Chapter 263

263 Life Over Mission

Cole held onto his mate as tightly as he could without causing her any pain. After all the times she’d gone weak just by being wrapped in his arms and the confidence he’d had in her reacting that way. He hoped they would all vanish and just this once, it would happen again. Katie struggled with the war in her mind. It was the second time she was coming face to face with the rogue king. The only difference was that this time, she had the power to put him down, or at least, that’s what she thought and felt coursing through her body.

Without caring for the rogues behind him, Cole let them flee, his mind trying to find entry into that of his mate. Katie had blocked everything out in her state of despair. The rogue king had taken the opportunity to run. “Cole, let me go. I have to finish him off before he gets away.”

“You made a promise to me, Katie. I don’t intend to let you break it,” the man responded, holding the girl even as she resisted.

“No, you don’t get it, Cole. If we let him go...”

“If I let you continue drawing on that kind of power, you’ll be gone. That’s a risk I cannot take,” the royal cut her off. Katie wasn’t sure what Cole was trying to tell her.

“Cole, you’re not making any sense. I have to...”

“Don’t you ever feel it, Katie? Don’t you ever notice when your body has reached its limit? You’re not a machine, damn it. You can’t be fixed the way they can. Once you break this body, you don’t get another one. You’re made of flesh, not metal and no one said you were made to put down the rogue king at the cost of your life,” Cole tried.

“I’m a werewolf, Cole. I’ll heal. Let me go now before he gets away,” the girl tried yelling while she felt the rogue king reach the ends of her scope. She struggled against his hold over her, but her energy diminished below what she needed to break free. He was the one thing she couldn’t hurt even if she wanted to.

“No, Katie... You’ve not been listening to me this entire time. So, listen. Your body is on fire at the moment. If you can’t feel it, then believe that I can feel it for you. You’ve been drawing on power that’s more than your body can handle. Can’t you tell?” the royal whispered into her ear. Katie stopped squirming inside his embrace for the first moment. She could feel it, the power leaking out of her and flowing through every vessel in her body. She had unleashed all the gifts she had at once.

.....

‘Katie, once you turn off your gifts, you’ll go into a state of pain while I focus on healing the both of us,’ Ashley said to the girl, making sure Cole could hear her words.

“So, you knew what was happening and you still let her go through with it?” Cole bit back the venom in his voice, but it was undeniable.

“Forgive me, Cole, but Katie and I aren’t so different. She’s not wrong. The rogue king is going to tear this world in half if he gets away,” the wolf replied right before a scream tore through the forest. The aura around Katie had completely vanished and the drawbacks of her exertion were starting to kick in.

A fire roared through every cell in the girl’s body as her muscles relaxed from the stress they’d been under. It was like she’d been stretching all of them without noticing and the pain was only registering now that the adrenaline was gone. Everything hurt. Cole’s heart rushed into panic as he searched for ways to help his mate.

Activating his power to heal, he started taking the pain away from her as she writhed in his arms, “Hey, Lycaon, place her on her back. I know something that might help.” Someone interrupted him. Looking to his side, he saw the man that had been hit by the rogue king in an attempt to help Katie overwhelm him. Doing as the man had asked, he placed Katie on her back, ignoring the black veins that had already spread across his own body more rapidly than he’d ever seen them do so.

The man shook his head to clear his thoughts and expertly hit pressure points about the girl’s neck with his thumbs, using a calculated amount of force. It happened so fast that Cole almost missed it himself. The screams and writhing died down and the girl went unconscious. Cole watched for her even breathing and sighed in relief, “I don’t know what I would have done if she had continued fighting the rogue king.”

“She has more power from the gods than any of us. It explains how she was able to overwhelm the rogue king like that. Has she always been that powerful?” the man asked him.

“I’m afraid not... That was her giving it everything she had at the cost of her own life if it came to it... All for the sake of others... What’s wrong with you, Katie? When will you realise that your death would mean pain for those you care about the most?” Cole said more to himself, carrying the girl into his arms. His healing power still activated, he continued to take away his mate’s injuries which were all internal and riddled throughout her entire body.

