Here is our last prologue chapter. In this one, we finish setting things up and get ready to enter the proper part of our story. I think, by the end of this one, you'll be able to see what the plot is going to be.

But before this conversation could go any further, Conn's voice came from out of the den, "Cyril, what are you doing here?"

Cyril turned his attention away from Lilly and to his chief, "Glaucon and Adeimantus wanted me to tell you that they caught a group of cur dogs crossing into our territory. They say they took them out with relative ease."

Conn, when he had first answered, was half-asleep and spoke drowsily. But as soon as he heard this, he bolted to his feet. He came blustering out of the den. "Where is Glaucon? Where is Adeimantus? I want them to report immediately! Oh, I hope they haven't done what I think they've done! I gave them express orders forbidding it!"

"They did have to defend the homeland, didn't they?" Cyril said, with just a hint of mockery in his voice.

"Not like this, not like this," Conn said. "Go, get them both and make them come here! They have a lot to answer for!"

"Yes, fearless leader," Cyril said cheekily before sauntering down the path and into the darkness.

Conn now turned to Lilly. "You see?" he barked. "You see what I have to put up with? A bunch of murder-happy vigilantes! It was the same thing with Tony. I told them not to kill him but they did it anyway! But why should anybody listen to me? I'm only the absolute ruler of this pack, after all!"

Lilly was so frightened by the outburst that she began to back away, nearly backing straight off the cliff. She could feel her back paw just barely scraping over the edge. With a gasp almost of panic, she just managed to force it back onto the ledge. Conn realized that, given everything she had been through, Lilly had good reason to be so timid where he was concerned.

"I'm sorry," he said in a gruff manner, but one that suggested he was trying to be kind. "I forgot that you have no clue what's going on here."

Lilly now sat down and hid her face as though her parents were scolding her. Conn began to move his paw toward Lilly's shoulder. He noticed, however, that she flinched as it approached. He drew it back.

"I'm not going to hurt you," he said, trying to show some warmth. "I promise that I won't do a thing to hurt you as long as you're under my care."

Lilly looked down at her paws and then away over the cliff. Conn tilted his head; getting her to open up to him was harder than he thought it would be. Then again, it had been so long since he had been married.

"I'm sorry about some of the things your pack had to go through," he said to her, trying another route. "But if your father had just kept faith with us, we wouldn't have needed to go through with any of it."

Lilly closed her eyes, trying and failing not to think of all the death and destruction she'd seen. So many had died. She remembered seeing them bring in Sweets after she had been mauled by one of the attackers' raids. She had been completely unrecognizable. And then there was the image of Tony's head, delivered as a chilling warning, his cold dead eyes fixed unmoving on his daughter-in-law. Lilly honestly could not see how her father not keeping his promises could have justified any of that, let alone all of it.

Conn surmised what was going on in her mind. "You lost friends, no doubt," he said, "and maybe family too. You probably wonder why it had to be like that, how we could do that to people you cared about. Well then, tell me, why did the curs have to do that to us? Why did my wife, my children, have to die at the Pit River? Were they any more guilty than you were? But nothing stops those fiendish hellhounds. They would conquer the world, all for their 'liberty' and their 'justice.' Can we wolves do less? Tell me that, can we do less?"

Lilly was on her feet in an instant and sped past her new mate. She was being yelled at again. She did not like it, it hurt, and subconsciously she could not let herself endure it. Without thinking, she dashed past Conn and into the den which they were now supposed to share. There, she huddled in the cold and dark, shuttering, hoping with all her heard that Conn would not follow, though knowing full well that he would.

Conn realized that he had spoken wrong again. He silently cursed himself for it. Now he would never get the little white wolf to come out of her shell, he thought. He had to follow her, he had to try again. So he took a few steps toward the cave.

"I'm sorry, I shouldn't have yelled," he said.

He could see Lilly shuttering by herself in the cave and could hear whimpering noises coming from her. She had her eyes closed and did not open them even after he had apologized. Conn knew how she must feel.

"I'm sorry, too," he said slowly, "about what they did to you on the way back here. It was terrible, degrading, and no wolf should have to go through those things. If I could have stopped it, I would have. But I can't control them when they're like that. They wouldn't have listened to me."

