Chapter 3

“What, you mean, you can see the wolf right now?” Sandra asked Katie, concern clear in her voice.

“Katie, look at me,” she said, and Katie did right before Sandra froze up once their eyes met. Something about the way she looked puzzled her. She could see every groove the skin of her face formed in extreme detail. She could also tell that she was now getting frightened as the sound of her heartbeat went into overdrive as if someone was holding a drum to her ear and banging it loudly. “Why didn’t you tell me?” her voice came out shaky as she asked the question.

“Tell you what?” Katie asked, confusion evident in her voice. The alluring scent finally left her nostrils and the White wolf dream retreated. Her vision snapped back to normal along with her hearing. Something weird was going on, but the look on her best friend’s face was what worried her the most. “Sandra, talk to me.” Katie tried soothing her slowly retreating friend and even looked behind for a source of some kind of terror, but she couldn’t find one. When it was clear that Sandra was afraid of none other than her, she stopped advancing. Things were falling into place as she thought to herself, the scent was the first thing to hit her nose, then the dream, the sight and finally the hearing. “What did you see?” she asked.

“Your eyes... they glowed... bright blue,” she said before turning to leave.

“Wait,” Katie called to her, making her stop, “if this happens again. Will everyone react as you have? Will they all walk away from me like you are doing right now? I have always been the kid with the weird eye colour and you didn’t mind that, but now it’s like you don’t know me,” Katie spoke out.

“I don’t know what to think Katie. I need some time to process what I have just seen,” she said.

“If it makes you feel any better or to make your thinking go easier, I had no idea about this any more than you did. This isn’t normal for me too,” Katie said before walking away, this time she left by herself heading towards the school library.

She was far too agitated to endure a lesson and as such, she decided to skip the class altogether and go to the library in hopes of finding an explanation of what just happened in the books there on werewolves.

Sandra walked onto the basketball court where she picked a ball from the rack and started shooting hoops while allowing her thoughts to flow. Every time she remembered what bright blue eyes meant in their training as hunters, she froze up.

They were the rarest of colours within werewolves and they were the most dangerous type of wolves, not because they were vicious, but simply because they were the most powerful that they could give even a well-trained seasoned hunter a hard time to bring down. The image of her best friend staring at her with bright blue eyes was still ingrained in her mind and was not going anywhere.

Luckily, blue eyes also meant that a wolf was a royal and that they knew the rules well and were pretty much bound to follow them, but this was Katie. Someone who she had grown up with. Royals had more control than others of the beast inside them and were less violent creatures.

To be honest, they were the reasons the werewolves agreed to live with the hunters in peace and harmony. Voices caught Sandra’s attention as she continued shooting hoops forcing her to stop and look at the main door of the gym.

“And this here would be our gym,” Sandra heard a familiar voice of the female teacher that taught humanities. She walked, keeping her attention on the person that she was showing around. A boy, no, this was a guy, a man if you will who was dressed in a black hoodie. Sandra’s senses tingled and went on edge on seeing the newcomer. “Feel free to use the courts when you want to. I must also show you the...”

“Who’s that? Does she work here?” a deep masculine voice came from underneath the hoodie.

“That would be Sandra and no, she doesn’t work here,” the teacher explained.

“Then why isn’t she in class?” the deep voice came again.

“She’s probably blowing off some steam,” the teacher quickly said before trying to move on.

“Is she a hunter? I want to play some ball with her,” he said before walking down the stairs to join me on the court. He took off his hoodie, revealing the first single most striking feature on his face,bright blue eyes. ‘What is today supposed to be? Some kind of Halloween party,’ Sandra thought.

The guy took off the hoodie leaving himself in a light shirt and black sweatpants. His body was built almost twice as that of Dexter’s and he gave off a far more powerful presence. “It’s almost as if you had come to play,” Sandra noted, throwing the ball to him and ignoring her body’s instincts to get away from the guy.

He caught the ball and started bouncing it about to get a feel of the pressure and adjust accordingly, “I always come prepared. I knew I would see a basketball court and I’d insist on shooting some hoops, but I’m glad I found someone here to play with. I’m Cole by the way,” he said, offering Sandra his hand to shake.

“Sandra,” she replied, shaking his hand in kind to the gesture. The new arrival was being too nice to her regardless of her being a hunter. In fact, he was being friendly and had his guard down the entire time.

