Chapter 53: 53__In the Sorcerer's territory

Vlad walked slowly into the room, his long, black leather coat dragging on the glossy floor behind him.

“Don’t make me repeat myself…” he rasped.

His eyes seemed to glow harder and the girls couldn’t help but stare. They never before realized how grateful they should’ve been for Rogan who nearly completely suppressed his aura. Vlad’s power covered them like a heatwave and there was no escaping.

Syre’s smile faltered and he fought to keep it up. “Vlad… Seth said not to scare them.”

Vlad’s gaze snapped to Clover. “Is it you?!”

Gasping, Clover shrunk back, her eyes wide. “M-m-me?!”

Shaking herself out of the spell Vlad had cast, Cassie stood firmly before the women.

“Who are you?” she demanded. “And what do you want?”

Vlad slowly turned his gaze to her.

“Hi, we’re Onyx Vampires,” began Syre, approaching quickly. “You see, we heard—”

Vlad’s hand shot up.

“Oww!” whined Syre, holding his nose.

Vlad didn’t apologize, only stared at Cassie, studying the silver of her eyes. He scoffed. “Well, well. A royal? Of which Kingdom, if I may ask?”

She stared at him, her eyes going wide at the words he’d just spoken. The girls looked at each other in confusion.

“Royal?” Cecile muttered.

“You’re in the wrong place,” Cassie said firmly, ignoring Vlad’s question. “There’s no human here.”

Vlad’s mouth curved into a fanged grin beneath his curly bangs and he leaned a few inches in, evaporating all the oxygen in Cassie's lungs. “That so, little girl?”

She clenched her jaw, forcing her gaze to stay glued to his face. Damn vampires and their overwhelming powers. “I-if there’s a human here, why don’t you show us who?”

Vlad’s brow rose.

Cassie crossed her arms and glanced back at the girls, nodding confidently at them. “Look at us and go ahead and point out the human.” She tilted her head at him. “Aren’t Vampires able to tell a human from miles away? Seeing as they’re your favorite snack and all that. You cannibals.”

He released a chilling scoff. “*Cannibals?* Listen here, girlie—”

“What’s going on here?”

Everyone looked at the door.

Clover gasped. “Oh! You!”

Seth looked at the girl in the flowery gown and blinked, slightly taken aback. It was her. That girl from the forest. The most beautiful creature he’d ever laid his eyes on.

She smiled at him, her face the picture of innocence.

No. He jerked himself out of it, turning his gaze away from her. He had responsibilities to take care of right now. He was the leader of the Legion before he was anything else.

“Vlad, what are you doing?” he demanded, watching Vlad take an obvious step away from the woman in the white suit.

“I told him,” Syre explained to their older brother. “Told him to *not* be violent, but he just had to go and be a bully.”

“Shut up,” muttered Vlad.

Sighing, Seth took Syre’s arm and grabbed a fistful of Vlad’s coat. “Let’s get out of here first.”

Syre blinked as Seth started tugging them towards the door. “But, we haven’t found the human. Viktor said—”

“*Rogan*,” Seth murmured through clenched teeth. “Rogan is near. We need to leave.”

The girls watched as, with the low murmurings from their leader, the other two immediately straightened and followed him out of the room. And just like that, they were gone.

Not everyone, however, was ready to accept it.

“No!” gasped Clover. “Vampire, wait!” Gathering handfuls of her gown, she dashed out of the room, racing after the three who were obviously much faster than her, seeing as the hallway was empty when she got there.

“Clover!” Cecile whispered fiercely at the empty doorway. “Come back!”

“It’s alright,” said Cleo. “She probably won’t be able to find them.”

“Gosh, who were those guys?” wondered Claudia. “They were unbelievably gorgeous!”

Cassie pursed her lips. “Claudia, change out of your Seductress form, please, you’re *so* distracting.”

With a smirk, Claudia came back to normal, running a hand through her, once again, shorter blond ringlets. “Sinfully gorgeous, isn’t she?”

“And effective,” said Cecile. “We’d almost made it out of here, thanks to her.”

“Until those jerks showed up,” said Cleo. “Who are they?”

“And why are they looking for Maia?” added Claudia.

At the question, all four of the women looked at Maia.

Frozen in her fear, she stared silently at them, her thumb caught between her teeth as she bit on it. Shrugging, she shook her head. “I just… I don’t know, guys. Who were those guys, seriously? And how did they know…?”

Cecile reached out, brushing a stray curl behind Maia’s ear. “Hey, it’s okay. You’re safe, they didn’t even recognize you.”

“Even if they had,” Claudia said. “We’d have kicked their asses before they could do anything to you, darling.”

Maia nodded, swallowing hard. Her throat was dry as a rock in the desert. The moment that door had wrenched open, she’d gotten a fright, but it had been nothing like the fear that had frozen every part of her body when the Vampire had asked for the human amongst them.