He now entered the cave and stood beside Lilly. She could sense his approach and began to shiver more uncontrollably. Conn could see under her tremors that she was also bracing herself for something, as though she expected him to hit her. He knew that she probably did.

He now gently laid his paw on her shoulder. She yelped as though she had been burnt and quickly pulled it away. Her force was such that she toppled backwards and hit the ground on her back. Lilly now opened her eyes and looked up at Conn. In those lavender lights, he could see nothing but fear, dread, and anguish.

Clearly the thing he said about not hurting her had not gotten through.

Time to try again, he thought. "I know this isn't the life you wanted to live," he said, "and I'm not the wolf you wanted to spend your life with. Well, quite frankly, you're not the wolf I wanted to spend my life with either. But we're stuck with each other, so we might as well make the best of it. We could be happy with each other, if we just gave it a little effort. If you just give me a chance, you'll see. What do you say?"

Lilly merely stared her lavender eyes into his blue ones. She seemed even more terrified than she was before. Still on her back, she put all four paws to the ground and used them to carry herself backward until the darkness began to obscure her white form. Conn now saw that he was not going to get through to her. He turned away with a sigh and sadly walked back to the cliff.

Once she had the den to herself, Lilly began to calm down. She lifted herself up and, once she worked up the courage, cautiously looked out. She saw Conn sitting there by himself in the moonlight, just where she had been when she had been alone. She began to take a few steps forward. Now, watching him for the first time, she began to comprehend what he had been saying to her – everything had just been a jumbled noise before.

For a brief moment, she even thought about comforting him – a wild and crazy idea. But it was shaken from her mind by the sound of two sets of paws on the path. Conn swiftly turned as Glaucon and Adeimantus came into view, carrying something between them that Lilly could tell was white and rust-colored. Lilly backed further into the den so that they would not see her.

But she did not need to be close to them to hear what they were saying, for Conn was very angry at his two subordinates.

"How could you two be so thick and disobey my orders?" he hollered. "I said not to engage! Keep them from our borders but do not engage!"

"Relax, sir," said Glaucon, with a hint of impertinence in his voice, "it was just one of those militias that come up here sometimes. The curs won't even notice they're missing, you mark my words."

"Yeah," Adeimantus added, "they crossed into our borders and they paid the price. It's not like it was an actual army of theirs."

"Oh, no?" Conn asked. "Then what's that you've got in your paws? A banner of their nation, that's what! They don't give those to militias. That must have been an army of some sort!"

Glaucon and Adeimantus, suddenly realizing what they had done, threw down the banner at Conn's feet. Lilly could not make it out, but Conn could see it clearly. Mud and blood covered much of the once stainless-banner and several large tears ruined the fine cloth, reducing it almost to shreds. But still, Conn could make out the picture of an orange-brown cur dog, looking angered and fierce, against the white field. Above it was a golden scroll in which was written in black letters the legend, "CUR REPUBLIC".

"We did what we thought was right," Glaucon said quietly.

Conn growled loud enough that Lilly shivered a little more and hid her face behind a rock for a moment, despite the fact that she was in no danger from his fury. "But you didn't think! That's the problem, you never think! You two may have just sealed the fate of our whole nation! We could all be annihilated this time!"

"Do you really think it will come to war?" Adeimantus said, his voice tinged with guilt and fear.

Lilly's shivering now increased tenfold at the thought of another war after she had gone through so much to end one. After all, had she not given up everything just so that there would be peace? True, real, lasting peace? And now, here she was, a lone stranger in a home not hers, and yet still haunted by the specter of war. But it was Conn's answer which would make her whole body go numb.

"They won't let this stand," Conn said. "They'll come, and when they come, they won't go back until they've destroyed us all. It's their way. And for us, their way means death."

His eyes focused once again on the stainless banner before him, now all stained and soiled.

"You boys thought you were doing something great for us and defending the pack," said he, "but I'm afraid, in the words of a great general, 'We have done nothing but to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve.' "

Here Ends the Prologue of The Great Year

Read On.