Chapter 206

206 Chapter Two Hundred Six

“I’m sorry, mother,” the girl apologized to the Seeker. The Seeker only sighed at her carelessness and waved her off. The girl was gone in the blink of an eye to what Drake guessed was her room.

“Might I get you anything to drink?” the woman asked them, gesturing to the sofas in the living room. The cottage was cosy and despite how satisfied the prince was, the smell of cinnamon just had an alluring pull to it.

“A cup of tea if it won’t be much trouble,” he replied, taking a seat opposite alpha Lionel.

The alpha looked about the cottage, his thoughts soaring through the possibilities of their visit. It made sense to him now that the prince would go through the females first. Knowing about a Seeker wouldn’t have required him to go through the needless work, but he’d gone through it anyway, “So did you plan every part of this visit with my father?” Lionel asked.

“Well, yeah... He just never mentioned his sudden absence,” Drake responded, “Congratulations on earning his approval. I didn’t think he would give you this much responsibility so soon.”

“If it wasn’t for the new leaf I only turned a while ago, I would have taken that to be an insult, your highness. Seeker, the prince does not like to be kept waiting,” the alpha yelled.

“I know that’s you putting words into his mouth. That man is a thousand times more patient than you’ll ever be,” the Seeker’s voice came back from the kitchen with a hint of a giggle.

“Well, now that you know who doesn’t like to be kept waiting, would you hurry this along? I seem to have forgotten my room wide open and have a thing for privacy,” Lionel tried again.

“You will say just about anything to get things to move faster. I’m just surprised you haven’t started telling me we are under a rogue attack,” the Seeker’s voice sounded again, this time, coming closer to them though. She finally came into view holding a tray in her hands. On the tray were two cups of what Drake’s senses told him were well-brewed cups of cinnamon tea.

.....

“I didn’t ask for your tea,” the alpha huffed.

“And yet it is what you’ll have. This world doesn’t always offer what we want to have now, does it, Lionel?” she asked him with a smile on her face.

“No, it doesn’t...”

“Great... I’m glad we see eye to eye. To what do I owe the pleasure of this visit? I never thought the prince of Sirius would be coming to my doorstep to see me in particular,” she said to him.

“Well, I came to ask for your help. They say you have a gift that can help you find mates,” Drake announced without wasting time in any more idle chatter.

“You get straight to the point, huh? I just don’t understand why you would be coming to me for something like that though,” the woman shrugged, taking a seat beside her alpha.

“Why is that? I’ve been searching for her for almost a year now,” Drake responded.

“Huh, a year... That’s odd. Aren’t you sixteen?” the woman asked as though it was obvious. The two males stared at her with looks of concern and shock. The Seeker was bothered for a moment by the looks they were giving her, “What... Did I say something wrong?”

“Umm... Well, you have his age wrong by a lot of years... He’s turning twenty-three soon,” alpha Lionel said to her.

“Huh...” speechless, she looked between the two werewolves, “Oh, the two of you are serious about that. I can see where the problem is now.”

“What is it then?” Drake asked her, getting slightly hopeful with the news he was hearing. The woman might have been a bit odd, but the way her eyes turned grey whenever she was trying to figure out what they asked of her told him there was more to her than her odd eye colours.

“Well, your mate is a little too young. You’re actually searching for her two years too early. You won’t be able to find her for another two years. She’s sixteen at the moment. I don’t know who she is if you want to ask. The rules don’t let me know your mate’s name if she hasn’t come of age yet. However, there is something odd about her,” the Seeker said. Drake was disappointed, however, the last thing the woman said caught his attention.

“What do you mean by that? Is she alright? Injured? Sick? Tell me already,” he asked.

“She’s neither of all the things that you’ve said, but I would say your mate is special. So special that the entire fate of a race could rest upon her one day,” the woman said, “How she comes to be so important is beyond my scope of abilities. I’m sorry about that.”

“It’s okay. Can you at least tell me her location so that I know where to start when the time comes?” Drake asked her.

“I can’t do that, but you won’t have trouble finding her. Something tells me you’ve been staring at her for a while now. Patience should help you get through the next two years without much trouble. However, I would ask that you train yourself to be able to protect her when the time comes. She’s going to need the protection,” the Seeker said before a tear rolled down her cheek. Her grey eyes flickered back to amber and didn’t go back. “That’s never happened before... I can’t see much more... My power... It won’t work.”

“What is that supposed to mean?” Lionel asked her, panic starting to fill his voice.

“My best guess is that I was not meant to pry anymore than I should have. I do know what I had found out before the connection was severed though,” the woman said with a thoughtful expression, “Your mate... She has a very strong connection to the moon goddess.”

