Chapter Twenty

It was clear that Katie was not going to come back to this place, though it made Ash sad that he wouldn't get to talk to her, there was nothing the rest could do to help the situation. "Jason, Caden, take Ash to our place. He will be living with us until he finds his calling," Cole ordered them.

"Don't take too long outside. The hunters won't be happy about it if you run into their night patrols," Jason said, picking up a weak Ash and helping him walk. "There you go, slow and steady…" the soothing words continued along with the constant nagging questions, "So do rogues like… get to have mates or it's some brutal breeding mashup?"

Cole brought his hands to meet his face in disappointment, "That boy is done for. I wonder what I was thinking leaving him with Jason."

Sandra continued giggling from the way Jason was attacking the young boy with numerous questions, "Jason is an interesting character."

"Oh…" Cole said, eyeing her through his hands with a smirk on his face, "Do you like him?"

Sandra watched the alpha walk away thinking over the question, her eyes wandering up into the night sky before she answered the question, "I don't think so. I can't tell."

"Such a confused girl… this is why I love being a werewolf. There is nothing like not being sure of such a thing. The goddess handpicks our perfect matches," Cole said, puffing out his chest proudly.

"Oh, is that why you cannot stop staring at Katie every time you get a chance to?"

"Hey, don't tease me for being curious about her. Although now that I know about her and the power she wields, she scares me more than I would like to admit," he said thoughtfully.

"Were you doubtful that she could beat you in a one on one fight?" Sandra asked after careful consideration of wording, keeping her voice levelled as the subject was a touchy one.

"Normally when a pro hunter states that they can beat a Royal, they mean it through hard work and that it would be a close match, but ultimately what they are saying is that their power is comparable… but that's not the case with Katie," he explained. Shivers ran down Sandra's spine when she remembered the last detail of Katie being a royal as well. Was it really fair for the gods to grant someone so much power?

"I have known her a long time and to be honest, I can barely keep up with her. Every time she trains with me, she leaps in milestones and learns fast. It is like she has a talent for it and yet, she never once likes to show it. I decided to ask her to train me so that I could always have someone to chase after. She trains me well, teaching me new things each time she does so, she is always patient with me. When something proves to be too hard, sometimes she even helps me find a way around it," Sandra got carried away speaking about her master, her aim to show Cole that regardless of the power she held, she was still just as kind and humble as anyone else who didn't have that much power.

The two walked on for a while, Sandra leading Cole to her home so that she could also let him get back to his and call it a night. "Can I ask you a question?"

"Sure…"

"Why was she so angry when she saw Ash?" Sandra was somewhat stunned by the question, her mind quickly explaining to her that Cole knew nothing of the town that she had grown up in and this wasn't something that could have occurred to him in the slightest.

"Katie is the one in charge of protecting the school and where she can, this town. That means every rogue that is in sight should be wary of her and yet… they were right under her nose."

"How was she to know that there was a way that werewolves below the age of eighteen could suppress their wolf sides?" Cole said, thrusting his hands in the air in exasperation.

Sandra was speechless for a bit before answering him, "Yeah… but still, it's unforgivable… to use children as spies."

"Yeah, I hear you on tha…" a scent hit Cole's nose all of a sudden. One that he knew all too well from the brief moment he had gotten a whiff of it at the school. He hadn't had the chance to track down the source when he was still with Sandra there, but this time, he wasn't going to miss it.

"What is it?" Sandra asked him when she noticed her friend's odd behaviour.

"I smell something… wonderful," was his reply, "How close is your home?"

"We have almost reached. It's at least a ten-minute walk from here," she said.

"Get on my back. I'll get you there in a flash…"

"You don't have to… Oh, he's doing it," Cole was already halfway through the transformation, his pitch-black wolf towering almost the height of two fully grown men when he was done shifting. He got down allowing Sandra to grab hold of him and climb upon his black coat. The fur of the wolf she touched was so smooth and silky that Sandra felt like sleeping in it.

The moment Sandra was comfortable on his back, he zipped through the trees, leaping over fallen trees and weaving through the forest faster than Sandra's eyes could follow. Before she knew it, the backyard of her house, along with many others came into view. The wolf stopped exactly where the tree line ended and let her slip down. "Thank you, Cole," a pat on the head seemed appropriate even though Cole snarled when she did it, getting a laugh out of Sandra, "I know I haven't met many werewolves, but your fur is beautiful. Your mate is one lucky girl."

Sandra bid the stunned black wolf farewell before running off to the back gate and leaping over it in a series of well-timed steps on the walls and pillars. This was something she had done more than once before and once she was in, she turned on the lock procedures for the house which immediately lined wolfsbane around the entire house sealing out any werewolf and sealing any that would have already entered. Cole stayed still, a bit stunned by the readiness of these households. A close look at all the other houses told him that every other person who lived in this neighbourhood had turned on the same kind of thing. The discomforting smell of wolfsbane reached his nose forcing him back into the woods.

Once Cole was back in the woods, the alluring scent that had plagued his memory for days came back to his nostrils. He took in a deep breath, his eyes closed, allowing his senses to give him all the information they were capable of giving him. There was no telling how far the source of this scent was, though that did not matter to him. He was going to find its source no matter what. 'Mum, how will I know when I find my mate?' memory of him asking his mother came to mind.

'That is a question that many don't ask. Her scent will be the first thing you will pick up,' she would say, although every time she would say it, she would cry.

Cole started running through the forest going as fast as his legs could carry him, weaving through the forest at threatening speeds. He could smell others, hunters, as he went through the forest, which made his journey longer as he had to take a long route around them. This spurred him to run even faster than he already was, getting even more anxious to find the source. The scent kept getting stronger and stronger as he ran through the forest. 'It's impossible for me to have smelt something that is this far,' he thought to himself when he noticed that he was well beyond the borders of the town. Beyond that was dangerous territory and it was dangerous to be running in this territory. Any territory that did not fall into the protection of the hunters was labelled a dangerous zone since it meant rogues would camp in such places.

A sense of urgency and caution was starting to creep into him when he realized he was going really far from city boundaries and this was pushing his luck. The only reason he was still going was the fact the scent was only getting stronger the farther he went. He could feel himself getting closer and closer and right when he felt like he was almost there, the scent vanished. He slid to a stop, standing still, his breath coming out laboured and noisy. He had been running at top speed for twenty minutes.

He stayed silent for a while or at least tried to make his breath as quiet as he could manage using his ears to the best of his abilities to at least hear out who it was he had been tracking. A few minutes of waiting got him the first sound, "What might you be doing here?"

He quickly turned around to the voice that had managed to sneak upon him. Fear struck through him like lightning rooting him to the ground when he recognized the face of who it was that had found him or that he had found. 'What was she doing this far from the town?' What was Katie freakin' Chase doing this far from the town he was so eager to protect? The memories of the demonstration of her fear and strength were as clear as day in his memory, as well as that of how angry she was when she left them back at the hunter's training ground.