Cole got down showing that he was now ready to get serious, Sandra going on the defensive, “Am I supposed to believe that you are a Royal?” Sandra asked, the werewolf getting quite creative with his dribbles and crossing past her. Once you had been crossed over, getting back ahead was something a normal human could barely accomplish, well except for Katie, although now that Sandra had seen her eyes change, she was certain she was probably not as human-like they had all been made to believe. The thought disturbed her while it made sense at the same time.

“Yes, I am a Royal and it’s quite disrespectful not to acknowledge that,” he said, handing Sandra the ball for a check.

“Okay, hypothetically speaking, is there another way for a normal werewolf to attain those blue eyes?”

“There is, but it has never been done before. It was a countermeasure that was set up by one of the old Kings for there to be a way to select a new Royal bloodline, should one of the Royal families perish. A lot of people found the plan sketchy, but then again, the king had a point,” Cole explained, hanging from the hoop after having made a dunk past Sandra, “you know, for a hunter, you are not giving me a challenge.”

“Sorry for not measuring up to your standards, but I have a lot on my mind. That's why I’m here in the first place.”

“I was wondering why you weren’t in class today. Is it something you can discuss?” he asked.

“Not really, it’s so bad that I don’t even want to tell it to myself, the one person who knows it,” Sandra’s explanation of just how bad it was hitting home.

“You are unbelievable. First, you tell me that you don’t want to tell me, then you do everything in your power to make the secret look worth keeping and then it makes me more curious to find out,” Cole complained.

Sandra stopped playing and stared at the wolf in front of her, her face turning serious as though she was now acknowledging the person in front of her, “I thought you would be different.”

Cole turned to the hoop and started making shots while they talked, “Yes, most people have that misconception when it comes to the royal families of werewolves. Just because we are the most powerful of all the werewolves, they assume we are also the most dangerous, which is not exactly true.”

“How come? what about all the stories about...”

“Every single one of the stories about the atrocities of the Royal family happened centuries ago and back then ideals of the Royals were different from the way they are now. Unfortunately the past is not so easily forgotten. There is a new... no, it’s an old quest for peace within the Royal family, peace with the humans and hunters,” Cole had made eight baskets by now without missing a single one, almost distracting Sandra from what it was she was trying to ask him.

Sandra sighed, her mind going back to when Katie was acting weird about the dream coming back to her. At that moment that she had opened her eyes, they glowed bright blue just like the ones of the male right before her. There was no doubt about it and yet, Katie herself seemed oblivious to the fact that her eyes were different. On the contrary, she actually looked like she was struggling against something that she had no idea about.

“The question you asked earlier about a normal wolf having blue eyes. What sparked that curiosity?” the guy asked.

“Nothing really, I was just curious. I do want to make something clear though. Having bright blue eyes Is it something that is absolute to only Royals?” Sandra asked Cole.

“Of course it is,” he replied, throwing the basket up once more. Their eyes followed it as it soared through the air. The curve was as perfect as it had been the entire time, delivering the ball straight through the hoop. “You have been quite inquisitive. Do you mind if I ask you a few questions?”

“Knock yourself out,” Sandra said, picking up the ball as it rolled back and starting her round of shots. “Can you be the one to give me the tour instead of the teacher who has been standing there this whole time? I would like to keep talking to you. Who knows, I just might make a friend.”

Sandra hesitated mid-throw, the ball escaping her hands with less energy than she had intended. The werewolf had surprised her with the proposal. There was almost no werewolf in the school that had any interest in befriending a hunter. Werewolves liked it when they were in control of everything around them and that did not include hunters and so they kept their distance. Sandra looked the guy up and down for a hint of deception and came up with none. The lone sound of the ball bouncing aimlessly on the ground having missed the hoop resounded through the gym.

Was there a motive behind why the Royal was asking this hunter to give her a tour? Sandra couldn’t see a reason to refuse while at the same time, she was sceptical about blindly accepting the invite. In the end, there wasn’t much she could do about it, but accept what was going on, “You are one weird werewolf,” she said, picking up the ball and heading for the rack to place it back in its position.

“And you are a weird hunter. Most would be afraid of me, just by seeing my eyes,” Cole said.

To be honest, Sandra had already been frightened by Katie’s eyes that Cole found her too numb to react to her. The timing was perfect otherwise this encounter could have gone a lot differently. To some level, this was good, for she had almost judged someone without knowing them. Cole wasn’t what she expected and she was glad she hadn’t jumped to that conclusion.