Prologue

A snow-white wolf was sitting on a tree trunk, facing her new pack. She began speaking in a tone that was serious for her, a normally soft-spoken and shy wolf.

"I'm Lilly—formerly an Omega wolf of the former Western Pack of Jasper Park, Canada and the sister of the last Alpha female of said pack. I am one of the ten wolves from Jasper Park who survived the end of the world. Now, as I recount my terrifying story to you, the members of my new pack in my new home on Baffin Island, I am one of the three wolves from Jasper to survive the journey to this island. I will tell you all the dark things about it; all the fun we had, the love I made, everything before the end came. And all the pain, death, sadness, terror and bloodshed that we experienced after the end. This dark tale is not for the faint of heart or the young, so leave now or prepare to hear the worst. I will not stop, but you can leave at any time.

"Before the world came to an end in fire, plague, lava and flood waters, we wolves of Jasper Park had been at the location known as The Howling Rock. For as long as there's been wolves in Jasper, we have been coming to this mountain to find mates, howl with friends and family, and even mate in places that were difficult to find. It's hard having to tell these memories—but the memories, good or bad, of everyone who lost their lives need to be passed on through my story, to all future generations of storytellers. The stories of the Jasper wolves can't die with them…"

The Howling Rock, a small mountain at the borders of the united Eastern and Western Wolf Pack's territories, was where Lilly and her older sister Kate, the daughters of the preceding pack leaders Winston and Eve, met the wolves, who were now their mates, three years ago. Life had been so much different back then, they thought, during their puppy days and then adolescence. They would have had to marry wolves they did not even love because of a now abolished pack law—Alphas married Alphas, Betas married Betas, and Omegas married Omegas. They all would have married different wolves if it were not for a tragedy that had united the packs and caused the former pack leaders of the then two wolf packs to do away with the pack law of rank affecting marital choices. That tragedy was that Kate, now the Alpha female with her Omega mate Humphrey, had almost died when fighting between the packs caused a caribou stampede that trampled Kate. The stampede had started because Kate and Garth, an Eastern Alpha, and the son of Tony, the former Eastern Alpha male, had admitted to fallen in love with Omegas. They would not marry to unite the packs, which had sparked an immediate breach of peace between the packs, and caused stampede of caribou. Kate had been feared dead by all of her pack members, in addition all of the Eastern Pack Wolves, and they had howled a sad "song"—the "Requiem for Kate," or "Funeral Hymn for Kate"—only to relieve that she had been knocked unconscious.

In the end, after some rather forceful convincing on her mother's part, Kate, an Alpha, was allowed to marry Humphrey, an Omega whom she had fallen in love with, and Lilly, an Omega, and Kate's little sister, was allowed to marry Garth, an Alpha. Kate had conceived three puppies when she and Humphrey had mated on their way home on a train—the Jasper Park rangers had taken them to Sawtooth National Park in Idaho to repopulation there, but they made it back home with the help of Marcel and Paddy, a goose and a duck. They returned home just in time to prevent a war between the two packs—almost. First, Kate and Humphrey had hitched a ride in the back of a human couple's truck until they intentionally lost their ride because Humphrey had left it to relieve himself, only to find a cupcake, and fail to open the package. He had planned to eat it quickly, and then take care of his business. Because it had white frosting, when two humans working in the gas station on that had been working on that night had thought Humphrey was a rabid wolf. The owner, Max, had almost killed Kate and Humphrey using his shotgun, but he somehow had missed when he shot at them, and blew a hole in the fence he had cornered them against instead. They escaped through that hole in the fence, and the two birds led them to a train, where Humphrey mated with Kate after they had howled at the full moon with each other, just as Lilly and Garth had done at the same time in Jasper.

The spring after all this happened, Kate gave birth to three puppies—Claudette, the oldest and the only daughter, Stinky, the middle child, and Runt, the youngest. Until that year's Christmas, the united Eastern and Western Pack Wolves had thought all their troubles were over until Runt disappeared, taken to Banff by several former Eastern Pack Wolves. Those wolves Alpha male was an old friend of Tony who had left with his mate, daughter, and thirty other Eastern Pack Wolves because they had disagreed with the abolishment of the pack law that had forbidden the marriage of wolves outside their own rank. King, his mate Queen, and their only surviving daughter and pup, Princess, were the Alpha family, formerly known by the names Slash—King's original name, Terra—Princess's original name. Queen had always called herself "Queen," it seemed—she did not remember any other name, nor did any other Eastern or Western Pack Wolf.

