Chapter 502 - 502 Ghost Helper from the Past

502 Ghost Helper from the Past

Caden and the little girl, hand-in-hand followed Catherine through the halls of the Bunker, going up a couple of flights of stairs before reaching the second floor where Catherine started navigating the convoluted grey halls, bringing them to a section of the facility that seemed to house the medical personnel.

For a facility that had been built as fast as this Bunker, it was a lot larger on the inside than Caden had expected it to be.

The doctors and nurses bowed when they saw the beta alpha and waved at Catherine as they watched the trio walk past. Caden noticed how fondly they smiled with Catherine even though they kept their distance. He guessed they did this because of his presence.

A couple of times, he noticed a nurse open her mouth to say something, only to go silent when they noticed him.

The door she brought them to let them into a small room, set with everything essential for someone to survive. There was a door that led to a washroom and a trunk at the side of the bed, probably holding Catherine’s essentials.

“Hey Lia, I know it’s not much but you can stay here with me here until your mother is all better,” Catherine told the little girl.

“Okay… Can I sleep in the bed?” the little girl asked.

“Sure, you can sleep wherever and whenever you want,” Catherine replied. The bed was not much but enough to hold two small bodies. Lia ran up to the bed and leapt into it.

“How about you—” Catherine panicked, but it was too late, “—have a bath first?”

.....

“Oh! Sorry,” the girl quickly jumped off the bed before attempting to strip.

“NO NO, not in front of… Come with me,” the female doctor panicked, covering the girl up and dragging her into the bathroom.

“Did I do something wrong? Mother always lets me take off my clothes in the bedroom,” the girl whined.

“No, you did nothing wrong. Just try to keep the big scary man out there from seeing you naked,” Catherine cooed.

“I don’t understand,” the girl grumbled.

“Well… you’ll understand in a few… years, hopefully,” Catherine replied with a sigh, leaving the girl inside the bathroom to handle the rest. The rest was nothing an eight-year-old couldn’t handle.

Caden kept his back turned to the woman, holding his laughter in. He didn’t do a good job of hiding it, “I’m doing you a favour… and you’re laughing.”

“Oh no, forgive me. I didn’t mean to. Will you be alright taking care of her?” Caden asked her.

“Yes, I will be fine. I’m good with kids… sometimes. And she isn’t as much of a handful as some children I’ve dealt with,” Catherine sighed.

“I’ll just put this here,” Caden placed the little girl’s backpack on the trunk and returned to his place close to the door. Catherine took a few steps towards the beta alpha.

Caden took a few steps back, “What is it?”

“You look exhausted. Do you know what time it is?” Catherine asked, raising a brow.

The beta alpha retrieved his phone to check the time. His eyes went wide with shock… “You should get some rest, Caden. You can leave Lia to me.”

“Thank you. I owe you for that. I’ll be sure to visit her when I can and bring reports of her mother’s well-being,” Caden gave a slight bow before exiting the room.

Out in the hall, the beta alpha had to hold his shaking right hand, staring at the claws that had forcefully extended in the presence of the doctor. The scent of strawberries still tormented him, making his wolf restless.

Every time he convinced himself that he was getting the hang of it, it caught him off guard and the longer he spent in Catherine’s presence, the more his control wavered. He wiped the thoughts from his mind and turned away from the door and walked away.

...........

The beta alpha had spent so much time taking care of the citizens that he didn’t exactly know where he was going to spend his night. He couldn’t return to the palace and leave this place unprotected, so he was bound to find his lodgings.

With his thoughts heavy and his heart burdened with stress from the day’s activities, he chose to take a walk. Before he knew it, he was at the exit of the Bunker… with no directions whatsoever.

“Are you okay, Alpha Caden?” one of the guards at the exit asked the man as he walked out.

“Yeah… yeah, I’m fine. I just need some fresh air is all,” he replied, walking out and into the woods… Anything to put some distance between himself, Catherine and the chamber of slumbering newly formed werewolves.

His wolf helplessly struggled against him as he walked further and further away from the bunker.

‘Just a walk… We’ll go back eventually,’ he mentally growled at the wolf, agitated by the beast’s one-track thinking.

He was so distracted by his storm of thoughts that he was shocked when a bright blue luminescence breached his eyesight. Caden looked around himself, bringing himself back to the present in the hopes of solving the mystery of where it was he’d wandered off to.

‘I’ve never seen a field of moon lotuses in the Lycaon,’ he wondered to himself, squatting down to touch one of the flowers at his feet.

“I didn’t think you would come,” a feminine voice interrupted him, freezing him to the spot.

‘Familiar…’ was an understatement.

He’d heard this voice once before. He had this particular voice engrained into the deepest parts of his brain.