“What... The only people who have connections to the moon goddess at the moment are the moon goddess’ chosen. The royals have weak connections in comparison...”

“I do remember saying she was sixteen. That only means she isn’t one of the Chosen. Perhaps the goddess did something and stopped the oracles from releasing a prophecy about it for her protection,” the Seeker surmised, however, it was all just a theory and they had no way to prove it. It was the best they had, but all they had as well.

“What about Lionel over here?” Drake piped up, trying to diffuse the tension in the room.

“Huh, me... No, I don’t need to know where she is or if she exists just yet,” the alpha spoke up, backing away from the Seeker.

“Oh, don’t worry, you coward. I don’t have access to my powers at the moment. I don’t know if it is permanent, but I do want to know why you don’t want to find your mate,” the woman rested her chin on the armrest and stared up at the alpha with pleading eyes.

Lionel went quiet for a moment, “Not yet... I can’t find her just yet. Not when I still have passing thoughts of someone else that I’m sure doesn’t belong to me...”

.......

Katie looked stared at the white rhino, holding her breath as though it was the only thing keeping her from being attacked. The rest of the students didn’t seem to notice. The rhino had noticed the girl’s ability to understand them and was curious. Katie hoped rhinos could read facial expressions. This could go in a totally wrong direction.

“Moving on... We have far more to see in this large reserve, so get comfortable and expect to be amazed. Hopefully, we shall get to see the family of rhinos that resides in this park. They are the sweetest with little Bola,” the guide continued.

'

“Bola?” one of the students asked.

“Yes, that was what we all decided to name her. It wasn’t my first choice, but it’s what we settled on at the end of it all,” she announced. Katie continued staring at the rhino and made sure to keep eye contact with him while they passed it.

“Aren’t I lucky?” was all the rhino said before going back to grazing.

“Naughty kids...” Wyatt spat. Katie turned to him and looked for the ones he spoke of. Taking notice of the group of kids that were giggling in the middle section of the car. At first glance, there was nothing wrong with the group, but after taking a longer look, Katie noticed one of them holding a black and red slingshot.

“Hmm, I would think of you in that group of kids as well. What makes you different?” Katie asked him.

“Well, I don’t go around oppressing creatures that have done nothing to me and are of no consequence to me whatsoever. I wouldn’t even call it fun since the creatures can’t fight back. If I was to get crazy with a slingshot, I’d probably be shooting someone that could fight back and not a squirrel,” he responded.

“Did you say squirrel?” Katie asked, her eyes darting about until they landed on a pair of squirrels a distance away. They were almost out of sight by the time Katie noticed them... and one of them was injured. She didn’t know if they were the same ones that had helped her the day before, but the sight brought something boiling within her. The giggles coming from the naughty students didn’t help calm her down one bit.

“Yeah...” Wyatt spoke up, “Squirrel is what I said.”

Katie nearly turned on the students, but something kept her from doing anything. The student holding the slingshot was a human. Her blood went cold... The rules weren’t the same when it came to dealing with this group. She sighed and turned a blind eye... ‘Strike one, kids...’

The students were in constant awe each time they saw a creature they had never seen or only heard of through the television and read about in books. Animals of all shapes and sizes filled the reserve and each had a story to it. At some point, Katie felt like asking the guide if some of the stories were made up. Almost all the young ones had been named as well as their mothers. A few carnivorous animals were seen, scaring the human students in the group.

Katie facepalmed at the sight of a girl holding onto a boy that was equally scared by a lion that had only yawned as they passed its mostly sleeping pride. The students with the slingshot had been using it as much as they wanted focusing on nothing of consequence and Katie had noted each and every time they had used the slingshot to irritate an animal. They had eventually gotten bored and stopped using it or so the girl thought...

The car came to a stop, ordered by the guide who had spotted something interesting, “If you could all look to our right. One of the many things we hold most dear in the Sirius game reserve is this wonderful pair. The third part of this small family is the same one we saw earlier. So here we have young beautiful Bola and her mother, Paula.”

“Of course, they rhyme,” Wyatt grumbled.

Katie chuckled only to feel her senses flare up in her mind. She turned about looking for the source of trouble. She detected no odd rogue movement about them and yet she still knew there was danger around them. If only she had been a second faster, she would have noticed the boy that had the slingshot stretched to its limit and aimed at the young calf that fed next to her mother, oblivious about the projectile aimed at her forehead.

Just then, the slingshot let loose of the stone, aimed straight at the cub. From all the practice Katie had gone through in archery, Katie could tell this shot had been made perfectly and would spell doom for the rest of them... ‘I should have gotten that slingshot the moment they hit strike three...’ she thought to herself while she tapped into her Prometheus gift.