This story is co-written by The1Omega and myself. We both hope you enjoy and will leave a review.

From Misery, To Love

Humphrey woke up that next morning, knowing what the day would bring. Ever since his and Kate's love; their spark of the relationship went away; every day was the same, it seemed like. Humphrey and Kate would put on fake smiles for everyone and tell everybody that they were still madly in love, which they weren't anymore.

Humphrey had rolled onto his side, and saw that Kate wasn't on her side of the den. He sighed sadly, and just laid there for a few minutes, remembering the past, when everything wasn't so...so...miserable... Humphrey remembered telling Kate he loved her every night. Telling her "Good morning, beautiful.", every time they woke up and saw each others faces. He remembered being happy with Kate. And now, everything just seems to be...gone.

Humphrey sighed, and got up to take a walk. He thought of his and Lilly's conversation the other night. How her and Garth were dealing with the same problems as him and Kate.

Lilly... There's a wolf I could talk to... She knows what I'm going through and I know what she's going through; which is the same thing.

Humphrey walked to Lilly's den, and found only her there, without Garth.

As he walked in, Humphrey smiled, and said, "Hey Lilly, good morning."

"Hey Humphrey, good morning."

"Where's Garth?"

"Hunting with the Alphas."

"Ah. Okay." That explained where Kate was. Hunting. Humphrey sat down in front of Lilly. "So, tell me everything. About you and Garth, I mean."

Lilly sighed, and thought about it for a minute. "Well, like I said last night, it's just...miserable. And I don't know what to do. And I've been thinking...You know how last night you said you think Kate only loves...or, I mean loved you for your howl?" Humphrey nodded, and Lilly continued. "Well, I think Garth only loved me for my eyes. H-Humphrey, almost every day he would say how beautiful my eyes were. An-And now he doesn't."

Humphrey understood what Lilly was saying. And, Hell, he probably knew exactly how she felt. Kate only loved him for his howl, and Garth only loved Lilly for her eyes.

Humphrey looked at Lilly, her eyes swelling up with tears. "Lilly...I know how you feel. I hate to say this, and tell you this, but if you didn't have your beautiful eyes"—Lilly kind of blushed at this. This was the first time in weeks someone has complimented her. And it was coming from Humphrey, one of her best friends— "and if Kate didn't hear me howl...They probably wouldn't love us."

Lilly gasped at the truth, and the tears in her eyes started to flow. Humphrey was right. Every word that he'd just said was absolutely correct. Lilly didn't know what else to do, so she did the first thing that came to mind, and that was to embrace Humphrey in a hug, and cried.

Humphrey was surprised by the sudden hug for the first second, but he knew that Lilly needed some comfort. And so did he. So he patted her on the back, hoping it would comfort her. Even if it just helped a little, at least it would make her feel better. The hug was helpful to him, but he wasn't completely sure about Lilly.

"Sometimes I wonder..." Lilly said after pulling away from the hug. She looked to the ground with sadness as she spoke. "I wonder if things would have been different if you and Kate hadn't been taken to Idaho."

"So do I," Humphrey said. "Like if we hadn't gone, I might have realized that Kate wasn't the one for me. And I could've found someone better."

"Exactly. I never would have fallen for Garth, and I would have found someone that loves me for who I am instead of just my eyes."

"You can't really blame anybody for loving your eyes though, Lilly," Humphrey said. "They're amazing. But I agree with you, love should be for what's on the inside, not on the outside."

Lilly looked back up from the ground to see Humphrey. Their eyes caught each other for a moment. Then... BANG!

Humphrey and Lilly instinctively looked towards the exit of the den. "What... was that?" Lilly asked, scared for the safety of the pack.

"I think it was a gunshot..." Humphrey said.

The two looked at each other with worried looks before running out of the den just in time to hear a sad low-pitched howl. Someone was hurt. Most of the pack started running in the direction of the howl. Humphrey felt something in his stomach. A feeling that he had to be wherever these wolves were going. So he followed his gut and ran after the others.

Lilly sighed. Might not be such a good idea... But she still chased after Humphrey because she also had the feeling her gut that she had to be there.

When the two came out of the trees into a clearing, they immediately heard sobs and saw that just about everyone around had tears falling from their eyes. They were all surrounding a wolf that Lilly and Humphrey couldn't see. The two of them pushed forward to the front to find Garth hugging Kate as she cried into his chest. Her crying seemed worse than everyone else's. And Garth sadly looked at the dead wolf in front of him as he patted Kate's back to comfort her.

Eve was there as well, her face buried into the neck of the dead wolf, her tears staining the fur.

Lilly froze for a second, hoping it wasn't who she thought it was. Then she ran up to the body and looked at the face. Her eyes started tearing up. One of the Alphas put a paw on her shoulder. "I'm sorry, Lilly... I tried to save him but... I was too late."

Humphrey came up to Lilly's side for a look at the wolf, but didn't get a chance to see who it was before Lilly threw herself at him for a comforting hug. She began to cry into his chest. He instinctively patted her back and looked to the wolf again to see who it was. His jaw dropped from the surprise.

Winston lay there with a bullet hole in his forehead, dripping with a little blood. Lifeless.

Leave a review!

~Shadow Wolf 2013~ and ~The1Omega~