King and Queen's plan had been to use Runt as bait to get the Alpha family—Kate, Humphrey, Lilly, Garth, Winston, Eve, Tony. In addition them, the rest of the strongest and smartest wolves—the Betas known as Claws, Scar, Hutch and Candu, and the Omegas Candy and Sweets—out of Jasper so he could send half his pack, now over two hundred wolves, to Jasper to take it over. His plan would have worked—

—if it had not been for not the actions of any of the Jasper wolves but his daughter Princess, who had betrayed her own father because she had come to love Runt as if she was his mother. When King had ordered her to come down and flirt with Humphrey, who had been distracting the rouges, under the false name "Lockjaw," his daughter had not answered, he realized Princess had betrayed him, and fled with the enslaved pup.

An all out battle had ensued between the Jasper wolves and the rogues, the former outnumbered many times over. The latter had had the advantage until King found Princess, still carrying Runt in her jaws, and he tried to kill his own daughter. He would have succeeded in killing Princess and Runt if it was not for the intervention of the Beta wolves from Jasper. Claws, Scar, Candu, and Hutch, in addition to Princess, had proven to be almost too much for King, and they took him down. However, although Princess had almost fatally wounded her father, by tearing his throat open, King had managed to tear her throat open as while.

Princess died as the Jasper wolves had allowed King to slink away, bleeding out, to die, most likely, before he got too far from the scene. As the wolves howled mournfully, the same howl, the "Requiem for Kate," now howled for Princess rather than Kate, who had been among the wolves howling, what they could only call a miracle by the Jasper wolves happened at their feet. Somehow, Princess woke up after dying—Candy had checked Princess's pulse, and there hadn't been one; Princess had stopped breathing, too—but the Jasper wolves did not notice it until she said Runt's name in a weak voice. Although her wound had been bleeding still, she seemed to have suddenly improved during the time the Jasper wolves had no explanation for what happened to Princess.

They stayed at the border of Banff, in a den Candy and Sweets had found, for a day so Princess could recover, and Candy, Sweets, and Eve could patch the hole in her neck up. Remarkably, Princess was still able to speak after her injury, but her voice had been much weaker than it used to be for some time.

Lilly and Garth had never mated, or even thought about starting a family, but on this night, they intended on changing that. As their friends and family were howling together or seeking mates at various elevations of The Howling Rock, they were seeking out an extremely private location to finally consummate their love—by mating for the first time, even though they had gotten married three years earlier. Although Kate and Humphrey had mated before they could marry, breaking pack law in the process, Lilly and Garth had waited until they had really gotten to know each other before they wanted to mate. Three years was a long time to get to know someone's mate, and, even though they had truly loved each other, they wanted to have been together a long time before they started a family.

The private location they decided to mate in was the tall grassy field about a mile from The Howling Rock. This field happened to be the one Lilly and Garth called home, rather than a den. Garth's father Tony had never wanted his son and his daughter-in-law, and eventually his grandpups, to live anywhere but in a den, let alone in a field. Tony had even offended to give up his own den if they would live in it, but the couple had kindly refused Tony's offer. It was because of the two vegetarian wolves, Reba and Janice, who were best friends since their puppy days, which Lilly and Garth called this field home. The vegetarians had show them this field after their wedding, and they had loved living in a field better than in any sort of cave or den.

Garth looked on with interest as Lilly stuck her butt up in the air, and lifted her bushy tail up even up, giving her mate a good view of what was underneath it. As if just to tease Garth, she began waving her tail back and forth, and shaking her butt provocatively. Her intention was to cause Garth to get sexually excited, and she could tell by just looking at the area between his legs that it was working. A smile grew over her lips when she saw what she did, as they stared at each other in places they normally would not. Lilly was a shy wolf who normally did not act like this, not even around Garth. She had never shown the underside of her tail or her butt to anyone before. Just as much as Lilly loved what she saw—as she made eye contact with the space between Garth's legs—just as much as Garth was enjoying what he saw underneath his mate's tail, as she provocatively waved in back and forth slowly.

Lilly was in heat, and Garth knew it. He could smell it on her, and the scent of her heat was powerful. It had turned him on, and Lilly shaking her butt and tail had done that even more than her heat alone did. Garth also knew what Lilly wanted him to give her, just by considering she was in heat and acting so out of character. The only time a female wolf could get pregnant was when she was in heat, and neither of them wanted to miss this opportunity to start a family, finally, after three years of not mating.

"Give me all you got, Garth!" Lilly said in a seductive voice, continuing to shake her butt and tail, in addition to now batting her noticeable eyelashes in just as provocative of a fashion as she was moving her hips back and forth, also slowly, just like her tail.

