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“Do I get the pleasure of knowing the name of my Challenger?” Katie asked the masked arrival.

“Oh, where are my manners? The name is Lawson,” the man said. The name rang a thousand bells in her mind, but she couldn’t quite place it. These were irritating times though.

“Feels like I’ve heard it before. Are you from here?” Katie asked, nocking another arrow and getting ready for her next shot. Something was different about the way these two were competing though. The entire archery range had gone quiet to watch their bout. Katie noticed this and decided she was not going to lose to this man. She closed her eyes feeling for the wind and let the arrow loose, hitting the outer part of the bullseye. It wasn’t a perfect shot.

The man then took his arrow and continued their conversation, “No, not for a long time, but I am back for the festival. It is just as magnificent as they say it is for a small town such as this one.” The man went quiet as did Katie, focusing on the target before him. From how long he could hold the string taut, she could tell that he wasn’t an ordinary human.

He let the arrow loose and it soared through the air whistling as it went and impaling itself into the target at the centre of the bullseye. The man had drawn the string so far back that the arrow bore enough force to bury itself half into the wood they were shooting at. A ripple of gasps filled the crowd. Holding an arrow back with that much of the string drawn back was hard enough in its own right.

Katie was quiet for a bit as we watched the arrow within the board waiting for it. The boards were changed as per her request so that they had a new one to use. “You’re quite skilled. I’ll give you that,” she said, nocking another arrow.

“You don’t sound like you’re ready to give up though. Does that mean you’ve been holding back on me?” he asked.

Katie chuckled while she rested her cheek on her arm, listening to the wind with her eyes closed. Cole was getting worried, watching how far back she’d drawn the string. However, the arrow still remained steady in the bow. The more force one needed to hold the string back, the harder it was to hold it steady. When Katie saw her window of opportunity, her eyes shot open and she let the arrow fly soaring through the air at blinding speed and whistling louder than the last one. It impaled the board dead centre, threatening to tear through completely to the other side of it.

.....

“So, you were holding back. I’m slightly offended by that,” he said.

“You should be proud. You got me to take this seriously,” she replied chuckling, “I don’t normally get much of a challenge in this unless it’s the professional hunters.”

“Am I to assume that you are a professional hunter as well?” he asked, nocking his next arrow, but waiting for the people who had gone to tend to the target board. The wall behind the board was being reinforced to make sure no stray arrows went through to the other side just in case someone was passing by.

“You really aren’t from here then. Or if it was a long time ago, then you must have been here before I became a hunter,” she said dismissively.

The man nocked his arrow whispering to himself so that she couldn’t hear him, “I guess you’ve really grown. If the stories are right, then I was right about you.”

Cole’s werewolf hearing, being superior to even that of normal werewolves picked up on the words that the man said. This man knew Katie and he’d not challenged her out of spite. He was using this opportunity to talk to her before he got the chance to reveal himself to her. From what he could tell, he was a hunter and he was sure of how important he was to Ciara.

Lawson couldn’t have been his first name. Cole didn’t like the encrypted messages he was getting off the guy. Katie looked like she wasn’t bothered one bit about the man’s identity. Her head was too deep into the game to notice that there was something suspicious about the man, but then again, Katie would have detected something if he was hostile given her Chase heritage. For this reason, Cole kept his distance and watched the two compete.

The man drew his arrow back until it the string began to groan from the tension it was under. The arrowhead was now at the same level as the bow. He’d completely drawn the arrow back to its limit and now he held it there waiting for the wind to calm down. Katie was impressed by this feat. The man just kept pushing past his limit. Considering these bows were designed for hunters that were trying to learn archery, they could handle the force that the man was putting into the string.

Normally, the amount of force he was using would have snapped a normal bow in half. He let his arrow fly and it struck right through Katie’s arrow forcing the both of them through the board. Murmurs started running through the crowd as they all stared at the two competitors. This bout had easily caught the eyes of many that were present. Katie was at a wit’s end. Considering her earlier blunder, this man was going to win. There were points awarded for the force the arrow packed as well and he was dominating that as well.

“The rogue killer has gotten herself into trouble this time,” someone chuckled beside Cole. He couldn’t deny that. Her opponent was quite formidable and made his stomach turn with envy. His bout with Katie hadn’t been so interesting.

