Author's Note: Volume 2 was written at a time when burnout and school assignments were eating away at me and I apologize if it's not as good as Volume one. On the bright side, I am doing my best to edit through it and hope you don't drop the novel because of it. Regardless, I am quite proud of this novel. Volume Three is definitely a blast... Even more so than Volume One
...
Deep in the forest… threads of moonlight sneaked in through the dense canopy marking a clear path through the forest for a lone wolf to follow. The weirdly accurate path the moonlight marked out was not a mistake. The wolf had been running for what seemed like hours now without slowing down in the quest to find safety for the people that nested on its back, or so she thought.
One of the people, a mother who held onto the wolf's fur for dear life, partly to stop herself from falling off and also partly because of the intense pain that shot through her spine as the wolf ran on. Having just gone through childbirth, it hurt just to sit on the wolf's back, but for the sake of the newborn, the second person on the wolf's back, she withstood the pain. The trio pushed forward, getting ever so close to the pack boundaries.
Howls filled the night, spurring them on, encouraging them to keep going with no rest. A soft gasp escaped the woman's mouth before she bit her lip to muffle the scream that threatened to escape her lips. "Your majesty," the wolf called through the mind link.
"Keep going… follow the path marked by the moon goddess," the woman replied, pain evident in her voice as it came out through gritted teeth.
"But your majesty…"
"Nothing right now matters more than this child's life… do not slow down for any reason," the Queen spoke, giving the wolf renewed motivation to keep going despite the pain that shot through every inch of her body each time the wolf's front paws struck the ground. The air the wolf breathed in started to feel like burning needles against its throat, though it still pushed forward until the forest began to open up eventually. The trees getting thinner as they now reached the edge of the forest.
At the very edge of the forest that marked the end of pack territory, the sound of a lone car engine could be heard, along with two voices. One deep and one soft… a couple that spoke in hushed tones even though to these werewolves, due to their acute sense of hearing, could make out their voices. The wolf collapsed at the edge of the forest, panting heavily, right where the moonlight made a boundary with shadows. The Queen rolled off the wolf immediately in an attempt to ease the pain she was in. Much to her dismay, the pain persisted, pulsing through her body like a steady drum.
The couple seized their talk and retrieved flashlights, "No, do not turn on any lights. Werewolves have very good eyesight." The queen said, her words coming out laboured along with her heavy breathing. Her mind zoned in and out of consciousness from the pain she was enduring. One hand clutched the baby with all the energy she could muster which wasn't much but just enough to secure the baby within her grasp while the other clutched her stomach applying pressure to a flesh wound that was only healing slowly but not fast enough if she was to live to see another day. The only thing that mattered to the queen now was the safety of the child and nothing more.
"It's red light, your majesty. They won't be able to see it," the man said.
"They've got some hunters on their side," she said, handing the baby over to the woman. The two people that they had encountered were seasoned hunters, among the best the world had to offer. If anyone could keep the child safe, it was them. Besides, they were the last people in the world that the queen could trust with this.
"Your majesty, you aren't fine. Let's treat your wounds," the woman beseeched her.
"No, get the baby and go as far as you can take her. Conceal her identity. If you have a first aid kit, just give me what I need and my personal guard will take care of it," she said with a hint of urgency in her laboured voice... The man hurried to the blue trunk of the hatchback they had come with and retrieved the first aid kit which she then gave to the queen.
"You need to go to an emergency room your majesty," alarm rising within the woman's voice, "you are bleeding a lot."
"I am a werewolf. I will heal, besides, that girl's life is worth more than mine. She is a gift from the moon goddess herself. Protect the child with your lives," the queen explained, "Now go, hurry… The girl's name is Katie. You can change the other one for her safety," The baby began stirring now that she was out of her mother's arms.
The couple got into the car and revved the engine before speeding out of there, their lights tinted red to evade the near-perfect night vision of the wolves that flooded the forest on a hunt for the Queen's child. "How are we going to raise a child, my love?" the man asked his partner.
