Chapter 133

133 Chapter One Hundred Thirty Three

Jackson yelled out orders to the werewolves, telling them to take positions with their partners and go through a variety of drills. Each of them was to make sure that the other was not slacking and doing everything right. After all, they were going to spar at the end of it all. If either of them was not well prepared by the time they finished with the exercise drills, they were done for...

The mode of training was also meant to build trust, something Katie devised after thinking through the cruel things she could do to Crysta before the actual sparring began. She shunned the thoughts, but wouldn’t quite put them past the girl, “Katie, are you okay?” Cole snapped her out of her thoughts as she helped her up. Her anger had dissipated upon the werewolf’s arrival.

“What happened, Jason?”

“When Crysta left Katie momentarily, I might have thought she’d backed off, but I guess I was wrong,” Jason reported, more mechanically than expected.

“The girl asked Alpha Jackson for the opportunity to put the princess through the wringer. Jackson accepted asking her to go easy on Katie since she only recently started walking again,” Caden added, taking the pressure off his friend.

Cole rubbed his temples in frustration, “Just when I thought things couldn’t get any worse.”

“Are you worried?” Katie chuckled.

“Crysta is a tough one. She gives Lina a hard time as well,” a girl, whom Katie hadn’t taken the time to notice intervened. She had yellow eyes and barely had any muscle as the other werewolves did. Katie was amazed she’d even made this distance at all.

The girl stood beside her brother, Drake. The latter barely stayed oddly silent by her side. He wasn’t one to linger where he was not needed, but something kept him here... Katie filed her far-fetched guess to the back of her mind with an image of Ashley nodding approvingly, ‘That makes a lot of sense...’ she replied. Katie only rolled her eyes at the wolf’s enthusiasm towards the subject.

.....

“Honour, I see you made it early today. What a surprise? I’m going to miss watching you try to hard to finish some of my punishment drills today,” the boisterous hulk of a man yelled while he made his way over to us, “Is everything okay over here? I saw a bit of a commotion and decided to start this a bit early.”

“Yes, everything is fine. Can you...”

“That’s great then. Katie, you’ve been paired with Crysta upon her request or more like challenge...” the man said without waiting for Cole to finish his sentence.

“-reconsider your selection for Crysta and... Never mind,” Cole knew the rules and there was no backing out of a challenge when one was made. This was one of the few ways Crysta could exploit. After what she’d done the day before.

“We can postpone the challenge if that’s okay with you,” Jackson offered.

“No, let’s just get this over with. I don’t want to have to go another day thinking of a duel between that girl and I,” she sighed. To Sandra, she continued, “Sandra, you’ve been getting better... much better. Keep it up and you might just make a good hunter yet.”

“Whenever that will be...” Sandra sighed, before getting up from her place on the ground. The god Prometheus didn’t provide any sort of sign of when one would get a gift and many hunted the gifts for the better half of their lives.

“Well, don’t lose hope...” Katie replied before jogging away to join her particularly annoying partner. It was the first time either of them was seeing the girl approach Crysta without hate in her eyes. However, the truth was flipped, Katie was having the hardest time keeping Ashley at bay and the reason she thought she could still act normal was Cole’s presence.

Sandra remained frozen for a bit, her mentor’s words going through her mind on a loop. ‘Hope... The only thing Prometheus offered the humans. He’d created a race that was weak in all aspects. They had the ability to think and work with their hands, but they bore so many physical limitations. Some took it to be a joke when it was taught that the god left them only one thing to account for everything he hadn’t given them... hope. Hope was meant to drive the humans through all their hardships.

“I’ll catch up to you, Katie. Just you wait...” Sandra whispered. Jason, who’d been close heard her words and smiled. Ever since the attack on the rogues, Sandra had a new fire that burned within her... He would know. He’d been training her the entire time Katie was in a wheelchair and her improvements were astonishing, to say the least...

“Would you be my partner?” the alpha asked her.