Katie, on the other hand, was at her human limit. If she was going to win this, she was going to have to add some Prometheus strength to it, but the bows that were being used could not handle that kind of force. She jogged back to the booth and asked for a Hunter’s Bow, something that was reserved for contests such as what she’d just gotten herself into.

She came back holding something that amused the crowd beyond what they would have thought. The bow was made of thick metal and strained her muscles just by carrying it. There was no doubt that it was heavy and its string was made of an elastic carbon-based component that was almost impossible to snap. The hunter running the booth ordered the juniors that were responsible for replacing the board to use the ones with twice the thickness of the wood.

“Someone is getting serious,” the man mused, leaning against the post next to him that marked the standing point.

“You should be scared. This one is going to knock your socks off,” she said, smirking at him.

“Oh, I quiver in fear,” he mocked her, chuckling. He was still remarkably calm. This was Katie’s third arrow and she was sure she wasn’t going to miss at all in the next rounds. She nocked an arrow and pulled back on the string until the arrow was halfway to the bow, tapping into her Prometheus gift to achieve this feat.

“Sure you don’t want to use more force than that,” the man taunted.

She let the arrow fly and everyone watched as it impaled the board halfway through. “Try to beat that... Maybe then I’ll add some more force.”

“You’ll find that underestimating me is not a good thing,” the man said beckoning for the men that Katie only noticed now to bring him something. The men he called were dressed to kill as well although they looked more like butlers as they brought the man a bag, suffering under the weight of the equipment contained in it. Lawson opened it and pulled out a bow similar to the one Katie was holding, only that Katie could realise that this one was custom made and packed twice as much of a punch as the standard-issue she wielded.

“You are having fun with this,” she whined, burying her head in her hands.

Lawson chuckled as he also summoned his strength to draw the string back. “You know, I would advise you to give it all you have when you face me in a battle. Don’t look down on me just because I look weaker than you,” with those words striking a thousand chords of nostalgia within Katie’s mind. The man let the arrow loose after having drawn it all the way, his string screaming from the strain.

The arrow whizzed through the air cutting straight through Katie’s arrow as though it was nothing and taking the both of them through the thick wood. Katie looked into the bag that had been brought and noticed the man had a quiver of steel arrows. The kind that could be shot through metal and barely have an effect on its effectiveness. She was outmatched in all ways here and wasn’t even sure she could keep her arrow steady under the force that he’d just used to shoot his last arrow.

“I must admit. You are formidable... and remarkably familiar. Though I do have to tell you that I have no idea who you are,” she said before letting her next arrow fly. It shot through the board completely, leaving only a hole at the centre of the bullseye and slamming onto the wall on the other side of the target, completely out of power.

“Maybe you will recognize me later on when we are allowed to meet officially,” he said to her.

“Oh, you mean you’re a stowaway VIP? I didn’t know hunters could be VIPs,” she said.

“Why would you think I was a VIP? Can’t I be a hunter as well?” he let his arrow loose and it whizzed through the air. From the force it held, it force the board to fall back as it passed through the same opening that Katie had made, impaling itself into the wall at the back of the secluded archery range.

“Might I ask the both of you to tone down the force you are using? I don’t want casualties,” the hunter in the booth yelled. The crowd that was present began to groan and whine at the buzzkill that had just ruined the fun. Katie chuckled at the silliness of the situation she’d gotten herself into. It was clear that she’d lost. In fact, she knew she lost right after the man had shot his first arrow. At the moment, he was trying to get her to take this seriously and he’d succeeded.

When they were done, he bowed and bid her farewell, “We’ll meet under different circumstances. Maybe then you’ll figure out my first name,” he said.

“Would it be so hard for you to just tell me?” ‘Why did he have to be so cryptic?’

“There will be no need for me to do such a thing,” he chuckled before walking away, his butlers following him with their bags.

Katie watched the man leave, her mind trying to figure out who he was, but alas, there was nothing that she could come up with, “He seemed like an interesting fellow.” Thoughts of Lawson vanished when she heard the man behind her. This was the reason she’d come to the archery range in the first place.