"We'll figure it out, together. We won't let anything happen to her," she said, and with that, the baby stopped crying and opened her eyes. The irises of the girl's eyes gleamed a bright blue in the darkness. "She really is a Royal werewolf. One of the Chosen pair, no less… this might be the most important mission in our entire careers considering that baby has the power to put an end to all this."
"We'll have to do something about her eyes if we are to conceal her identity," the man said, "and I know just the person to call."
"Can we trust him?"
"We can't trust anyone now. News about the baby's disappearance will be widespread before long. We are going to the secret family cabin in the North. The girl can grow up there; we will train her to be a hunter like we are… the very best. And when the time is right and we are sure she can protect herself, we will introduce her to the real world and teach her to blend in," he explained.
"Shall we tell her about her origin?"
"No… I'm afraid that is something she will have to learn a lot later, but we will tell her before she turns eighteen," the man explained.
They drove fast putting distance between themselves and the girl's pack. Constantly opening a can of perfume of a different kind each several kilometres to mask their scents… "Just what was the moon goddess planning that got the werewolves, no the rogues, so riled up about newborns."
"Knowing her, she did it for the safety of the werewolves, but not all of them saw it that way and that caused a war. I just don't know why she chose us to protect the girl," the woman said.
"Are you kidding darling?" the man smirked before the woman joined him in laughter. An inside joke on the rhetorical question that confirmed how confident they were on their abilities as hunters.
...….Seventeen Years Later...
Riiiiiing… the bell went snapping a teenage girl out of her sleep. The shuffling sounds of students leaving the classroom confirmed that she had not heard anything wrong and the class was indeed over. Math was not one of the classes that she found particularly interesting since her parents made it an issue to teach him everything she needed to know about the class in a brutal crash course that wasn't for the faint of heart.
Most teenagers from the sort of family she was from knew this and they were only in school for the formalities. It came with the territory when one was raised in a family of hunters. Hunters only had to keep the balance between werewolves and humans. Humans and werewolves were free to interact as they wished, but under no circumstances was a werewolf supposed to use its abilities to attack a human.
It was justified however if the werewolf had proof of self-defence as it wasn't unheard of for some psychopaths to capture werewolves for the sole purpose of dissecting them to find out what makes their anatomy so special.
"Hey, Katie," a voice snapped the girl out of her thoughts.
"You've been zoning out a lot lately," a girl said, approaching her. Sandra, one of her two best friends and fellow hunter, had been friends with Katie since they were kids, having met training to become hunters in the forest just like their parents. "You still having that weird dream of yours?"
"Yeah, it won't go away, although I am now learning how to ignore it. It still gives me annoying headaches though," she said. For the past few weeks that were leading to her birthday which was set to happen this weekend, Katie was having one recurring dream of the Black wolf.
"Does the dream ever change?"
"No, still exactly the same… the White wolf stands there and asks me why I won't let her out and why I refuse to play with her," Katie replied before walking out of the classroom, "It's like every time I close my eyes…"
"We still talking about the same thing?" a male voice interrupted them, shutting down the topic. Kyle was another one of Katie's best friends. Despite not being a hunter, Kyle was exceptional when it came to class and had been a good friend to Katie when she first came to this school. Werewolves, humans and hunters were no secret to the public and it was never scary when a werewolf threatened a human since hunters were always around to keep the peace. As such, the werewolves usually kept their claws to themselves…
The sound of someone slamming into a locker penetrated Katie's ears… well, usually… The trio increased their pace till they found the source of the commotion. Dexter, a heavy well-built werewolf had his hands around a kid's throat. "You should know your place, runt," he yelled into the kid's face.
"Hey, Dexter, put him down. The hunters will be here any minute," one of his friends tried to calm him down and warn him, but the rage was getting the better of him.
