Chapter 4

Katie walked through the library picking up random books and scrolling through their contents before placing them back into their shelves. Since it was class time, there were almost no students in the library, except for those who spent their free sessions in the library. Katie went through the section on biology, her eyes recognizing the book on neurobiology that the boy from earlier was carrying before she continued skimming through book titles. She was particularly interested in the animal part of biology considering she was a hunter.

“Hey, umm, Katie...” the stuttering voice of a wimpy student caught her attention. She stopped skimming through the books and turned to see the same boy from before gripping the textbook and bowing his head slightly to her. “My name is Ash!!! Nice to meet you. Ash Myster.”

“Oh, it’s you, nice to see you again. How do you spell that, Myster?” Katie asked, scanning the boy’s red face and over gelled hair. He was a typical nerd, top to bottom. The boy’s face lit up when she showed recognition. It wasn’t unheard of for someone to come and thank her for saving them although she usually thought they’d rather show their gratitude to Sandra who usually did the roughing up.

“It’s like mister, but with a ‘y’ in the place of the ‘i’,” he explained, his eyes closed the whole time, his head still slightly bowed, a smile plastered on his face.

“You might want to ease up a bit. You’ll bite your tongue with nerves like that,” Katie told him, turning her eyes back to the bookshelf and skimming through more titles before she found the section that started on werewolf biology.

“I k-know that, b-but, it’s n-not that easy... for m-me,” he stammered yet again.

“Well, if I’m being honest. It has to start with you. You are nervous because you are wondering how I am going to react to you. So how about you get comfortable with yourself first. I advise you to tone down the gel, no offence. It’s just bound to irritate werewolf noses. Be comfortable with who you are first... such is the starting point of building some self-esteem and confidence,” Katie said before pulling a book on the specifics of werewolf eyes and what makes them so peculiar. “Is your neck okay?”

“Yes, it’s fine. Thanks for asking. You seem to be interested in werewolves,” Ash said to her.

“Yes, I am a hunter, so naturally I would want to know more about the creatures that I am meant to hunt.”

“You could ask me about them. I had read everything I could find about them,” Ash said.

“So have I and frankly I have a geek who I go to in case of such situations and when I need information I can’t find,” Katie said, “I don’t mean to be rude though. Thanks for the offer.”

“I understand completely. I was more worried about getting Dexter into trouble with you,” he said, freezing Katie to the spot, “please forgive him. It was my fault he got angry.”

“Oh, this is a new one,” Katie said, bringing her eyes back to meet the boy’s gaze, “and just what did a human do to piss off a werewolf that badly?”

“I saw him sneaking off with some girls and got ahead of myself when he started getting possessive with one of them,” the boy said.

“Ah, you tried to play the hero, is that it?” Katie asked, a smirk spreading across her face, memories of her argument with Sandra escaping her mind.

“Yes, I did. I might have overstepped my boundaries though. It was wrong of me to question Dexter when I knew there was a possibility that the girl he was with was his mate,” Ash looked down in disappointment while he said this.

“No, looks to me like you did the right thing. Dexter is not eighteen yet, so he has no mate as the moon goddess has not yet given him one. It’s as simple as that,” Katie pulled out the book after reading the short byline of what it was about. She was hoping to find some answers to Sandra’s claim before the end of the day.

“I advise you to steer clear of Dexter for a while so that he can cool it off. Oh, and one more thing, do not forget that it was you in danger, not Dexter...” Katie told him before walking away to look for a seat where she could look further into the contents of the book of his choice.

Sandra started her tour of the school with Cole, with no regard to whether or not she would be missing any lessons. After receiving permission from the teacher that had been assigned to give Cole the tour, she was allowed to skip the rest of the day’s classes, not that it mattered anyway. Such was the life of a hunter, academic excellence was merely a formality and one that was not stressed by the teachers of the school.

“So, as you can see, the school is quite gigantic.”

“No, you don’t have to go through all that useless stuff unless there is a detail that I should know about,” Cole asked.

“Only detail I can think of that I haven’t told you about yet is the Founding Festival this weekend,” Sandra said, having given it some thought.

“What’s that supposed to be?”

“It’s a celebration of the day the school was founded. Sort of like an anniversary,” Sandra said, gazing at the ceiling while she remembered what it was about. “There is this whole thing of cutting a cake, then a ball, then craziness after that. I usually just force Katie to dance with me through the ball and she drags me out when the party gets crazy. She really needs to get out more. She says it’s because.”

