The forest bothered him, but the search for prey removed him from the wide-open plains and wasteland at times, remembering survival and remembering sustenance. Self-preservation, when recalled, was a powerful driving force. His pet could only do so much. The past few days had removed him from the waste, drawing him into the trees.
Earlier, he’d snatched up some mice from beneath the snow, but that could hardly be considered a meal. A sparrow had fallen victim to his jaws, but that was barely a snack—nothing more than fluff and feather-light bone. Slipping from the interior of a ruined house—another handful of mice quickly swallowed as he rooted through crumbling architecture—he passed around the edge of a decaying shack. The wall was missing, and he glanced within, unable to avoid detecting the she-wolf as she set about preparing the rabbits.
The last time that he’d seen her she’d been an infant.
She was a stranger to him now.
He said nothing.