Chapter 87

87 Chapter Eighty Seven

Katie led Cole on quietly through the chaotic crowd. The wolf hadn’t been paying attention to the effect of his class with the hunter. Humans were afraid of Royals because they were the original werewolves and literally the only ones capable of starting the war back up again. Regardless of how much they’d tried to assure the public that a time like that was well past them, there was still fear because such power still existed.

Seeing a Royal and a hunter fighting wasn’t going to put a good image out to the public. It was the perfect depiction of what happened during the war centuries ago and no one was ready for a re-enactment. Now that Cole was calm and no longer in the mood to fight Jeremiah, partly because his mind wouldn’t stop staring at the dark-haired girl who still held his hand.

He found that he was unconsciously studying the grooves of her palm where the skin touched and enjoying the light sparky sensation it gave him to be holding a part of her. Shaking the odd thoughts from his mind, an action his wolf huffed at in disappointment, he decided to try and apologize for the commotion or at least explain himself.

“Katie, I’m...”

“Don’t explain yourself, Cole. I don’t want to hear it...” she cut him off. They were well away from the festival and getting into the forest. She’d led him away from the entire chaos of the festival and for a walk through the forest. The cool humid air of the forest was relaxing as the sun started its journey heading down for a sunset that was a little over an hour away from them.

After a moment of silence, when Cole’s laboured breathing had died down, he couldn’t help but ask one of the burning questions on his mind, “Did you really slap him across the face?”

“Yeah... I don’t know what has gotten into him. It’s not how I’d expect a noble from the Sirius Kingdom to act,” she said to him.

“He’s a noble? I didn’t know that. When did that happen?”

“Something about him saving my... I mean the brother of the King from a group of rogues or something, then receiving his Prometheus gift only moments later,” she said to him.

.....

“Wait, is that how it works? Someone can receive a Prometheus gift from saving a werewolf?” he asked.

“A Prometheus gift is often granted when a junior hunter has proven themselves in the virtues of a hunter and get kick-started when they perform a heroic act. For me, I saved Katie from a rogue that had escaped captivity. The gift didn’t come during the fight, but rather after that... During the days that followed, I was granted my Prometheus gifts...” she explained.

“I don’t understand... If it’s that easy, can’t someone set it up?” Cole asked.

“It’s not automatic, Cole. After all, it’s not like the god Prometheus wouldn’t know what’s going through your mind while you slay rogues in a ‘staged attack.’ Besides, there are hunters that have gained a Prometheus gift from just straining tirelessly. The key is to understand what the hunters stand for. A hunter cannot be granted the gift until that has sunk clearly into their minds,” she said.

“You sound very confident with the god Prometheus. I just keep wondering if there is a way around it. The rogues would definitely want a hunter on their side,” he noted, letting his mind flow.

“If we were ever to tell such suspicions through to the hunters, the whole system would crash and we’d be on the verge of a crisis,” she said to him.

“Yeah, I guess that’s what would happen. Trust on a scale that large is something that’s quite fragile,” Cole said to her, taking a moment to look at her. He was starting to get a feel of where she was going... The same hill that she always did her thinking from... well, at least that’s what he thought she did. “You love this place...”

“Yeah, it’s peaceful enough for me to do some thinking whenever I want to. It also allows me to look at the town that I am supposed to be protecting,” she said taking a seat. She tapped the spot next to her and the wolf joined her.

For a moment that got longer than he thought it would, she stayed silent. “What’s going through that beautiful mind of yours?” he asked, childishly.

“Well, a storm of thoughts honestly...” she replied, sighing and placing her head gently on his shoulder.

“You’re so comfortable with me that I find it scary sometimes...” Cole chuckled.

“Just roll with it, Lycaon,” she replied chuckling.

“Cole will do just fine. Don’t use my family name,” Katie could hear the begging tone in his voice while he made the request. “Might I get a peek into that storm of thoughts? I know there are things that are confidential, but is there one piece of information that isn’t confidential.”

“Oh yeah, there is one,” she said, pushing him down so that he made a more comfortable pillow. Katie rested her head on his chest before continuing like there was nothing wrong. Cole wanted to resist, but found that his wolf fought against him when he tried to... ‘What the hell is going on?’ ‘Just roll with it, huh...’ ‘Does she have control over my wolf on top of the two Prometheus gifts that she has... That would be insane...’

“Let’s hear it then...”

“Well, the Chase family, my guardians got a sense that... well, that kind of power that you take to be hocus pocus... They got the feeling that there was going to be trouble tonight... Like serious trouble and I can’t help but wonder...” she said, sounding calm even though her state suggested she was anything but.

“Oh, the family mojo... I’ve heard of it before, but I don’t know how or if it does work. What’s the level of trouble they detected,” he asked.

“Something so terrifying that they had to call one of the Four Mighty hunters...” she said to him. This got his heart racing, something that he hadn’t experienced in a while. The four were named Mighty for a reason and calling them for something wasn’t something that could be taken lightly.

“It can’t be that bad... Do you think the Rogue King might appear?” he asked as the first thing that came to mind. The Mighty hunters were called on when that was a most likely scenario for they were the only four humans on the planet that would stand the highest chance of killing the man even if he was guarded by an army.

“I don’t know, but I’ve been thinking of that possibility. I don’t know what’s meant to cause it, but something has made the Chase family get onto their toes so much that they had to call one of those four,” she said.

“Who did they call?”

“They called the Thunderclap, Jim Gordon,” she announced, a knowing smile on her face. There wasn’t a soul alive, well in the society of those that wanted the Rogue king eliminated that didn’t know the myths behind the man that had been summoned to the small town of Brigadia.

Blessed with the Agility Prometheus gift, the man was said to have trained his gift so much that he had tapped into the god’s powers, competing with the god Mercury in speed. It was said that when he ran, the sound of a thunderclap announced his arrival and departure as he cut through the air itself forcing it to split and meet back together in one loud collision.

All these were myths, however, as most that knew of them had never seen him in actual sense. “Now that’s someone that I’d love to see in action. I know we might be in trouble considering what your parents said, but this is still something that I’d love to see for myself,” the Royal admitted, his childish excitement getting the better of him.

“You do know that he is called in times of a crisis and that his presence is more of a bad omen than it is good,” she said.

“The presence of either of the four Mighty hunters is never something to smile about considering they are sent to the places with the highest cases of rogue attacks and not enough hunters to deal with them. It is said that they deal with such cases in such a short time. Probably because the rogues flee when they realise they have made too much of a fuss in that area,” he said.

“Yeah, that’s true. I have no doubt that they would have sent one of them here if I had never got my Prometheus gifts...” she explained.

“Couldn’t your parents help out back then?”

“I’m not sure about that. Maybe they were too busy taking care of me,” Katie answered. In truth, she’d never seen her guardians using their Prometheus gifts and was yet to pose the question to them. Now there was something else she was supposed to ask them when she met them next. However, for now, she discarded her thoughts and turned to her side such that she rested better into her ‘man-made’ pillow...

A wolf purred at the back of her mind... a wolf she was now aware was awake, but still being held back by the moon goddess’ power. Something she was grateful for at the moment. Having to explain that to Cole at the moment was not something she was willing to get into. The male didn’t seem to mind her company, ‘Katie, this is not you...’ she tried screaming in her mind, but those times seemed long gone. She was giving in to the stronger emotions that came with being a werewolf. While she knew that there was a time when she was supposed to bottle up all those emotions and revert to her hunter nature, this was not one of those times.