Chapter 109

109 Chapter One Hundred Nine

Caden thankfully realised the two lovebirds were not going to eat alone and brought more food for the four of them. Sandra set up the room so that they all had where to sit and talk (a task that wasn’t that necessary, but hey...) Katie, on the other hand, sighed when she realised they were supposed to share the food and no one had accounted for her now-boundless appetite.

Silence filled the room while they all settled down to eat. There had been some developments since the four friends had last spoken and this preferably the right time to address them. “So, she’s a werewolf?” Jason began, seeing as no one else seemed ready to.

“Yup, she is...” Cole replied.

“The same one we were convinced was dead eighteen years ago,” he continued.

“The very one...”

The room once again filled with silence and the sound of forks striking food and mastication taking place. “Katie, did you really see him?”

“Sandra,” Jason tried to snapped at the girl...

“What... I’m curious. I know you are as well,” she countered. It was clear there were numerous unanswered questions among the three of them. Caden mostly remained quite and watched them bicker.

“Well, I’ll answer some of your questions... the ones that I can. I am a werewolf. I’m sure the werewolves didn’t know that...” she said to them.

.....

Caden and Jason glanced at Sandra briefly before turning their attention back to the couple before them. Cole hadn’t touched his food since they began eating. He discretely watched his mate while she ate. At the back of his mind, he knew the food she’d been given wasn’t going to satisfy her waking wolf.

“Katie, what about him... Did you see him?”

“Yes, I saw him... The guy was there and I tried to attack him before,” Cole wouldn’t have known unless she’d been leaning into him like she was. Her body began to shiver at the thought of what had happened in the forest. She couldn’t seem to finish the story... That, however, didn’t matter to him. He wrapped his arm around her hoping it would calm her, which it did.

“I’m sorry we asked, Katie... We won’t bring it up again,” Caden apologized narrowing his eyes at his two friends. As it turned out, Katie was not ready to discuss what had happened that night. Not even Cole knew what happened to her every time she was asked to narrate the story. As for Katie, her mind remained unable to retrieve all the information.

Each time she tried, nothing came through. The last vivid memory was of the Rogue King, but after that everything was blocked. It’s not that she didn’t remember, but more of she didn’t want to. She wanted that part of the night completely out of her mind. For some reason, meeting the Rogue King had been less traumatizing than what happened next.

“Want more food?” the sound of the Royal to her left called.

I was then that she realised she’d finished eating and barely felt a thing in her belly. His food lay in front of him, untouched and calling out to her, “Why hesitate, Katie? I’m hungry,” Ashley screamed in her mind.

‘So you’re the reason I eat like a wolf,’ she groaned mentally.

‘You are a wolf, darling and right now, I say grab that plate of delicious looking...’

‘What about Cole?’

“What about him?’ the question was blank and Katie could tell from the wolf’s emotions that she saw nothing wrong with depriving the Royal his meal, ‘He did just give it to us. He’s such a gentleman to know that I need nurturing.’

“Do newly awoken wolves eat this much?” Katie asked him, coming out of her conversation with her wolf just in time to hear Caden ask Cole something else... “What was that?” she asked Caden.

“Oh, it was nothing...” he began only to realise Katie was not going to drop it until he said something, “Fine, I asked him why he thought it was necessary to stuff you up. You don’t look like someone who would umm... fancy seconds...”

Sandra put her hand to her mouth to stop the laughter that threatened to burst free from her, “I’ll just take this off your hands, Cole. Thank you very much,” Katie said, ignoring the alpha’s uninformed question.

“Caden, how about you order more food? I’ll need to eat something as well,” Cole spoke up, in an attempt to ease the tension in the room, “And yes, Katie, it is totally normal for werewolves that have just awoken to eat a lot. It helps with their development. Your wolf might have awoken, but she doesn’t have full strength yet and that can only be achieved if you eat enough.”

“Oh, okay then. On another note, someone please tell me what happened after I passed out,” Katie groaned. From the moment she woke up, everyone about her had been dodging the question. She was starting to get frustrated by this and the more they ignored her, the more she got worried that something bad had happened.

Sandra could barely look her in the face. Something had happened indeed, but everyone seemed reluctant to tell her. Cole, who also hadn’t heard a thing was wondering also started to get worried, “Did something bad happen? I thought the battle ended.”

“That’s... what we thought as well...” Sandra spoke up. Caden used the opportunity to sneak out of the room... and the others let him for a part of the story involved him.

“What happened then?” Cole was the one to ask this time. Caden was already far from earshot, praying his friend would not see an error in the actions.

“Well, there was Jackeline...” Sandra began.

“What about Jackeline?” Katie’s heartbeat asked, her heart beating faster. ‘Was she injured? What had happened?’ Katie’s mind rushed through all the possibilities...

“Katie, she’s fine now. Although she’s was given a sedative to keep her calm...” the girl tried to calm her.

“What happened to her?”

“She went berserk after the Thunderclap rushed you away. She killed every rogue she could find... even the ones that had given up. Frost was able to subdue her, but she was raging. She hasn’t woken up ever since,” she said.

“I hope she’s fine,” Katie was only beginning to relax, “Is there anything else?”

“Yes, after she’d been subdued Prince Drake started working on Prometheus evaluations for the rogues that had surrendered. Everything was going smoothly until...” the words got stuck in her mouth. Jason put his hand on hers, nodding for her to stop talking. She’d gone through for as long as she could have and he only felt that it was right for him to tell the rest.

“Caden interrupted the procedure,” he began, drawing a reaction from Cole.

“That’s impossible. Caden...”

“Caden’s been mourning Cole. He’s been mourning for the lost wolf. I didn’t know how bad it had gotten until he began speaking to one of the rogues. Among the ones that had surrendered was a rogue that had been keeping an eye on someone we soon came to know as Ashley,” he said.

“Who’s Ashley?” Cole asked. Katie couldn’t help, but suspect who they were talking about.

“Ashley was Ash’s real name. I guess she didn’t really do much to change it when she decided to pretend to be a boy. The rogue... he spoke ill of her and was starting to get to Caden,” he continued. Sandra gave the young man’s hand a squeeze when she realised it was getting harder to tell the story. “Before Caden could react, Drake through the man into his Prometheus evaluation.

That wasn’t enough to shut him up though. The man continued to talk through his trance and while he spoke to the god Prometheus, he... incited the rest of those that had surrendered. The hunters had their guards down and didn’t see it coming. Most of those that had surrendered lost faith in salvation by the Prometheus evaluation and resolved to go down with at least one of their enemies.”

Katie took in a sharp breath when she heard that, “How many... How many casualties?”

“The hunters that were injured were... fifty in number. Thirty of them had fatal injuries. We didn’t see the attack coming. Caden and Drake tried their best, but there is only so much you can do to stop mindless creatures. They had no sense of purpose left, but to kill anyone that wasn’t one of them. Some of them tried to even get to the Founder’s festival, but were cut down before they made it there,” Sandra finished the story.

Katie took the time to think about what she was hearing. She’d spent such a long time making sure Brigadia was safe. “Would one say that the hunters weren’t able to defend themselves because they were... out of shape?”

Sandra realised what Katie was implying immediately and was quick to act, “Katie, this had nothing to do with you. The hunters knew what had happened to you. They knew they were supposed to stay on their toes.

Caden came back into the room only moments later with the food he’d ordered. He’d moved fast, partly because he wanted to make it right after the story was done and partly because... he was tired of the burden he’d been carrying since the death of Ash Myster... Ashley...