Chapter 58: ᴏɴᴇ sᴛᴇᴘ ғᴏʀᴡᴀʀᴅ
Chapter 58: ᴏɴᴇ sᴛᴇᴘ ғᴏʀᴡᴀʀᴅ
KAEL
The familiar gates of the Lyncs barracks greet me as I ride in. I waste no time in parking my scooter and head to General Caulder's office. He will not be expecting me, nor what I have for him.
Atwater is the first one I see though, my supposed roommate, he is also headed to Caulder's floor I suppose. "Hey, Atwater!" I yell.
He stops and slowly turns back to stare at him, he gasps, his eyes grew wide wide with shock. "Your High... I mean Lieutenant Aspen? Is that really you?"
"Obviously. Are you headed to Caulder's office?"
He nods.
"Come with me then." Atwater says nothing as he leads the way to Caulder's office, he is probably wondering why I am being friendly to him when i never even cared about his existence during my stay here.
Getting to Caulder's office, Atwater raises his hand to knock but I push it open instead. Caulder abruptly looks up from his system at my interruption.
I cannot tell if it is a genuine smile that graces his face when he notices me, but he smiles nonetheless. "Lieutenant Aspen."
"General Caulder."
He stands and hurries to my front. I wait for him to stand right before me and then I clench my fist and throw a punch to his face.
"Holy shit!" Atwater exclaims.
"Forgive me General, I have always wanted to do that since your daughter beat up my wife and landed her on a hospital bed," I say with a shrug.
Caulder smirks and wipes his bleeding lip with his thumb just as it starts to heal. "Why are you here Lt. Aspen."
"Two things," I say. "First off, the night we went for a drink with the other soldiers, my drink was spiked with pixie dust. And secondly? A day before the first murder cases, a prisoner escaped into my suite."
"What are you insinuating?"
"The first time this case started, you said you wanted my help in identifying the scents rightg?"
"That was before your Fathe instructed me to get you off the case."
I chuckle. "He did, didn't he now? Unfortunately, I wiill still need to check the scen on this victims..."
"But His Maesty..." Caulder starts to argjue and I cut him off with a snap of my finger.
"His Majesty will not know about this, well unless you or Atwater here decides to rat yourself out, because if this gets to him, you will be at the brunt of his rage not me."
Atwatwer looks like he is going to throw up at this instant while Caulder looks skeptical. "I know you are desperate to find the killer as much as I want to. He killed two of your men, it's a slap to your face is it not?"
When Caulder sighs again, this time, i know I ave gotten him where I want him. "Come with me," he says.
It mght be a foolish to do, trusting Caulder and Atwater but for now it is the only safest way of confirming my theories, if anything, I mmight be just this close to finding Jada's Puppet - The Klux.
Carla was here. That is the first thing I notice when Caulder leads Atwater and I into a room in the CPD unit.
"Carla was here." I voice out my thoughts.
"Wow, you really are good with scents," Atwater marvels.
"She was here very early this morning and she had the scent on the victims trapped in that locket just as if she knew you wee going to come here." Caulder answers my question.
Of course, Carla always found a way to be one step ahead of me. I should have known she knows about my solo investigation, hell, she might even know I have regained my memories. The sly old witch.
Caulder hands me the locket. Heaving in a sigh, I flip it open, shut my eyes, and then I inhale.
Lycan Blood.
Tainted Blood.
Pixie dust
Wolfsbane.
My eyes fly open as I mutter. 𝘚𝘩𝘪𝘵!
"Did you get something?" Atwater asks eagerly while Caulder only stares at me with folded arms.
This is not right. Something is wrong here.
"You are not going to tell me what you found, are you?"
I force out a smile at Caulder. "I will do this on my own, Caulder."
\---
LILAC
"Training does not necessarily mean learning to throw punches. If you were observant enough, you would know that I never revisited my promise to train you because the happenings around was enough to start sharpening your senses toll you begin to think like one of us. That is what training is about."
I am his fated. Just like Emery and Raul. I am Kael's soulmate. The concept is intriguing just as much as it is disturbing. Does this mean I am only attracted to him because somehow the fates has not given us a choice? If there was no bond between us, would I still be attracted to Kael Aspen? And why has he never told me about it? Why did he keep that knowledge hidden from me?
"Lilac!" My heart almost jumps out of my chest at Carla's sudden calling of my name.
"You are not listening to me, are you?" She asks.
"Carla, why do you think he didn't tell me? Did he not like the idea of being fated to me?"
Carla shakes her head with a smile. "You could ask him when he comes, why he decided to keep that from you. But now, you need to focus."
Focus.
Carla hands me a bow and an arrow from fates knows where she got them from. "You might want to try this," she says.
"What? I have never even practiced with a table knife talk more of shooting arrow."
"Do you know why the self defense class was introduced?" Carla does not wait for me to answer before she continues. "I convinced the dean that the students needed it because I knew it would benefit you. Training with others is much more better than training on your own. The only thing I need you to know now, is to learn how to shoot an arrow, it might come in handy."
Sometimes when Carla speaks, I get this feeling that she sees more than we do, obviously she does but then again it feels like there are things she does not say but yet knows that it would happen, which is why I finally decide to ask her.
"Was there someone imprisoned with the late queen apart from her guard?"
Carla lowers herself to the grass. "How long did it take to figure out that you can trust me?"
"What?"
"The journal and the dreams... How long did it take before you thought it well enough to let me know about them."
She knew.
"How do you know about them?
"The fates do their work but sometimes we as their subjects has to set the pace. Why do you think you found that journal that day? And why do you think you had those dreams?"
"I don't understand."
Carla sighs again, looking into the distance as if the answer to my questions was sitting there. "The journal was mine. I wrote it while I waited for my own verdict after Lily was executed. The verdict never came though."
"What?!"
My head does a 360 spin as I stagger backwards, shock will be an understatement for what I feel right now. "You are joking," I mumble knowing fully well that she is not.
"I gave you the dreams. As a Lycan witch, I can pass on a person's mind into your subconsciousness. So I passed on Lily's mind to you at the palace that day."
"How did you do that? Passing on a dead woman's mind?"
"I cannot explain that, but I want you to know that I did what I did because I wanted you to understand Lycania. I wanted you to understand where all these started from."
"By invading my mind without my consent? What else have you seen in my head?!" I yell out. I should not be angry, but I am. I am angry because I know how helpless I am and how easy it would be for others to sneak into my mind because they have some stupid magical abilities while I am but a mere human.
"I have seen nothing and I swear with my life that this would be the last time I would do something like that... But I did all these only you can help, only you can help Kael lead Lycania back to where it all began."
"What are you even talking about?"
"Before everything can be balanced, Kael has to be King because he is the rightful heir to the throne of Lycania as the offspring of late Queen Lily of Wylanda... And you are going to help him claim that throne, Lilac."
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