Chapter 2

High ranking wolves around the world had gleaming green eyes, and that comprised Betas, Deltas and pack warriors. It was most intense for the Betas. Alphas had eyes that gleamed bright red, fiery and intimidating. The rarest of them all was the Royals. Their eyes shone a brilliant shade of blue that was impossible to miss. They radiated an aura that left everyone who wasn’t used to it utterly petrified. This made the matter of one having blue eyes, no matter how insignificant the level of blue in your eyes was, something of an omen. Normal werewolves just walked around with bright yellow irises. These werewolves were the most peaceful when they weren’t either ordered to do something by high ranking werewolves or if they weren’t rogues either.

Children with blue eyes were shunned by many under the suspicion of a collaboration with the Royals of the werewolves. Rogue werewolves were known for killing these kinds of people, flaunting the excuse for hating the Werewolf King so much that they despised the sight of eyes that resembled his. Katie was no longer shaken by the compliment these days, she was used to watching people gasp every time they noticed the colour of her eyes. When she was younger, she threw a tantrum so that her guardians would tell her what was wrong with her eyes and they had promised then that they would tell her the truth about that when the time was right and that she only needed to be patient about it.

“Dexter, put the boy down. You know how the rules go,” Katie spoke up, her voice laid back, pocketing while she said it.

Dexter seemed to be in a worse mood than he usually was and he did nothing to reduce the force he was exerting on the boy’s neck. Based on the way the boy was running out of energy to struggle and the extent to which his veins were popping out of his head, Katie was able to make a calculated guess of thirty seconds before the boy would go unconscious and that is not an option she was willing to go for. “You have five seconds to put him down,” Katie said, clenching her fist and unclenching it to show that she was going to have to use force if necessary even though she’d rather they didn’t cause much more of a scene. “Five... Four... Three...”

“Alright, alright.” he said, letting the boy fall to the ground. The boy quickly crawled away, gasping for air and collecting his books on his way from Dexter. Katie got down and picked up the last book the boy had before handing it to him, a textbook on Neurobiology.

“I think you might be reading way far ahead,” she chuckled, before giving way for the boy to leave.

“But that only means that I am transferring his pummeling to you,” Dexter said in a low and dangerous tone, a low growl rumbling from his chest as he said it.

“Do you have a death wish, Dexter? That’s Katie Cha...” Dexter’s friend was cut short when he was sent flying into the lockers with one blow, Dexter not even bothering to spare him a glance as he took it.

“I know who she is. So what if she’s the daughter of one of the greatest hunters. I say the name Chase is wasted on her,” Dexter growled, getting ready to attack Katie.

“You definitely know how to throw a punch,” Katie complimented him, looking at the body of the unconscious werewolf that now lay ten feet away from her in an odd position having slid down the lockers after colliding into them.

“Worry about yourself,” Dexter yelled, before running straight for Katie, who paid him no attention. Dexter stopped halfway to clutch his stomach after receiving a heavy blow to the gut from an unsuspecting bystander. Dexter got onto his knees, clutching his stomach and before he knew it, his eyes furious with anger, a kick to the head put him to sleep. Sandra had taken care of it almost in the blink of an eye.

“What do we do about them?” she asked.

“Take the smaller one. We better get them to the infirmary,” Katie said, walking over to Dexter and picking him up like he was nothing more than a bag of flour. Sandra did the same for the smaller one, turning to Kyle.

“Get to class, Kyle. We’ll handle everything from here,” she told him, the bell going almost immediately she said it.

“Okay, but at lunchtime in the cafeteria, I have something to tell you guys. Something that you might just want to hear,” he said, turning to leave to the next classroom.

“Damn it. Now I’m in suspense and you know how the clock goes slower when I’m in suspense,” Katie said.

“What do you think he was talking about?” she asked, a smirk spreading on her face.

“Sneaky fox, now you just want me to get even more curious,” Katie whined, her friend cracking up into laughter as they made their way through the crowd paying no heed to the now dispersing crowd they had attracted. The jobs of the hunters were known and one of the main reasons for having trained hunters such as them attending a normal school was to deal with issues such as these. As a result, schools needed access to hunter families if they were to be allowed to run so that they could guarantee the safety of the human children.

This also meant that there were not too many schools that one could choose from to send their kids to study. Katie was currently going to Brigade High School. The second biggest high school in the world and she was there mainly to protect humans from werewolves as per the school was supposed to run. The school was now officially the safest school in the world mainly because werewolves wouldn’t dare attack humans even if they had been angered just to avoid incurring her wrath. Because of who her parents were, she had gone through one of the best Hunter training programs their sick twisted minds could cook up for her and she had been groomed and trained into a well-seasoned hunter.

Katie and Sandra finally made it to the infirmary where they placed the two werewolves onto the beds that were free. “Hey, Nurse Tilda,” they greeted the Nurse when she came in.

She rushed to their side and began tending to their injuries as quickly as she could whilst she ran her mouth just as fast, “What did you do to them this time? You know it is because of you that werewolf families are beginning to file complaints on whether or not the school is biassed. Ever since you were allowed to stop werewolf violence in this school, the number of injured werewolves has increased more than the number of injured humans.” Katie kept silent about that before the nurse continued. She sighed, pausing for a bit after dressing Dexter’s head, Sandra had kicked him pretty hard. “There is no doubt about it. You are among the best things that have ever happened to this school in the hunter department. We have now been ranked the least violent and safest school in the world and it’s all because the werewolves don’t want to cross paths with you.”

“That’s good to hear. Where is the bad news, Nurse Tilda?”

“Many important people are starting to think that this school might just be the safest place for their children, so do not be surprised if we get quite a number of transfers,” she said, before walking out of the room we were in to attend to other patients in other rooms. The infirmary was an entire block that could house up to one hundred and fifty patients, which was done as a precaution back when the school was starting and the violence was still commonplace. In a world like this, instead of simply ranking grades, schools were also ranked on how safe they were able to maintain the human population and all schools that were found to be hiding cases of violence were forced to be shut down by inspectors that were sent by both the hunters and the Royals.

Katie walked out of the cafeteria with Sandra tailing her. Her thoughts were already straying away from their recent topic of discussion, “So what do you think about what Nurse Tilda said?” Sandra asked her.

“Huh, Nurse Tilda. Oh, sorry, I was still trying to guess what Kyle could be hiding from us. Nurse Tilda might throw tantrums a lot, and despite her being a werewolf, her heart is in the right place,” Katie said.

“Okay, if you say so.”

Just then, Katie froze up, a rarity among rarities, just the same as the fear that she felt when she was in her dreams. This time though, something else had her on edge. She knew she was not a werewolf and that scents meant nothing to her. And the fact that she was human also meant that she lacked that ability. But then, why in the world did she smell something so sweet and inviting. A headache started building up, hammering slowly at her skull.

“You okay, Katie,” Sandra asked, “You look like you’ve seen a ghost or something.” Sandra’s voice sounded somewhat distant, Katie’s sense of smell becoming sharper than most of her other senses to get more of the scent that had suddenly appeared.

“No, Sandra, nothing is...” images of the white wolf flashed in her mind followed by overwhelming emotions of longing that she was not familiar with. The wolf stared at her intently, its snow-white fur glistening with a rare radiant shine to it. “No, this nightmare is meant to only be there when I go to sleep.”