Chapter 52: Chapter 52

The Sirius family watched the light of the moon goddess while it bathed the forest, the day having turned into night. “Father, how many aren’t affected by this the way the hunters are?”

“Well, this power freezes everyone except for Royals, so you can be sure that there is no hunter that’s currently active. Well, except for Katie... I wonder what happened to cause this... Just then, another light in the sky drew their attention as something... no, someone descended. The four wolves lifted their hands to shield their eyes and moved back into the cover of the hotel to protect themselves from the increasingly bright light.

The building shook under the force of something landing on their balcony. “Dad, what is that? I thought the moon goddess was the other side of the...” The light finally dimmed retreating to a single point where a man stood. He was dressed completely in white sleeveless armour with the head of a wolf carved into his chest. His body was built to rival even that of King Davin and the white equally matching.

“Father, is he your older cooler brother?” Drake joked.

“Very funny, Drake... No, this is the moon goddess’ mate, Darius...”

“Always the funny one, I see Davin. The name’s Sean and don’t you dare forget it,” the man spoke, though his voice came out somewhat irritated.

“It’s nice to see you again after so eighteen years. Did your wife come down the last time as well?” he asked.

.....

“No, that time she merely communicated through dreams and visions. Something that she can do just about any time. This, however, she can only do once... I don’t want to say that she made the wrong choice in using that chance now, but...” the man sighed, his irritation wearing off while he stared off at the place they all knew the moon goddess to be, “this time it can’t be helped.”

“Are you here to hang or did you come to tell us something about why Celeste decided to come here today?” Martha said as she brought their unannounced guest a cup of tea. Lina looked between her mother and the kitchen searching for an answer to her mother’s quick action. In the end, it was futile to try and figure when it was that her mother retrieved the cup of tea that she served their guest. ‘Mothers, it’s like they have superpowers...’

“Not really... I saw you guys watching and thought I might check in while my wife’s away. You ready for the weekend... Did you buy a gift for the birthday girl?” Sean asked.

“If you’re Sean, who’s Darius?” Lina pitched in.

Sean looked at the girl that had asked the question and took a moment to acknowledge her presence before answering in his somewhat passive tone again. For a moment, his face had shown a hint of an expression that had later come as a warning to Lina who covered herself up with the sheet that she had nearly tossed away. “Now there is a question I hoped I wouldn’t be asked to answer... Davin, that one is yours,” the man turned his face back to the forest.

“Darius is a Royal... someone who doesn’t appear much. He’s your uncle who you have never met,” King Davin said.

“I have an uncle that I’ve never met. I always thought you were an only child, father. Is he just as flashy as you would like to be?” Drake asked.

“No, he isn’t. If anything, he is just the opposite,” Davin replied. The king might have tried to hide it, but his family knew him too well. Something about his brother made shivers run down his spine no matter how much he tried to hide it.

“Speaking of Darius, he is not too far from here,” Sean said, “Just wanted to let you know. I can feel my mate retreating. She will be gone soon and I must be there to tend to her. Journeys this rushed never go without consequences.”

“I have one question. What was the reason for you coming to help me defend my child when the moon goddess already had another plan to get her to safety?” Davin asked. For as long as he’d known that his daughter was sneaked out of his own palace without his knowledge, he’d been searching for an explanation.

“The moon goddess believed there was a mole amongst the Royals, so she sent me to protect the child. As a representative of the moon goddess, it was clear that she didn’t intend to have the child moved. I was sent there that night with no knowledge of the plan either. I was so sure of my wife’s wishes that it would have been foolish of the traitor amongst the Royals to believe otherwise. Her plan was perfect,” Sean began.

“The moon goddess appeared to me the night before the attack through a dream and told me everything that was to occur and exactly what I was to do in order to rescue our daughter and have her smuggled away. She also appeared to those two hunters and told them exactly where they were to meet us. I only travelled with my closest guard, Julia. She was sworn to secrecy and didn’t tell a single soul, for she was to also be my way out of the palace and to the meeting spot that the moon goddess had prepared,” Martha continued.