“Who’s Katie?” Sandra froze at the question, having forgotten that she was speaking to someone she was meeting for the first time. Cole looked curious to know after just hearing the name.

“She’s my best friend. We’ve known each other since we were little kids. Katie Chase is her full name.”

“Chase... Do you mean the Chase hunter family?” Cole asked.

“Yes, that family,” Sandra confirmed, starting to feel on edge for talking about her when she had only run away from her out of fear moments before she met Cole whom she didn’t run away from. The irony of that refused to stop eating at her as well.

“Interesting, I would like to meet her. Is she dating by any chance? Oh and don’t mind that question, there is nothing behind it,” he said quickly defending himself.

“No, she’s not, besides, Katie has no interest in such things. It’s like she doesn’t have those emotions,” Sandra said, the sad expression on her face undeniable before she masked it and proceeded with the tour.

Sandra found Cole to be an open book as he didn’t hide his thoughts and literally wore his emotions on his face. For a feared Royal, he did not give off any dangerous vibes and was actually quite fun talking to. Cole was mostly interested in sports and showed extremely exaggerated boredom each time Sandra pointed at something like a laboratory or a classroom. Nonetheless, the tour had to be full or else this guy was going to have trouble finding his way through the whole school.

Sandra used whatever chance she got to try and find out where Katie was but wasn’t able to find her. She found out that she had not returned to the classroom after they left the infirmary and had tried checking wherever she could during the tour.

The two of them now lay in the bleachers of the football pitch panting heavily having raced around it a couple of times. Sandra had suffered a severe loss at the hands of the fast Royal despite all the daily training that she endured each day with Katie. “You... are... unbelievably...faaa–st,” she panted before collapsing with exhaustion.

“For a human, you are not so bad yourself,” Cole complimented, “You actually made me sweat. Are you sure you’re human?”

Sandra laughed at the remark. She wanted to tell her that Katie was much faster than she was, but that would have been possible had she not seen her eyes go bright blue. “So it seems you like sports?” Sandra said.

“All werewolves do. They long to run wild in the forests without a care in the world,” Cole said, lying face-up across three of the orange faded seats, his hands tucked at the back of his head while he rested face up and eyes closed. His breathing was now calming down, unlike Katie who was still heavily winded. ‘I wish I had such a short recovery time,’ she thought to herself.

“Isn’t that what werewolves do?”

There was a pause while Cole considered his answer, “Not with rogues on the loose.”

“Werewolves attacking werewolves?” It came as a surprise to Sandra that rogues didn’t care for fellow werewolves more than she wanted to believe.

“Rogues do not care what you are. As long as you are not part of their pack, you are as good as dead. It is part of the reason I was brought here. My parents believe this school has the best protection to offer even though I can protect myself just fine. When I saw you were among the hunters here, I decided to see for myself the standards of the school’s hunters,” he said.

“So you don’t really like games like we’ve been having?”

“Do not misinterpret my motives. The evaluation just happened to clash with my interests. I do like games, but I also want to know if I really am safe here like my parents seem to believe,” he took a stab at defending himself.

“That might make sense, except for the fact that you are a Royal. The strongest kind of werewolf there is. You even have the power to command other werewolves,” Sandra pointed out.

“While that may be true, Royals don’t have the power to command rogues who have lost the grace of the moon goddess and it is against the law to use our power over other werewolves as it robs them of their will,” he said, getting up and offering Sandra his hand. “Let’s wrap up the tour, shall we?” Rriiinnggg.....

Right on cue, the bell for lunchtime went signalling for the students to get to the cafeteria or any other area of interest that was not off-limits at this time. “I need to get to the cafeteria,” she said, starting to move away from the bleachers.

“I want to know more about Katie. Is she strong? beautiful? What colour are her eyes? I’m curious,” he asked, rambling while he held Sandra’s hand firmly.

“Why do you want to know?” Sandra asked him, getting awfully suspicious of him.

“Because you seem to care about her a lot. Ever since you mentioned her name, your face has been sad like something happened between you two.”

“Those reasons all don’t make sense. Your curiosity feels baseless at the same time you seem to be hiding the true reason why you want to know more about Katie. I have to go.”

“Hey, don’t walk away from me,” Cole shouted after her, but she wouldn’t listen and made her way from the pitch and straight for the cafeteria leaving Cole there, sweat glistening off him and making his clothes a bit irritable and clingy to his body. ‘She wasn’t that wrong,’ he thought looking up at the clear blue sky in deep thought, ‘there is a reason I want to know more about Katie. I just wish I could forget about it but I can’t.’