Abandoned or orphaned at age 3, Thia was found and raised by a she-wolf whose pups had died in lean time. She remembers almost nothing of her life before the wolves, the only surving memories of her parents are a hummed lullaby from her mother and the ever fading lull of her father's laughter.

Thia was attacked when the she-wolf took her into the pack, but was protected by her adoptive mother.

She learned to hunt, her two legs and lack of teeth making her slower and less deadly. Until the alpha needed quills pulled from his hide, her nimble fingers make quicker work of them than if they'd used their teeth.

Mother-wolf, MoonSinger, taught her the ways of stealth, even helping her to sneak into the camp of a group of men-hunters to steal a dagger to be her claws and teeth. While she loved her family, she couldn't stop watching the men. They looked like her, walked like her, they were not wolves and that made them dangerous.

She learned from watching how to make a bow, how to use it. With her new teeth and claws, she became hunter like no other in the pack. MoonSinger had one litter after adopting the wee elven child, a single pup with fur of sunlight.

SunPelt grew into an unmatched hunter, not counting Thia with her steel tooth and flying claws. They were inseparable from his first hunt, always pushing to be better than the other.

Everything was a competition, who could take down the largest boar, who was the fastest runner? They were as evenly matched as an elf and a wolf could be. When SunPelt became alpha, even the little elven girl sang to the moon that night.

Months passed, MoonSinger grew old, frail. Until she was called to hunt forever in the moon's pack. The night of her passing was the last time she sang to the moon. Seasons passed and SunPelt took a mate. The gray she-wolf SilentPaw.

During a particularly harsh winter, the pack was threatened by a mad wolf. Hunters came back bleeding, their prey stolen. The pack was starving. Thia threw herself wholeheartedly into her hunts, gone for days to return with little to show for it.

The came the ultimate hunt. She and SunPelt set off. Following prey trail for a week. They were close. Elk was scented. But another scent. Bad scent. Smell of injured hunters. The one who did it. SunPelt led the way. Circling the sorce of the smell. A black wolf, dire wolf.

He attacked SunPelt, blood staining fur and snow. He was down. His golden chest quit moving. When his eyes met hers, she knew she had to avenge her alpha, brother, friend. All the hunters who limped back to homeden to die with their family.

She flying claws flew true, eye, throat, heart. She barely survived the encounter. The pelt of the dire wolf was the first and only trophy she took. When she reached homeden, every wolf mourned Sunpelt. Her song joining the others once again. Spring came and with it, pups. Golden and gray fur, born of SunPelt and SilentPaw.

All was as well as it could be, until one of the pups got caught in a man-hunters net. The pup tangled himself up worse by struggling. She was unable to get him undone before the man-hunters return.

She was captured, her pack-brother with her. They took her tooth and claws, trying her hands. Pack-brother pup was caged and they were taken into the lands of men.

The mate of the hunter took her in, trying desperately to tame her. The first days were the hardest, separated from the brown pup. When the human woman figured it out, she inquired about the pup, only to find it had been sold to train the Lords hounds.

Thia wanted to escape. To return to homeden. Days turned to weeks. Slowly she relearned common, watching for any chance to escape.