NightStar Summit

4. Remembrance

KATARINA

"What an awful coincidence," Sadie said whilst looking behind us and back at the game going on. "Well, at least you're going to be happy."

I knew what she was talking about but I chose to ignore her. I still had no idea why she hated Colt, and at this point, I didn't think I'd ever find out. I mean, I knew nothing about him. For all I know, he could have been some crazy Ted Bundy type serial killer.

Ew.

Now I was actually thinking about that.

"Sade, you're gonna have to tell me the story about why you feel so strongly about him later."

She looked back at me, the utmost pissed off look on her face, "Why do you care so much? Is he something more to you than just a desk partner?"

"Well, no. But its drama and you know how much I love that when it isn't my own. Besides, you said I should rebound," I whispered the last couple of words so that Colt couldn't hear me. He was a few people in front of me in line.

She went from pissed off to straight up disgusted in .01 seconds, "With Colt McGregor? Kat, that's absolutely f*****g disgusting. He's an animal."

I watched ahead of me as Colt looked over his shoulder, seeming concerned. We made direct eye contact and I looked away from him hurriedly and back at Sadie who was right back to being pissed off. "I can't believe you right now," was all she said. "Why can't you just trust your best friend on this one?"

I ignored her.

As far as I was concerned, as long as she didn't tell me what the hell the problem between the two of them was, there was nothing for me to really worry about.

I sucked in a deep breath and walked past the people in front of me to stand next to Colt and some little girl that resembled him.

He acknowledged my presence, but he seemed to be acting as if he had no idea who I was. It was either that or he was just really uncomfortable with me standing next to him.

"You seem more like a player than an observer," the words came out a lot less confidently than I had planned for. "Of football I mean."

He looked at me for the briefest of seconds, "I figured that's what you meant."

Now, with no clue what to say, I look around for possible conversation starters and my eyes wandered down to the little girl gluing herself to Colt's side. I put a big, welcoming smile on my face, "Is this your sister?"

I got a small nod from Colt in response, one I almost totally missed.

I crouched down to be somewhat level with the little girl who had her dark brown hair tied in a very loose braid. "I'm Kat. It's nice to meet you," I held my hand out to her and as soon as she saw it, her face lit up and she shook it immediately.

"I'm Felicity. You can call me Fliss or Flica though," she said happily.

"That is a really pretty name."

Her smile faded slightly, "Yeah, I think it's prettier than yours...But I don't like cats so that's probably why."

Colt suppressed a laugh and looked away so that I wouldn't see it.

"Understandable. I don't really like dogs too much," I said. I've never liked dogs. My grandparents had a mean little terrier that tried to bite my hand off when I was little. Haven't liked them since.

"Do you like wolves though?" Felicity asked.

It was a random question, but little kids were very random so I thought nothing of it, "I like them when they're in zoos. Otherwise no. They scare me."

She looked up at Colt who's face was completely blank of any emotion, before she looked back to me, "I like them. The nice ones."

I nodded to her before standing back up, "Well, I'll leave you two alone than."

The hopeless romantic part of me prayed that he would say something, but the realistic side of me wasn't surprised when I was able to make it back to my friends without being pulled into a conversation.

COLTON

"You basically gave her the cold shoulder. Are you trying to make her hate you?!" Noah asked as soon as I got back to my seat.

I looked to Paisley for help. Sometimes she knew how to deal with Noah better than I did and I've been dealing with him since we were pups, "Aren't you the one that told him to play hard to get?" She asked. "You make no sense sometimes Noah."

"You were trying too hard. Girls like chasing guys, but they have to know you're interested. How is Kat gonna know if you refuse to say anything to her?"

I looked away from all of them and at the field. There was only so much stupidity I could take in a single day, and I hate to admit it but my friends usually exhausted all of it.

My dad tried to drill some goods points into my head while we were on our hunt. He told me that I could like her all I wanted, but I shouldn't waste too much time on it because she isn't a wolf so what she feels for me isn't nearly what I could feel for her.

After that bit of disheartening news, it wasn't that hard to try to slow down my thoughts about her. I f*****g hated being a wolf sometimes. Everything was ten times harder to control, but everything happened ten times just as fast.

My dad had recently started to slowly give me pointers in how to best run a pack as an alpha. I was getting older and the males in our family didn't have the best track record with submitting to authority. Once our wolf decided it was mature and strong enough to run the pack, something evil snapped and they decided to challenge the current alpha. Most of the time they won too. Either that happened, or the fate of the alpha wasn't very good and they died.

I didn't think my wolf was gonna go crazy and try to kill my dad to be Alpha. I guess no one ever sees these things coming though.

I did see the crazy in Forrest, but I knew he would never ever be strong enough to fight and take down my dad. He just didn't and never would have the warrior gene. I almost felt like Felicity would be a better alpha than he ever would.

He couldn't even throw a goddam football five feet.

"He really made it sound like he was gonna play...even if it was just for a couple seconds," my dad said, sheer disappointment in his voice. I wasn't expecting him to play at all, as bad as that sounded. At least I wasn't let down though, "I cancelled your mother's remembrance night for this."

Everything stopped as soon as those words left his mouth.

The only time anyone ever talked about my mom was on her remembrance night. She was loved by everyone, almost like she was the pack's mom too. Losing her was hard, but remembering her was even harder.