Lilly ceased all movement of her hips when Garth came up behind her. He did not hesitate to mount her and stick himself inside his mate, before he started thrusting against her hips. Garth put his paws on Lilly's hips, still stuck up in the air, to give him more balance. It took a while for wolves to mate, so he would be here for over ten minutes before he was done. He had not even been thrusting for half a minute but Lilly was already enjoying this. She was breathing heavily, and moaning, and crying out in pleasure. Her cries were loud, but Garth knew he was not hurt her. He was making her feel better than anyone, anything, ever had, physically or mentally.

She smiled when she saw Garth's legs stick out in front of her own front legs. Lilly's tail was not sticking up straight, right against her mate's chin or face, but rather off to the side of his underbelly. The back of her head was up against his chest.

Garth was digging his hind paws into the soil now, as Lilly felt him continue to penetrate her. She was still tight, so it was a lot of effort on the part of Garth to mate with her, and a lot of effort on the part of Lilly to be able to handle so much pleasure, and abuse, for lack of a better term, of her butt. Well, not exactly her butt, she thought, but it was close enough! She was not thinking straight—the pleasure was too great for either half of the couple to think straight. All Garth was thinking about was getting Lilly pregnant, just as much as she was thinking about finally getting pregnant. Her parents and the rest of her family would be so happy to get such news.

Lilly shut her eyes tight, and opened her mouth wide. Garth's mouth, too, was wide open as he moaned in pleasure, not stopping his thrusting in and out of her. Just like Lilly, his tongue was hanging out of his mouth, and he was drooling—

—right on Lilly's head, not that she minded any. She was actually in too much pleasure to care, or notice, if Garth was drooling on her. However, she would not care if she did notice that he was drooling. Now, Lilly stuck her legs straight out in front of her body. Still, they did not go further than Garth's legs. He was a lot bigger than Lilly. Then again, most wolves were larger than Lilly, even her fellow Omegas.

"Faster, Garth! Faster!" she begged with pleasure in her voice. "Make me feel good—really good!"

Garth complied, and began thrusting faster than he had been. His increased speed made not only Lilly moaning constantly, but Garth as well, only less frequently than his mate. She was the one getting the most pleasure from him thrusting, but when he reached his climax, Garth would probably the one in the most pleasure. Not that either of them had been keeping track of how long he had been thrusting, but they had been going at it for almost fifteen minutes now, and Garth's climax was about to happen—

—and it did almost as soon as he thought about the funny feeling he was getting. Lilly and Garth, in unison, let out screams of pleasure as he climaxed, filling Lilly's womb up with his fluids. Because she was in heat, they both knew there was no chance she would not get pregnant. Garth had intended to warn Lilly that his climax was nearing, but he did not have a chance before he had given one last, powerful thrust, and then released his fluids into Lilly.

The two wolves began panting, their tongues hanging out more than ever now. If it had been possible, they would be sweating now, but wolves only sweated on their paws, and that was just to keep them cool after running for a long time. It took a lot of effort, more than it took to mate, even, to get a wolf to sweat anywhere else other than on their paws.

Lilly and Garth rested for a minute or two before he dismounted his mate. Lilly turned around, and laid down on all four legs again, in Garth's direction. She looked up at him with innocent eyes. As the recovered from their exhaustion brought on by the rigorous task of mating, they would both thinking about doing something else. A female had never blown Garth, and Lilly had never blown a male.

Maybe it would be a good time to do it for the first time, both Lilly and Garth thought at the same time, not that either of them knew what the other was thinking.

Garth knew Lilly was thinking the same thing he was when she opened her drooling mouth wide and began moving her head toward his crotch. She had been about to put the entire thing in her mouth when they heard what sounded like someone singing not far from where they were. It did not sound like a wolf—it was not howling—nor did it sound like the singing of any animal they could think of, or had ever heard before. When they went through the tallest blades of grass, Lilly and Garth learned it was not even an animal.

A lone human, a male, it seemed to the two wolves, was sitting on a tree stump, singing to himself. There was some sort of dull plastic object, the thinner end, in his mouth. Some kind of light gray smoke was coming out of the larger, exposed end of this object neither wolf had ever seen before. Nevertheless, the smoke smelled almost pleasant to Lilly and Garth. It enticed them to move closer, slowly, so they would not frighten the human. As they walked slowly toward him, the next thing they noticed two more of the objects just like the one in the human's mouth, lying on a piece of cloth on the tree trunk by the man's waist. In front of these two plastic objects, there was a plastic bag labeled "marijuana." Of course, Lilly and Garth could not read it, considering how they were wolves, and only understood their own language, which wolves did not write down, unlike that of the humans. In the bag, the two wolves saw a good amount of oddly shaped and shredded leaves.

