Ice Blue [ Book One ]

3 // Family

The run was good, but my mind was still racing even after I shifted back and put my clothes back on. Princeton looked cheerful as he met me back on the path, but didn't budge me to speak with him. He seemed to sense I wanted to be with my thoughts, so he kept me silent company.

How is it that I had met the wolves and was ready to judge and attack, but now I felt content with being around one of them?

Sure I still didn't like them, they made me uneasy if I saw them in a group like earlier today on my way to the kitchen, but being around Princeton eased the caution.

I didn't like it.

I clenched and unclenched my fists as he walked next to me, my jaw clenched and my eyes directly ahead of me. I wasn't even watching where I was going at this point; I could slam into a tree and still not notice.

The mere thought of being around the pack made me sick to my stomach. It was a prejudice, a thought and feeling that had always been with me. No previous interaction with wolves, and the teachings about how our kind don't get along with theirs have been drilled into my head. Now I was living with a pack of them, and I would have to rethink my prejudices and attempt to be more diverse-accepting.

But so would they. Perhaps the fact that they were given their "Luna" as they lovingly called it helped and made it easier for them to not be judgmental, but this was new for all of us. There was pre-existing displeasure in everyone, me, Princeton, even. Nobody can understand quite how a Feline and a Wolf were brought together. It was a confusion amongst everyone, and it probably unsettled most of those in Princeton's back. Hell, it unsettled me and I wasn't even apart of it officially.

It's funny, hilarious even, to me that when they had me cornered in the ditch hours ago I was ready to rip their throats out. If the threat was big enough towards me, I probably would still be ready to do just that.

"What are you thinking about?" Princeton asked me, his deep voice forcing me to stop my train of thoughts. "You're really buried in your own head."

I folded my hands together in front of me, focusing my eyes on anything except him even when I wanted to look at him, study his features. "Just how uneasy I feel."

Princeton breathed in softly. I could feel him shoot a quick look at me, only to tear his eyes away. That didn't matter. It still left a burning hole on the side of my face from where he had glanced.

"They won't hurt you," was all he replied.

"Maybe not now. But everyone, no matter what, no matter who, no matter why, holds some ways of thinking towards another. It's not their fault, it's just how we were born and raised to think," I explained to him, tightening my hands together and working on keeping my voice steady. "It just takes a lot of work and a length of time to change those views, to wake up and see in the opposite direction of what you had been looking at beforehand."

"And are you still looking in the original direction?" he asked.

"Yes. But ask me again in a few weeks, and then later in a couple of months, and my answer may surprise you."

I saw his lips twitch from the corner of my eye.

• • •

I finally figured out the name of Princeton's mother: Alana. But she had insisted I call her Lana, because Alana made her feel very old. I also discovered that Princeton's retired Alpha father was named Alejandro, and he had four older sisters and three younger brothers. Big family.