And he’d longed to hear it again for a very long time. He wished he could hear it again even though that was impossible.

Now that he’d heard it, he was sure he was going crazy.

As he raised his head up to stare at the source of the voice, he nearly forgot to breathe. Standing before him was a short girl with short black hair waving in the wind. He’d seen this face before, albeit not as carefree.

The last he’d seen this face, she’d been far too timid to put on a smile this carefree.

Her hair was different too. Before, she used to gel her hair a little too much, which made her appear boyish. At a time in her life, this had been a part of her cover that she used to masquerade as a boy in the school back in Brigadia.

Now that he stared at her again, he wasn’t sure what to say. Was he dreaming or was she real? Standing before him with a carefree smile on her face was Ashley.

“Am I dreaming?” Caden asked.

“Depends… I’m not coming back to life. But you’re not dreaming either,” she giggled.

Caden stared dumbfounded, “How?”

While she looked real, it slowly became evident that she wasn’t. After all, real people didn’t float a foot above the ground covered in a halo of blue light.

No, she most certainly wasn’t real.

But Caden wasn’t sleeping… He knew he was sober, “I don’t even know how to begin answering that question, Caden but I was hoping to talk to you one last time at least.”

“Why would you need to talk to me? Did you have trouble moving on? Is that a thing?” Caden dropped to his knees, the exhaustion of the day finally catching up to him… along with something else. A tight vault of emotions he’d managed to seal off a long time ago was starting to crack.

“No, I had no trouble with that. I’ve been watching you though. It feels like you’re the one having trouble moving on,” Ashley replied.

The beta alpha chuckled, “I don’t even know anymore… How can I? Every time I feel like I have, I remember everything. You were alive one moment… and the next, you weren’t. I’m sorry, Ashley. I’m sorry I wasn’t able to keep you safe. I…” like an avalanche of emotions, Caden’s past demons came pouring back into him.

Memories he’d long suppressed and resisted and kept at the back of his mind, protecting him from the reality of what happened that day.

“No, Caden. There is nothing you could have done…”

“That’s no excuse, Ashley. I’m the king’s beta alpha… Before anyone else dies, I should have something to do about it. The strongest werewolves on the planet, probably even stronger than the royals themselves. If I can’t protect one person, then how can I… protect anyone?”

Ashley watched the beta alpha break down. For as long as she’d watched him, he’d never broken down this much… almost like seeing her had been the last missing piece of the puzzle he needed to finally lose it.

Caden remembered it all, the smell of wolfsbane. The sight of her blood tinged with a repulsive purple ooze from the poison. The cut that went across her throat and the lifeless look in her eyes as she passed on.

One moment, she was fine… and the next, she was a lifeless corpse, her future stolen away from her and her life snuffed out in a moment like it was nothing.

The girl floated down and knelt in front of the beta alpha with a sigh, “So what if I’m dead?”

“What?” Caden’s thoughts came to a standstill, shocked by the statement.

“I mean… I would have liked to stay alive. To live a life outside the rogues that had enslaved me. To enjoy the happiness on the other side of the war. But I wasn’t that lucky. Life had different plans for me and it made me happy that you were willing to help me that much. I’d never been happier in my short life.

I’m glad I died after knowing someone like you. And not just the cruel rogues I’d come to know my whole life. When I saw what my death did to you, I was saddened. You have a good heart, Caden and you want to protect your people with everything you have.

You have a big heart. You care about your loved ones. You might not be the best at cracking jokes… but you’ll do anything to put a smile on someone’s face.

You’re right, Caden. Being a beta alpha means you get to protect so many. There are many people that depend on you… but you can’t do that if you can’t move on. You have to accept that you won’t always be able to protect everyone… and that you also have the power to save more people than anyone else around you.

If you worry about the ones you couldn’t save, you’ll lose the ones you can still save, then it will all be for nothing.”

Caden remained silent for a while before letting out a sigh. He’d noticed something in her tone, “You saw her then?”

“Oh yeah, I did. She’s really pretty… and she cares so much. It was like seeing a female version of you,” Ashley chuckled.

“Whenever I see her, I get… flashes…” the beta alpha didn’t have to finish the explanation. The sight of Ashley’s brutally butchered body was still clear as rain in his mind.

“I know… and that’s all the more reason to be there for her. Stop running away. I was in the past but she’s your future,” Ashley’s words hit the mark, bringing the bitter truth to light.

Caden felt a wall crumble in his mind and with its destruction came a realisation of his wolf’s overwhelming presence. The beast had been tucked away for a very long time. Being connected to his emotions, he’d unconsciously pushed him back as well to protect himself from the painful emotions and memories.

The coffee-brown wolf grumbled a message into his mind.

A message that he otherwise, wouldn’t have heard, ‘Protect our Mate.’