Chapter 39: 39__A new way to capture the Forest rabbit

Their Master sat on the throne, silent and deep in thought, the eyes that usually held stormy rage, closed so that they wondered if the Master slept. The Shifters could tell something was up, so they said nothing.

The woman standing near the throne stepped forward, her arms unmoving at her sides. Her irises were white and the effect was that she looked like she had none. She looked blind, but she saw perfectly well. Her hair was raven black and pulled back in a tight ponytail, her face pale without as much as the touch of lipstick.

She was their Master’s right-hand woman and so they feared her just as much.

“There’s been a change of plans,” the woman said.

The pack of Shifters exchanged looks, uneasy and uncomfortable with the situation. With the person they served, anything could happen. If their Master ordered for the entire pack to be killed immediately, there would be no escape for any of them.

“Wh-what… what is the change, my lady?” their leader asked, his head bowed more in fear than respect.

The woman looked at him. “Your pack,” she said, her voice an emotionless sound that could elicit little more than abhorrence or fear in anyone who heard it. “You have disappointed the Master. Both your pack and the Ghost kingdom have been disappointments. From now on, rather than your methods, we will use ours. Magic. That will be our weapon.”

The Shifters could barely move an inch. The woman had already said they were disappointments. One wrong move and they’d be executed where they stood and their only trace would be the blood that seeped into the carpet.

“Now…” the woman said. Her mouth slowly curved into a smile that sent chills down the backs of even the toughest Shifters. “Instead of killing Rogan, we will spare him by putting the girl out of his reach so that he stops interfering. We will put her somewhere where he will never even think to look.”

The Shifter’s looked at each other. “Where is that, my lady?”

She tilted her head. “Somewhere that isn’t even this world. Don’t worry, however. It will be a world that she will be familiar with. She should be alright enough to stay alive until the Master decides to bring her out of there and kill her.

Your job… is to take her there.”

***************

Rogan watched Maia stomp on the street ahead of him, fury evident in every step of her foot. She looked like she were trying to crush the earth with each step.

Suddenly she spun around, grey eyes glaring at him and mouth scowling like a drunk sailor.

Rogan halted, looking at her with wide eyes. This girl was starting to scare him.

“I’m telling you now,” Maia snarled. “If you lied about putting protection on the house just to let me get killed by ghosts even though you promised to protect me, I will avenge my death! Just know, Rogan, that I am the kind of person whose spirit returns for vengeance!”

Swallowing hard, Rogan forced out a scoff and ran a hand through his hair. “Yeah, I can believe that. Here you are getting on my last fucking nerve and you’re not even a vengeful spirit. Hah."

He stalked past her, leaving Maia staring after him. Her scowl darkened. Look at him. His every step and every angle of his face was far too perfect, his hair moving with the wind in a flawless sway as he walked. Maia hated the sight! The fact that his arrogance and ego was justified made her so mad.

“Damn him,” she muttered. “*Perfect*! Every inch of him. I hate it. Why couldn’t he at least have a wart or two?” With a huff, she stomped after him. “What kind of evil Sorcerer looks so… ah. Right. Half Vampire genes. Damn him!”

“Stop cursing me,” Rogan called from ahead. “I can hear you.”

Maia rolled her eyes, weaving through the crowd as she followed him. “So just tell me already! How did that child ghost get in?”

Rogan spun around. “I told you! She didn’t get *inside*, she could only get as far as the window sill! She couldn’t have laid a hand on you if she’d been desperate to.”

“She might as well have laid both hands on me for how terrified I was! Did you hear her voice?!” Maia shuddered. “It sounded like a cry from hell.”

Rogan nodded in mock sympathy. “You poor thing. Well, I’m sorry, I don’t have a spell to make you stop being a big fat coward! She was a ghost! What harm can a dead person do to you?”

Maia gasped, her eyes widening even as Rogan just turned around and kept walking. “What? Coward? No, no, wait! What? *Fat*?!”

Rogan was unbothered by her rant even as she stomped angrily after him. He spotted the Hostel and breathed a sigh of relief.

When he felt her gaining on him, Rogan simply transported himself to the Hostel front gate to escape her wrath.

Maia halted in her steps, staring with disbelief at Rogan now a very safe distance from her. She bit her lip in annoyance. How dare he escape her when she’d been just a fingertip away from jabbing him to pieces?

Fisting her hands, she started running over to him.

Rogan watched her with a shake of his head. “What’s the use of such short legs?” he asked scornfully.

Maia cursed as she reached him, leaning a hand on the Hostel door to catch her breath. “Argh… you…. you want to get a kick… from these short legs?”