“While the Queen escaped, I made a flashy entrance and lay waste to the Rogues at the palace. Alas, I wasn’t early enough to save the girl, but that was the goddess’ plan as well. I was never meant to find that child and she was meant to disappear,” Sean finished.

“Why was the child meant to...”

“Are you already forgetting what I’ve said? I don’t have much time. There was a traitor amongst the Royals at that time. We don’t know who it was, but it wasn’t safe for the girl there. We had to get her out,” he said, “As you have noticed, it wasn’t long after the secret of the girl’s whereabouts were distributed through the Sirius family that rogue attacks started to increase this far out.”

“You do realise you are saying that there is a mole working for the Rogue king within the Sirius family. That kind of thing would put a dark stain on the mission we’ve staked centuries on achieving,” Davin said, dangerously.

“I know what I just said. Don’t make me repeat myself. I only told you this because I trust everyone in this room. So when I say the Sirius family, I don’t just mean the immediate family. It could even be one of your closest allies. All I’m saying is that you watch your backs,” he said, his feet lifting off the ground.

“I would like to think you would be asking us to protect Katie,” the king said.

The man chuckled, “Of all the people in the world, that is the one person you shouldn’t worry about. She’s capable of protecting herself just fine. To the extent, I wouldn’t be worried about her even if she was in the same room with the Rogue king.”

With that said, the man floated back into the night sky heading to the moon and vanished from within its image. Soon after, a woman rose from the forest floating up in a similar fashion. The Royals were frozen at the mere sight of her and forced to take in her appearance in detail. She looked back at them and flashed them a hearty smile before continuing on her way, “Davin, what’s going through your head?” Martha asked.

“I’m just wondering what was so important that those two had to stop by,” he said.

“Did we seriously forget to ask something as important as that?” Drake facepalmed.

“Yes, my son, yes we did,” he replied, “Though one thing is clear. The moon goddess was here to help Katie. What she was helping her with remains a mystery, however.” The night began to turn back into day as the sun switched with the moon almost seamlessly, blinding the werewolves at the balcony and restoring the hunters.

“Any more questions... How did you... what happened?” Tom asked, noticing the atmosphere of the room. His gut rumbled with urgency, something extreme had just happened and he needed to know what it was.

“The moon goddess came down from her seat in the heavens to tend to our daughter. She must have been in serious trouble for that to happen,” this revelation seemed to strike Marie the wrong way.

“She was supposed to be going for an interrogation at the Hunter’s Agency,” she said.

“What interrogation?” Davin asked, a commanding tone taking over his voice. He could detect danger in the woman’s reactions and it did not rub him the right way. No one in the room liked what was going on. Marie checked through her purse and procured a phone. “Who are you calling?”

“Anthony, he might know what happened during the interrogation,” Marie said before walking to the balcony to talk to the man on the side of the phone call. This shut the rest of the room up while they waited on the results of the call.

“Do I really have to wait until after the shift is done? I would also like to see my daughter’s beautiful wolf. I bet she looks amazing,” Drake mused while scrolling through the contents of his phone, passing the time that Marie was spending on the phone.

Marie came back minutes later clutching her phone. Her fingers could not settle as she kept entangling them in a dance of nervousness. “Katie was warned before going into the interrogation room that she was to be taken advantage of once she was in and that the victim’s only purpose was to get to her. It’s still unknown how much he got to her because she did not show much of a sign while she was there, but she did display a disturbing amount of violence and murdered the victim using the torture devices that they had around. She then proceeded to walk out of the dungeon from which she vanished. No one has seen her since.

“Are you saying that she went missing?”

“No, what I’m saying is that the Director she be given time to herself and that no hunter was to engage her unless she asked for it. In other words, she was given a day off from work,” she concluded. The news could have been worse, but there was nothing in what Marie had said that explained anything that would cause reason for the coming of the moon goddess.