Chapter Forty Nine

Cole ran back to the suite, his heart a mess of emotions and his mind a storm of thoughts. Nothing had made sense ever since he'd stepped into this town and there seemed to be a multitude of secrets involved in it. When his parents sent him to study at the safest school that had been ranked so regardless of its remote location, he'd not expected much from the place.

Rogues had more interest in the big cities because they could take advantage of the commotion there and make his getaway. This, however, was too much activity for such a small town. Well, it wasn't so small, but compared to the place he'd grown accustomed to, this place was small and adorable in its own way. 'Hunters act like they aren't that many, but if an agency like the one here can exist in such a remote region, then clearly they aren't as few as they claim to be.

Memories of his morning were far from his memory as he kept recounting his meeting with the moon goddess. The moon goddess had fallen from the heavens just to stop him from meeting his mate. 'That was extreme… Perhaps there really is a good reason for all that."

The hotel that Cole was running to soon came into view before a collection of scents struck his nose making him stop dead in his tracks. He breathed them in deeply concluding once and for all exactly what guests he had. Black SUVs filled the parking lot confirming his thoughts on the matter. 'What is the Sirius family doing here?'

Cole shifted back and dusted himself over before walking casually out of the forest and towards the hotel. The tension in the air as he got into the lobby was inescapable. His initial aim was to go straight for the elevator and go up to his suite for a hot bath, but alas, curiosity got the best of him. Cole walked up to the reception, "What's with the mood in here?"

"Oh, Mr Lycaon, there are some new arrivals on the suite above you. I just don't know what is interesting your kind with this small town of ours. Anyway, we welcome you all if it's going to make this hotel all the more famous," she said.

"What do you mean by 'my kind'?"

"Oh, you didn't know. The Sirius Royal family just showed moments after you left with your friends," she said.

"Did my friends return?"

"No, they did not. You know, when you first arrived, I thought you guys would be trouble, but you're not at all what I expected," she said.

"You're quite open about that. We get that a lot," Cole replied before bidding her his farewells and heading straight for the elevator. 'I don't want to run into the Sirius family until after I've rested. Those guys can be a handful.'

"Are you okay? You don't look so good," the receptionist called back to him.

"Yeah, I'm fine. Thanks for asking," he replied once he was in the elevator. 'I wonder where Katie ran off to.'

...........

Sandra walked through the forest with the two alphas, leading them deeper and deeper into the woods. "Look at her leading us into the forest like sacrificial lambs," Jason began after a moment of silence.

"You might as well be sacrificial lambs for all you know," she replied with a smirk on her face.

"Very funny. Take Caden fast, he's far plumper than I am. He's bound to please your gods," was the reply.

"I like the way you easily abandon your comrades, Jason. But I will take the compliment, I'd make a much better sacrifice than you," Caden countered. This was a side of Caden that very few ever got to see in a lifetime.

"So how is training done in the packs? Is it as excruciating as what hunters do?" Sandra asked after laughing at these obnoxious males.

"Oh, alphas don't really know. We are built stronger than the others, inheriting the gene from our parents. Even if we go through the same training as everyone else in the pack, we gain much more in terms of results. In the end, we don't really understand what it is for someone to put in their all to achieve power," Caden explained.

"Wow, that would have come in handy for a lot of… Wait, if that's the case, then does it work the same way for Royals?" she asked.

"Royals are on another level. Although, they also have the most control over their emotions and in turn end up being the least aggressive. That just means there are fewer cases of them losing their temper, but it's not impossible. And each time a Royal has lost their temper, it would take a minimum of five well-trained alphas to stop the rampage," Caden continued.

"All these questions about werewolves, is there something you didn't know? I know hunters are well-educated in the matters of werewolf history and nature," Jason interfered.

"Yes, we are taught well, but perspective matters. The Hunters purge emotion from everything that they do and that means a lot of information comes through assessed according to logic. So all we know sounds like it first went through a court and was assessed until the perfect story was decided. There is no room for perspective," she said.

"You sound like you want to take a side," Jason observed.

"There aren't really sides in this war. It's the world against the rogues or at least that's what I'd like to believe. The existence of the Hunters and the different agencies around the world make it look like we are still at war with all the werewolves. Up until I met Cole, I had a very different idea of Royals. They were dangerous in my mind."

"Do you mean to say that Cole is harmless?"

"No offence, but Cole is way too soft for the brutes we learn about in the history of this war," she said.

"I won't deny that. After what I saw in that dungeon, your judgement is justified," Caden concluded. Their destination was finally coming into view. At the edge of a small clearing stood a cabin made of wood. It was well maintained and still looked habitable. For a structure this deep into the forest, it was in oddly good shape. "What is this place?"

"This cabin is owned by Katie's parents. Not many know about it, but this is where we used to go to train as kids. Her parents tried teaching me with her back then, but I wasn't… I could say as dedicated as she was," Sandra explained.

"Very well then… we'll help you train your butt-off. Some stretches and demarcations should do the trick," Jason announced…

Four bouts, two victories per wolf and four losses for the hunter later, the three of them lay on the ground sweating. Jason offered her a bottle of water which she didn't bother asking the origin of. "You're better than I thought you'd be," he said to her.

"I feel like a fool. We are the same age, aren't we?" she asked.

"Yes, we are, but we are werewolves with alpha genes. You are human. What were you expecting?" Caden asked her, though impressed by her efforts.

"I can take down a weak rogue quite easily. I guess I let it get to my head. For humans, being able to have the upper hand in a fight against a werewolf means a lot, but I guess I'd forgotten that I still have limits. In case of an ambush, I'm worthless," she said to herself. "I can't believe Katie thought that far ahead when we were training as kids."

"You always sound like you are trying to be Katy. Why don't you rejoice in your strength? She seems to be confident in you," this was Jason's attempt at making Sandra feel better. Thoughts of the morning they'd gone through were far from memory.

"Yes, my mentor is indeed confident in me. She always trusts me to take care of something that's within my abilities. In fact, she knows everything that I am capable of, but I'm stuck there. I can see her achieve much more than she should be able to. She is always at the top of her game and never falters in anything. Of course, there was a time when she was at the same level as all of us," Jason was intrigued by her last statement.

"You can still remember the time when she was still weak. How is it that she advanced so fast then while you stayed behind?" Jason asked.

"Well, we can probably explain that with what happened the day she got her Prometheus gifts. That's probably the same day we all realised she was much stronger than all of us," Sandra said, memories taking over while she went over what happened on that day.

"We were playing hide and seek near this very cabin that time. Katie demanded I test my training and try and stay hidden from her. At the same time, she was playing hunter and looking for me. It was a form of hide and seek that I sometimes found scary because it brought the fears of being hunted by a werewolf to light," Sandra began the story.