Bearclaw Valley Hello, my name is Jimmy Pop and I'm a dumb white guy

No one had ever told Lucas that leaving the den was a potentially dangerous thing to do without supervision. Of course, even if someone had told him, he wouldn't understand. How could warm light like this, he might reason, be harmful at all? He pranced in it and squirmed as it warmed his spine, and after a while, his squinting lessened.

Enough for him to make out the brown-and-green patchwork of the grass as it recovered from winter. Enough to make out the stunningly blue sky and the brilliant orb that made his eyes water to look at. And enough to make out the white wolf that was shimmying toward him on his belly. Lucas' baby blue eyes locked onto Xan's red ones and his whole body began to wiggle, from his tail to his ears. Friend! Everyone was a friend to him.

That is, until Laurel came pelting out of the den and overshadowed him. The cub flinched down to the ground and cast a sidelong look up at his mama, who growled viciously at the white wolf. Lucas mustered his own growl, a cheap imitation that was hardly intimidating at all, as his eyes drifted back to the mysterious white stranger.