"Put him down, Dexter," Sandra spoke up, beating Katie to the punch. Regardless of how small she looked, she was known throughout the school as someone you wouldn't want to cross paths with and end up in a fight.
Dexter turned to look at the three new arrivals, his eyes gleaming bright green, the students around clearing a path for them to get to Dexter. "Well if it isn't the trio of wannabe hunters, weird eyed kid and her lackeys… and yes, the weird eyed kid he was referring to was Katie, because of her very rare, dark blue eyes.
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High-ranking wolves around the world had gleaming green eyes, and that comprised Betas and Deltas. It was most intense for the Betas and dimmer for the deltas.
Alphas had eyes that gleamed bright red, fiery and intimidating. The rarest of them all was the Royals. Their eyes shone a brilliant shade of blue that was impossible to miss. These wolves radiated an aura that left everyone who wasn't used to it utterly petrified.
Unfortunately, this made the matter of one having blue eyes, no matter how insignificant the level of blue in your eyes was, something of an omen.
Ordinary werewolves just walked around with bright yellow irises. These werewolves were the most peaceful when they weren't either ordered to do something by high-ranking werewolves or if they weren't rogues either.
Children with blue eyes were shunned by many under the suspicion of a collaboration with the Royals of the werewolves. Rogue werewolves were known for killing these kinds of people flaunting the excuse for hating the Werewolf King so much that they despised the sight of eyes that resembled his.
Katie was no longer shaken by the compliment these days… she was used to watching people gasp every time they noticed the colour of her eyes. When she was younger, she threw a tantrum so that her guardians would tell her what was wrong with her eyes. They had promised then that they would tell her the truth about that when the time was right and that she only needed to be patient about it.
"Dexter... put the boy down. You know how the rules go," Katie spoke up, her voice laid back pocketing while she spoke.
Dexter seemed to be in a worse mood than he usually was and he did nothing to reduce the force he was exerting on the boy's neck. Based on how the boy was running out of energy to struggle and the extent to which his veins were popping out of his head, Katie was able to make a calculated guess of thirty seconds before the boy would lose consciousness and that was not an option she was willing to choose.
"You have five seconds to put him down," Katie said, clenching her fist and unclenching it to show that she was going to have to use force if necessary even though she'd rather they didn't cause much more of a scene. "Five… Four… Three…"
"Alright, alright…" he said, letting the boy fall to the ground.
The boy quickly crawled away, gasping for air and collecting his books on his way from Dexter. Katie got down and picked up the last book the boy had before handing it to him, a textbook on Neurobiology.
"I think you might be reading way far ahead," she chuckled, before giving way for the boy to leave.
"But that only means that I am transferring his pummeling to you," Dexter said in a low and dangerous tone, a low growl rumbling from his chest as he said it.
"Do you have a death wish, Dexter? That's Katie Cha…" Dexter's friend was cut short when he was sent flying into the lockers with one blow. Dexter didn't spare him a glance as he punched him.
"I know who she is. So what if she's the daughter of one of the greatest hunters? I say the name Chase is wasted on her," Dexter growled, getting ready to attack Katie.
"You definitely know how to throw a punch," Katie complimented him, looking at the body of the unconscious werewolf that now lay ten feet away from her in an odd position having slid down the lockers after crashing into them.
"Worry about yourself," Dexter yelled, before running straight for Katie, who paid him no attention.
Dexter stopped halfway to clutch his stomach after receiving a heavy blow to the gut from an unsuspecting bystander. Dexter got onto his knees, clutching his stomach and before he knew it, his eyes furious with anger, a kick to the head put him to sleep. Sandra had taken care of it almost in the blink of an eye.
"What do we do about them?" she asked.
"Take the smaller one. We better get them to the infirmary," Katie said, walking over to Dexter and picking him up like he was nothing more than a bag of flour. Sandra did the same for the smaller one, turning to Kyle.
"Get to class, Kyle. We'll handle everything from here," she told him, the bell going almost immediately after she said it.
