Sunrise stretched and tried to get comfortable.

She didn’t have her own kennel yet, although her mother had told her that their two-legged pack leader would soon provide one. Stone was good to them, Fern said, even if he wasn’t always around.

Earlier, Stone had called them all inside the mansion, to the kitchen, where he had given out scraps of fresh meat. Chewing on it had awoken memories of being fed this type of meat as a puppy, alongside her cousins Shadow and Ronin.

It had been so delicious, for a moment she had forgotten about Gwen and the others. There was safety here, soon a kennel of her own, clean water … and all of it had been given to her.

Just do as Stone says,^her father had told ^her.Keep an eye out for enemies and, in return, you get a good life.

‘Enemies’ was strange concept now. That was what Gwen had always called the soldiers. Now Sunrise was serving them. Did that make her the enemy to Gwen? And Gwen the enemy to her?

She could never think of Gwen that way.

Sunrise lay awake thinking tormented thoughts as the rest of the pack snoozed happily.

‘The’ pack? Or ‘her’ pack? She wasn’t sure. When she had first seen them, there’d been an instant connection with her mother and father. In Tala and Joffa she had an aunt and uncle, and her cousins were as playful as she remembered them. Sunrise was overjoyed to be with them all again, but it was tainted by how torn she felt about it.

She still felt a connection to her other pack too. They had been through so much together, and she missed them terribly.

How could she have done this to them?

Surely they were far away by now. They probably hated her for abandoning them.

Would she ever get to sleep? Her new collar was an odd sensation around her neck, and made it hard to relax. She scratched at it, but could not get it off.

You’ll get used to it, her mother had said.

A low croak in a tree nearby made Sunrise’s ears shoot up. She knew that sound all too well. What was Eagle doing here?

Sunrise glanced at the others. They seemed to be asleep. To them, a bird in the night was of no interest.

She rose and padded towards the tree. There she saw the familiar outline of Eagle against the starry night sky.

What are you doing here? asked Sunrise with a gentle lift of her paw.

Eagle spread her wings and flew off to land in another tree, closer to the fence.

Sunrise followed, being as quiet as she could.

Eagle led her from tree to tree, then perched on the fence by a satellite tower at the back corner of the compound.

Sunrise could feel her heart beating faster.

A familiar scent found her nostrils. She padded towards the fence and then, on the other side, she saw … Gwen.