"Oh, two wolves," the man said, suddenly, in an almost laughing voice. He sounded so happy, so good-natured that the wolves sensed they had no reason to be afraid of him. Although the wolves did not understand the written language of humans, they could understand humans when they spoke what humans called "English," not that any wolf would know that, but the humans could not understand the language of wolves. All they heard was yips, barks, snarls, growls, and so many other noises that wolves made when they communicated.

He was still speaking about a minute later, after going off on some random babbling that had confused Lilly and Garth. Now, they were beginning to understand him a little more. "Oh—" he laughed again. Lilly and Garth now noticed how slurred his words were. "—you two wolves must want some of my…my…my…weed?" He stammered, struggling to finish his sentence. "Well, here you go!" he added in a good-natured voice. He seemed to be unaware that wolves be potentially dangerous, he was so wasted, stoned or whatever it humans called it, the wolves thought together, staring at each other in confusion. He saw nothing that worried him, and the wolves were not worried about this human being dangerous to them, either.

However, Lilly and Garth had not expected this human to taken the two plastic objects, called pipes, and stuck the thinner ends of each one into their jaws, one at a time. He carefully lit the ends of the pipes with his lighter, to avoid setting the wolves on fire. Even when impaired as he was, this man still seemed to know enough to be careful with sources of fire, like his lighter, especially around the fur of animals.

"Now," he began instructing them, "just breath in and out of t-the pipes, and you two will…be feeling great in a matter of a few minutes."

Lilly and Garth followed his instructions, and smoked whatever it was that was in these pipes until they were both too out of it to hold the pipes in their jaws anymore. The human did not get angry when the pipes fell—he had been expecting that to happen eventually.

Now Lilly and Garth were behaving almost exactly how the man who had given them the "marijuana" had been when they found him—and how he still was acting. Lilly and Garth were side-by-side of each other, their sides pressing up against each other. Lilly was on the right and Garth was on the left. They had pressed their heads against each other to help balance themselves out. The two wolves were now seeing things. Well, Garth was. Lilly, she was not seeing anything that was not there, even when she could manage to keep her eyes open. Garth was also having trouble with keeping his eyes open. They could hardly hold themselves up, either.

"Li…Lil…Lilly," Garth slurred, "am…am I seein…seeing nine birds? Or…or nineteen?" Garth thought he was seeing bluebirds like the ones he used to kill when he was a terrible howler, before Lilly had taught him how to howl properly. Lilly saw them now that Garth had mentioned it. However, they were not there, not that the wolves could realize it.

Lilly responded, speaking slowly as her mate. "Baby…I'm too damn stoned to tell! Just…to…damn…stoned…" Lilly's voice slowed, faded away, and then she fell backwards. Lilly's torso was on the ground, and her butt was up in the air. Her busy tail fell down between her hind legs. She tried to get up but only succeeded in ending up on her belly, now, front and hind legs sprawled out.

Garth, who now had nothing to hold him, collapsed as well—

—right onto Lilly, who had already passed out. Garth passed out before he even fell over, and before his head landed gently on Lilly's butt.

The man had to laugh at these two unconscious wolves. Never in his life would he have ever imagined being responsible for getting two wolves, a wild animal, stoned! However, he would move them back into the field, at least, before they woke up. He knew from coming here so many times before, to get stoned, of course, that these two wolves lived in that field. For some reason, he had decided to wrap them up entirely in the blankets of moss he saw there, before leaving them to sleep.

When the man returned to the open area of land, where he had been smoking, he saw something that sobered him up quickly. It did so more quickly than seeing a police officer, when he was stoned, ever had. It was an immediate effect on him.

An earthquake or something had destroyed the landscape—there was nothing left of it, at least not comparable to how it had looked before. There were cracks in the ground, in addition to fire everywhere, and rivers of lava flowing all around. How did this hellish scene happen so quickly, without him hearing it happen? That was what the man was wondering as he looked on in terror. Just as suddenly as this had happened, the ground began splitting open. The split in the ground came in his direction—

—and the man screamed as he fell. He died upon impact with the lava below, which burned him up immediately. It was a quick death, at least. There was no way to die faster than falling into a river of lava or magma.

All of Jasper, all of Canada, was experiencing the same chaos just as suddenly. There was nothing, nothing at all, left of The Howling Rock…

Author's note: I had no idea the prologue of this story was over 4000 words when I originally hand wrote this. It's definitely the longest prologue I've ever written.

Before people ask where I got the idea of Lilly and Garth getting high—it's because of a picture I found, and the caption on the picture is what I used for Lilly and Garth talking before they passed out. (It was an edited Alpha and Omega screenshot I found on Fanpop.)