His mouth twitched, but Rogan forced it still. He nodded at the Hostel door. “Go in. I’ll come and get you later.”

Maia swallowed, moistening her parched throat. “What? Where are you going?”

With a sigh, Rogan simply took her wrist and before Maia knew it, he transported them into the Hostel, leaving her in the middle of the front hall.

“Goodness!” Cecile gasped in fright. “Can you guys please not appear like ghosts?”

Rogan didn’t reply, simply turning around and disappearing into the haze of dark smoke that transported him.

Maia huffed. Why would he just walk out on her? “Excuse me! I wasn’t done talking....”

Stomping through the front hall, she reached the door and ripped it open.

The street before the Hostel was just as she’d left it a minute ago.

Maia darted outside, her gaze searching the street. How could he just refuse to go to the ball, let a ghost into the house, refuse to tell her why the ghost had been in the house and then disappear like this?!

Maia paused, collecting herself with a deep inhale. What was this?

She laid a hand on her forehead, closing her eyes for a moment. Just last night, she’d wanted to stay curled up in Rogan’s arms forever, his hand drawing circles on her back with a gentle finger and his heartbeat beneath her cheek.

Maia’s mouth curved into a smile below her hand.

He was just so perfect sometimes, it made her heart flutter.

Maia whipped her hand off her face, dropping it to her side as her smile wiped clean off, replaced by a scowl.

But right now, she wanted to cut him to ribbons! It wasn’t her fault. It was his. Rogan just wasn’t consistent! Why couldn’t he always be sweet and cuddly? Why did he have to keep secrets from her and make her feel as if she wasn’t safe with him?

Maia sighed.

If she wasn’t safe with him, then… where was she safe? Where in this world was she safe?

Pursing her lips, she sent her gaze through the crowds once more.

Maia’s gaze immediately stopped, zeroing in on the inclined blonde head far across the road.

Her lip curved. “What’s he still doing here? After disposing me off at the Hostel like some rejected parcel.”

Rogan was looking down at his phone with a scowl. Looked like someone had pissed him off. Maia shook her head, watching him. He was going to make some poor bastard wish they had never been born.

Suddenly, Rogan looked up and locked gazes with her.

Maia gasped, suddenly becoming flustered for some unknown reason. She forced herself to look nonchalant and raised a brow at him.

“What are you looking at?” she mouthed at him over the crowd passing between them on the wide streets.

He rolled his eyes and raised a hand, hooking two fingers at her.

Maia scoffed. Did he think she was a servant in his palace to be calling her like that?

Crossing her arms, she turned her nose up, looking at him from the corner of her eye.

Frowning darkly, Rogan again hooked his fingers, calling her. Once and then twice.

Maia sighed exasperatedly. “Oh, fine,” she muttered, making her way across the street. “Since you’re insisting so much.”

It didn’t take long to weave through the crowd and soon, she was on the other side. When Maia saw that Rogan was already walking off into the wide alley that could take them to the forest paths. She rolled her eyes.

He couldn’t even wait for her.

“Rogan!” she called, running after him.

He didn’t stop, annoying Maia when she had to continue running to catch up with him.

Rogan finally came to a stop at a pair of dirty, grey double doors at the end of the alley.

Maia soon reached him, leaning over onto her knees, breathless as she looked at the doors in confusion. How come this alley was suddenly a dead-end? It hadn’t been a dead-end before.

“What’s… what’s going on?”

Rogan barely looked up from his phone. “Let’s go, Rag-skins.”

Maia watched him step forward and pull one of the doors open. Maia blinked.

It didn’t lead anywhere. It looked like an empty closet.

She straightened, slowly approaching the closet. “Are we… are we going to teleport?”

Rogan gave her a quick nod, still frowning at his phone. “Yes, so since you won’t stay at the Hostel, stop wasting my time and get in. I’ve got things to do today.”

Maia scowled at his tone and got into the closet with a sigh. She crossed her arms, looking at Rogan who looked at his phone.

“Let’s go then,” she said.

Rogan lowered his phone and looked up at her. “Hm? Oh. Oh, yeah.” He smiled suddenly. Maia frowned. Rogan’s smile widened and Maia felt her skin chill when his black eyes suddenly lightened, turning yellow and lengthening into a reptilian slit of an iris.

She froze. Oh, God, no. A Shifter.

“I won’t be going,” he murmured. “You are.”

Before Maia could leap forward, the doors slammed shut in her face and like being submerged in deep waters, the darkness swallowed her.

It felt like the end of the world.