"Okay, but at lunchtime in the cafeteria, I have something to tell you guys. Something that you might just want to hear," he said, turning to leave for the next class.
"Damn it. Now, I'm in suspense… and you know how the clock goes slower when I'm in suspense," Katie whined.
"What do you think he was talking about?" she asked, a smirk spreading on her face.
"Sneaky fox, now you just want me to get more curious," Katie whined, her friend cracking up in laughter as they made their way through the crowd paying no heed to the now dispersing crowd they had attracted.
The jobs of the hunters were known and one of the main reasons for having trained hunters such as them attending a normal school was to deal with issues such as these. As a result, schools needed access to hunter families if they were to be allowed to run so that they could guarantee the safety of the human children.
This also meant that there were not too many schools that one could choose from to send their kids to study. Katie was currently going to Brigade Highschool. Currently, the safest high school in the world and she was there mainly to protect humans from werewolves as the school was supposed to run.
The school was now officially the safest school in the world mainly because werewolves wouldn't dare attack humans even if they had been angered just to avoid incurring her wrath. Because of who her parents were, she had gone through the best hunter training their sick twisted minds could cook up for her and she had been groomed and trained into a well-seasoned hunter.
Katie and Sandra finally made it to the infirmary where they placed the two werewolves onto the beds that were free. "Hey, Nurse Tilda," they greeted the Nurse when she came in.
She rushed to their side and began tending to their injuries as quickly as she could whilst she ran her mouth just as fast, "What did you do to them this time? You know it is because of you that werewolf families are beginning to file complaints on whether or not the school is biased. Ever since you were allowed to stop werewolf violence in this school, the number of injured werewolves became more than the number of injured humans."
Katie kept silent about that before the nurse continued. She sighed, pausing for a bit after dressing Dexter's head… Sandra had kicked him pretty hard… "There is no doubt about it. You are among the best things that have ever happened to this school in the hunter department. We have now been ranked the least violent and safest school in the world and it's all because the werewolves don't want to cross paths with you."
"That's good to hear. Where is the bad news, Nurse Tilda?"
"Many important people are starting to think that this school might just be the safest place for their children, so do not be surprised if we get quite a number of transfers," Aunt Tilda said, before walking out of the room they were in to attend to other patients in other rooms.
The infirmary was an entire block that could house up to one hundred and fifty patients, which was done as a precaution when the school was starting and the violence was still commonplace.
In a world like this, instead of simply ranking grades, schools were also ranked on how safe they were able to maintain the human population and all schools that were found to be hiding cases of violence were forced to be shut down by inspectors that were sent by both the hunters and the Royals.
Katie walked out of the infirmary with Sandra tailing her. Her thoughts were already straying away from their recent topic of discussion, "So what do you think about what Nurse Tilda said?" Sandra asked her.
"Huh, Nurse Tilda… Oh, sorry, I was still trying to guess what Kyle could be hiding from us. Nurse Tilda might throw tantrums a lot and despite her being a werewolf, her heart is in the right place," Katie said.
"Okay, if you say so…"
Just then, Katie froze up, a rarity among rarities... the same fear she felt when she was in her dreams. This time though, something else had her on edge. She knew she was not a werewolf and that scents meant nothing to her.
And the fact that she was human also meant that she lacked that ability. But then, why in the world did she smell something so sweet and inviting? A headache started building up, hammering slowly at her skull...
"You okay, Katie," Sandra asked, "You look like you've seen a ghost or something." Sandra's voice sounded somewhat distant, Katie's sense of smell becoming sharper than most of her other senses to get more of the scent that had suddenly appeared.
"No, Sandra, nothing is…" images of the white wolf flashed in her mind followed by overwhelming emotions of longing that she was not familiar with. The wolf stared at her intently, its snow-white fur glistening with a rare radiant shine to it. "No, this nightmare is meant to only be there when I go to sleep."
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