Chapter 1

I picked up that wolf on a supply run.

I was pretty sure I'd gone out for canned food and medicine. Instead, I dragged a giant silver-gray wolf out from under a collapsed shelf.

A rusted length of rebar had gone straight through his hind leg, and blood had matted the silver-gray fur into clumps. He looked wretched.

Three zombie corpses lay around him, every skull crushed.

I crouched and weighed the facts. He had killed three zombies, so he was a formidable fighter. He was still alive, so he was tough. If I saved him, he could kill more zombies for me.

Worth it.

I hauled him onto a cart and dragged him back to the base. Smuggling him into my cramped cubicle nearly killed me.

The base rated every survivor's ability from F to S. F was the bottom tier. Most F-ranks never awakened a useful power, weren't much stronger than ordinary people, held little status, received smaller rations, and were easy to overlook.

I happened to be one of those F-rank rejects, so everyone assumed I'd dragged home another piece of junk. No one looked twice.

I rinsed his wound with the half bottle of disinfectant I had left. He woke and bared his fangs at me. A low, threatening growl rose from his throat, his gray eyes wary.

"Don't make noise," I said, clamping his snout shut. "There are people everywhere out there. If they find us we're both dead."

He fell silent for a beat and stayed that way, merely glaring at me as though sizing me up.

I ignored him, stitched the wound, wrapped it, then broke off half a ration bar and set it in front of him.

"That's all I have. Make do with it."

He glanced at the bar and didn't move.

But when I lay down to sleep, he rested his head beside my bed, and his tail brushed my wrist.

Cool as the wind off a snowy peak.

Nights in the apocalypse are bitterly cold.

The base's heating had failed long ago, and I had only one thin blanket. Every night, I curled into a ball and froze. That night, I couldn't take it anymore. Looking at the giant wolf beside my bed, I made a practical calculation: his coat looked thick, so he had to be warm.

So I climbed out of bed, lifted his tail, and tucked myself against his belly.

His body stiffened for a moment. The heat radiating from him made me feel safe.

"Don't move," I mumbled. "I'm just borrowing your body heat."

Then I buried my face in the soft fur of his belly.

It was softer than anything I'd ever touched and smelled of cedar and sunshine.

His heartbeat sounded beside my ear, deep and steady, and it struck me that he was more useful than my boyfriend had ever been.

I slept my first full night since the end of the world.

When I woke the next morning, a huge fluffy tail lay draped over me, nearly crushing the breath out of me. After struggling free, I found the giant wolf beside the bed, his gray eyes fixed on me and his ears pinned back. He looked... completely at a loss.