The man before her reached for Katie’s adoptive mother and carried her into his arms. He looked at her lovingly... It was an expression Cole knew all too well. “Does she mean something to you?” he asked him.

“Oh... yeah, she’s my... sister-in-law,” the man replied with a cough, stunning Cole.

“Wait, that would make you...”

“Thorrin Chase, one of the Mighty Warriors just like her,” the man introduced himself, “It’s an honour to meet the king of Lycaon as well.” He said with a bow. Cole looked away, forcefully reminded that his father was no longer in the land of the living.

‘I was going to say Micah Chase, but I guess that’s even cooler,’ the alpha thought to himself before replying. “It’s a pleasure to meet you,” the royal replied before turning to go to the capital. He stopped when he noticed the last person they’d come with just stood there watching a vacant spot in the direction the rogues had taken, “Hey, Drake, what is it? Did you see something?”

The royal was quiet for a while, searching his mind for an answer, “Yeah, I thought I saw someone I knew.” The face of the amber-eyed wolf was sealed in his mind and his wolf growled at the memory. He could feel something wrong with the wolf’s presence at the scene, but couldn’t tell what it was doing there or where he’d seen it before.

“Oh, who was it?” Cole asked.

“Well, I can’t remember his name. Although I do remember him annoying me and I got him demoted,” Drake said, turning to walk away, “No, it couldn’t have been him. Maybe I was just seeing things. Don’t worry about it.”

Cole didn’t reply, hoping the conversation on ‘might or might not have been’ would end right there. There was so much happening that he wanted nothing more to be added to it. The rogue king had escaped right before his eyes and once more, his mate had faced him. This time, however, she wasn’t poisoned and Cole was sure she was healing. It was a relief to know she was going to be fine rather than hear the doctor give you news of her potential death.

‘If I hadn’t jumped in, were you really going to fight him till the divine energy ripped you apart, Katie?’ the man asked internally, ‘Who am I kidding? Of course, you were going to do it.’ The memory of the time she’d trained with Silver and ended up unconscious proved more than he needed to know. Katie didn’t know when she’d gone too far with something physically impossible for her and this one quality scared the royal.

.......

Darkness was all that filled her surroundings. She was sure there was nothing around her. Only darkness and nothing else. It was peaceful for a time, but then questions began to ripple across the darkness, echoing in her mind. ‘Why she had done what she had done? What she had intended to do afterwards? Why she didn’t think before acting drastically?’ To some degree, these questions didn’t make sense to the wolf.

She didn’t believe in having limitations. She only knew something had to be accomplished. She had to kill the rogue king. It was what she’d resolved to accomplish her whole life. After all the suffering that the rogues had brought upon the world, there was no better way for her to bring an end to the suffering. Her thoughts battled the questions around her. She wanted to impose her reasoning upon wherever they came from.

“Your reasoning is so basic and primal. For someone who didn’t have their wolf for the first part of their lives, you definitely ended up more like a werewolf than anyone I’ve ever met,” the clear voice snapped light into the girl’s eyes. She hadn’t thought anyone was around her, let alone that the darkness could be vanquished.

Once the light had dimmed out, she took in her surroundings. White walls that went as high as she could see. She couldn’t believe what she was seeing. There wasn’t much in the large room but pillars of white and far at the front, a throne of white. Seated on the throne was a figure she could recognize quite well... The moon goddess, Celeste. Her radiance and beauty, not to mention the way her wolf fawned over her, were all impossible traits to forget.

“I guess we meet again, moon goddess,” the girl smiled, even though it didn’t reach her eyes.

“I would not have wanted to meet you when your body was being put back together cell by cell. Honestly, what were you even thinking about exerting yourself like that? Not to mention you almost kicked Ashely out of your body,” the woman sighed heavily.