replied with a smile

"Oh great, but only if you find us a place to stay for the night." She said "Deal" I said. We went our separate ways doing our objectives, for me it shouldn't be too hard to find something to call a den. In fact most of the places we slept this trip were basically under a tree. I looked around each tree and rock to see if there was any crevasse to take shelter in. So far I had been coming up with nothing and soon a good half hour had passed. 'Hmm, I hope we don't have to end up building one' I thought to myself, it would take a good few hours to do something like that. That was time we did not have and working in the night didn't sound like a good idea to me.

My luck changed as I came up over a small hill and the view in front of me took my breath away. An ice covered lake spanned out ahead before ending at the base of mountains. It wasn't anything like I've seen before and the first time I've ever seen an expanse of water like this besides the one Kate and I howled over. It wasn't anything like the sight of the valley in Jasper but it came close. And just when I thought it couldn't get any better, along the tree line was an undermined tree similar to the one we found during that thunderstorm a few days back. 'Perfect' my mind said as I walked over to the possible den to investigate. It was quite a large room and was isolated from the outside which was good because there was no snow inside. And due to the snow height you actually had to climb down inside it which made it even more secluded.

I walked back outside and waited for Kate who was to bring us some food, the last thing I ate was that cupcake thing that almost got us killed. I began to think about my quest to tell my love for her yet again, and the lake did seem like a nice place to tell her. Possibly in the morning I could before we begin traveling again, but as for now I'm just going to let things happen. After about ten minutes I saw Kate come over the rise just as I did before and I could see her eyes light up. In her mouth were two squirrels which fell out of her mouth as she looked at the lake, I couldn't help but laugh at the sight. "Pretty isn't it?" I asked walking up by then she managed to shocked look off her face. "It's amazing! I've never seen anything like this before." She said before picking the squirrels back up.

"And what's even better is I found a den right there" I said pointing with my forepaw at it. She nodded before we walked over to it and climbed inside. She dropped the prey on the ground before looking at me "It's not much but it should get us through for tomorrow, I was surprised I even found anything since it's so cold." She said

"Looks good" I said before taking one as did she "So it took me a good half hour of searching until I came across this place." I said "I was beginning to think we could have to build something." "I'm glad, I'd rather get much more sleep and not have to build something." She replied. "Yeah me too" I agreed, we continued our talk as we enjoy a real meal for once in days. It felt satisfying to get to meat back into my system and it would give us some extra energy for tomorrows traveling. I licked some of the blood off my muzzle before I looked over to Kate who was just finishing her squirrel, but the blood on her mouth from it made her look like a vicious killer. She must have noticed me starring at her because she looked at and smiled oddly "What?" She asked

"You look like you just killed a whole herd of caribou" I joked with a laugh, her eyes looked to her muzzle as she grinned before proceeding to lick the blood off. "What can I say, a wolfs got to eat" She joked back, that was one thing about her that changed during this trip. She became more loose and actually looked like she enjoyed herself instead of being the strict alpha she was trained to be. Perhaps this was just my effect on her being because we're two different ranks put together in a survival situation, but she still had that strictness in her. Not that I was complaining, just happy to see her having fun instead of constantly worrying about other things like getting home. "You're right it was nice to get some food in after so long" I finally said

The inside of the den was slowly darkening due to the sun setting while we ate but after sometime a new light was shining outside which just happened to be the moon. As much as I wanted to ask Kate to howl again I knew I couldn't, at least not until after I told her my feelings. The howling we did might have been a onetime thing and I didn't feel like pushing anything to her for the very fear of why I kept choking up to tell her my feelings, afraid of being rejected. I realized that several minutes had passed while I was distracted in my thoughts and decided to strike a conversation up before I would go to sleep early. After all we did have another long day of travel ahead of us and I wanted to have enough energy to keep up with her.

"What's the plan for tomorrow?" I asked wanting to know "Well to keep heading to Jasper of course" She replied "Right, and perhaps a game or two along the way" I suggested smiling "Maybe" Was all she said returning the smile. "Well I don't know about you but I'm going to sleep early" I said before walking to the back of the den we were in and laid down. "I agree, we can get on our way earlier as well too" She replied before laying down where she stood which was a few feet away from me, I closed my eyes and began to drift into sleep.

I woke up at what seemed to be a few hours later to feel that it was pretty cold inside the den which came to no surprise considering were in the mountains, but what did surprise me was seeing Kate shivering slightly a few feet away. I was going to wake her and ask if she was okay but I could obviously see she was cold and decided the only thing I could do was something I never thought I would do. I got up from my sleeping spot and walked over to her before laying back down putting my back up against hers to share our body heat. I closed my eyes once again just as I could hear her shivering stop, I couldn't help but smile as I fell back asleep.