“You know my father asked that you keep me safe, not beat me to a pulp,” she replied, taking his outstretched hand.

“And there are ways that I can protect you by beating you to a pulp. You’ve been doing well, Sandra. Don’t slow down now,” he said to her. It might have been a feeling or the fact that the girl had spent a lot of time with the werewolf. She noticed something different about him. was it the fact that the shirt he wore was a little too tight-fitting on him. She couldn’t tell if she’d seen the shirt before either.

“Yeah, I won’t slow down,” she shook off her nerves and focused on the task at hand... honing her skills and finally catching up to Katie Cha-Sirius.

Katie went through a number of stretches as she got ready to train with her chosen partner, ‘How are you so calm when she’s right next to you? We have the same mate, how are you blocking me just by his scent... I’m the werewolf, not you... I am. I demand justice,’ Ashley was on a rampage in her mind, but the girl was not going to let it show... Well, she was sure she could keep the wolf at bay... That was until Crysta decided to open her mouth.

“Aren’t you afraid you might break?” the girl asked, “Phonies don’t usually gain physical abilities.”

“Have you ever even talked to Cole? You seem very convinced of your relationship with him?” Katie asked the girl while she reached forward to touch her toes, holding the position.

“Of course, I know him. It might have been a while ago, but I know what I felt then. And what he felt as well,” she recounted. A tinge of... was that jealousy, etched its way into Katie’s emotions before shaking it off and moving on to the next question.

“What makes you think he still remembers or cares? He’s never mentioned you... Not even after meeting you yesterday,” Katie mentioned, changing her position to an overhead stretch. This was all in an effort to check that her muscles did not suddenly flare up in pain when she was in combat.

Crysta was going through her own preparations as well, taking the opportunity to lower her guard against the girl she continued a nuisance. “He still remembers me... I’m confident about that. And I’ll soon show him that I am more worthy of him than you will ever be.”

“What makes you so confident?” Katie asked more to herself. The girl’s determination to kick her out of the picture was unwavering and very disturbing. That only meant there was a reason she was so sure the Royal would turn to her eventually... ‘Don’t waver in your determination to crush her, Katie. Stay with me, Katie,’ Ashley started arguing in my head.

“Well, if you are so curious, I might just be inclined to tell you,” Crysta lowered her voice and approached the girl so that she could whisper into her ear, “I am the reason Cole was able to forget everything about losing his mate in the first place.”

Katie froze upon hearing the words that were uttered in her ear. For all Cole knew, she’d been dead eighteen years ago, who was he to resist a girl who happened to want to take his troubles away. These words came with a lot of interpretations, but the worst of them reached Ashley and brewed up a storm of violence. Crysta smirked, seemingly happy with herself.

Jackson was done presiding over one of the pairs just then and walked up to them, “Are the two of you ready? We’ll use this sparring session to determine the strength of the princess. Since we already know how strong Crysta is.” The man spoke, failing to notice Katie’s anger through her quickly applied fa?ade.

“Okay then... Let’s get this over with already,” Katie replied, getting up on her feet. Katie was up, but unstable, her gifts and wolf in complete disarray. Ashley, having been granted access to these specific items, was ready to use everything at her disposal to make quick work of the tramp before her.

“Our law dictates that the ones going to have a duel bow to each other as a sign of respect. A pack is only as strong as its weakest link and through trust and the bond that joins us, we must make ourselves stronger and the pack as a whole,” the words touched the hunter, but to Ashley, there was nothing heard.

The other wolves in the clearing stopped their training and came to check on these two. It was long since there was something this interesting and none of them was going to miss it. Cole, having taken longer than he would have liked, felt the murderous intent rising within his mate the closer they got to allow them to fight. ‘This is bad,’ his heart sunk when he saw his mate’s eyes flash brighter... Her wolf had taken full control of her and oblivious Crysta had no idea she was staring death right in the eye with a smug look on her face...