So that was them? The ones after her were Vamps? She couldn’t even be sure because whoever hunted her had used so many different kinds of beings in their hunt for Maia.

Closing her eyes, she supressed the panic.

They didn’t find her, she was still safe. Although, Maia was starting to feel, it was only a matter of time.

There were footsteps in the hallway. “What the devil happened here?”

The girls turned to the empty doorway. Moments later, Rogan appeared, stepping over the collapsed guard.

He looked into the room with a frown, noting the broken door. “Care to explain?”

Maia came quickly to him, her hands grasping his before he’d made sense of the situation. “Rogan…”

Looking at the wide-eyed look on the forest rabbit’s face, Rogan got tense. “What? Why do you look scared shitless?”

Cassie crossed her arms. “Where were you?! We got locked up!”

He released a harsh scoff. “Fucking hell, Zainab. I’m gonna burn the rest of her hair.” Retrieving one hand, he grasped Maia’s chin, moving her face from side to side for his inspection. “One scratch… let me find one scratch and she’s toast.”

Maia smiled. "Don't worry about me-"

"It's not about you, I'm just looking for any excuses to grill her," Rogan explained with a snarky smirk.

Maia jerked her chin out of his grip, unamused.

“But that’s not all,” Claudia said.

Cecile pursed her lips. “Some people came looking for Maia. They asked for ‘the human’. Clover went after them! Cleo says she won’t find them, but I’m still worried.”

Rogan paused his study of Maia’s face and raised his gaze to Cecile’s. “What? Who? Describe them.”

“Vampires,” said all three women at the same time.

The one word hit Rogan like a three tonne truck. Returning his gaze to Maia, he gripped her chin again. “Why didn’t you call me?”

Maia could only stare at him, her chin nearly trembling. “It was scary.”

Rogan cursed. “That’s exactly why you call me! Have you forgotten our deal?”

She shook her head. “N-no, uhm... I help you find Trojan flowers and… you protect me?”

“Right, that happens to include when you're cornered by Vamps,” Rogan gritted out. "Did they say what kind of Vamps?"

Cassie looked at Cecile. "Onyx?"

Rogan stared at them. "What? Onyx...? Onyx Vampires are here?" His eyes went dark, making Maia stare. Rogan turned to leave. "Stay here."

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

Clover huffed and puffed, running through the hallways of the grand mansion. The sight of her at that moment would have brought any self-respecting artist to tears.

Her gown gripped in her hands, her hair flowing behind her in a river of different colours, her eyes bright with desperation as she ran gracefully in the candlelit hallway.

It was the perfect picture.

A picture that Vlad wanted to burn to crisp.

“Tell your lover to get lost!” he hissed to Seth.

Sighing, Seth told him to shut up and peeked around the large pillar they hid behind. “She’s gone,” he said.

Seth stalked out from behind the pillar, followed by Vlad and Syre as they went for the side exit.

“I don’t understand why we have to avoid Rogan,” Vlad murmured, shoving his hands deep into his pockets.

“You just love confrontation,” said Syre.

Seth led them out into the moonlit garden, the giant Gemini flower bushes large enough to hide them as they walked. “Viktor gave clear orders,” he said. “This is Rogan’s territory. We’re not here to provoke him, just to get what we’ve been sent for—”

There was a sudden grab at Seth’s clothes. “Gotcha!”

Blinking, he tried to turn around, but the little arms around him wouldn’t let up.

Clover buried her face against his back, gritting her teeth as she held on with all her might. “You’re not disappearing on me again!”

Vlad sighed heavily. “Sure, you love following orders. That’s why you seduced a Gemini the moment Viktor sent you to Geminor.”

With some effort, Seth unwrapped Clover’s arms from his waist and turned around to face her.

She looked extremely satisfied, her cheeks glowing pink in the moonlight as she grinned up at him. “Hi!”

Seth was flustered. “Uhm… hi. Look, I’m kind of busy right now—”

There was a dark chuckle through the night air.

The men froze.

There came another laugh. A devilish chuckle, like Satan had just found something amusing.

“My, my…” came the low murmur.

Seth and his brothers looked around them uneasily.

“Sons of Onyx.”

Between them and the house, Clover and the brothers saw the air shift. It darkened and grew heavy, like a hellish thundercloud before them, capturing their attention and holding it.

With chilling ease, Rogan strolled out of his darkness, his mouth curved in a fanged grin, but his black, swirling eyes showing zero amusement.

Seth muttered a curse.

Rogan’s grin widened. “Thanks for keeping them, Clove.”

Seth stared at Clover in disbelief before stepping away from her. He looked at Rogan. “Rogan. We don’t want trouble.”

At those words, the swirl of Rogan’s eyes heightened, the silver ring in his black orbs glowing harder as the Sorcerer within craved to kill the Vamps. He raised hands wielding powerful magic. “Say that again?”

Seth clenched his jaw. “We don’t… want trouble.”

Rogan chuckled darkly. “Too bad. Cause I do."