Chapter 61: 61__A sacrifice for a wish

Onyx and Cassius were Vampire kingdoms. Onyx being a kingdom of Trueblood Vamps and Cassius being a kingdom of Sorcerers and Vampire Sorcerers.

Of course this rather watered-down Vampire DNA of theirs gave the Onyx Vamps plenty of reason to look down on the Cassius Vamps.

The day Rogan’s father, the king of Onyx killed a Cassius Princess and stole her child, Cassius returned the animosity with full force. And so, for all his life, Rogan stood between two kingdoms who hated each other, the product of a brief moment of love between the two.

To say he was a misfit was to say the least.

Sons of Cassius surrounded him now and Rogan read them like open books.

He’d been right. He hadn’t wanted to believe it, but there was nothing left to doubt. He should have accepted it sooner. Who else could possibly use magic powerful enough to lock someone in a fictional world? Or have an entire kingdom of ghouls under their control? The answer was so obvious.

“Our apologies for so rudely getting in your way,” said one of the Vampires, giving Rogan a miniature bow. “You are the most powerful of our Princes, so we must take extra caution, not so?”

Rogan twirled his daggers slowly between his fingers, staring darkly at the one who spoke. “To take extra caution… would be to stay out of my way.”

The Vampire bowed again. “Apologies, Rogan. But you see…” he raised his head, green eyes glittering with malice. “We cannot let you go any further than this.”

Rogan’s mouth curved. The bastards must have been offered a crap load of power for risking their lives this way.

He nodded at them. “Let’s get it over with then. I have somewhere to be.”

The Vamp nodded. “Very well then.” He looked at his friends, nodded.

Rogan glanced around at them as they slowly walked around him, choosing angles to attack him from.

He could tell they had been strengthened. The magic they carried wasn’t theirs, it belonged to someone far more powerful.

Rogan’s lip twitched. He couldn’t wait to snap that certain someone’s neck. That little brat.

A quick wind blew up the back of his hair and Rogan immediately dropped to one knee as a sharp kick flew over his head.

He caught the leg, twisted it and heard a sharp crack.

“Fuck!” screeched the guy, falling over and clutching his broken leg.

The others looked at each other for a moment as Rogan rose to his feet, reforming his daggers and waiting.

He released a harsh breath. “I told you I have somewhere to be, you bastards.”

He’d barely finished his sentence when they rushed at him.

The blows to his ribs and face came lightning fast and came repeatedly, there was no time to draw breath. Rogan felt more than a few bones fracture even as he fought back.

Multiple screams tore through the air as his cursed daggers dug into hearts and throats and eyeballs.

Claws tore at his chest and neck and Rogan felt his own blood spill. Still aching from Zainab’s ice daggers and from his tussle with Viktor, his body only barely remained standing.

They guy with the broken leg suddenly grabbed Rogan’s legs and Rogan kicked the life out of him, stepping on his neck until a sickening crunch filled the air.

There were four Vampire’s left now and they were fighting him with every ounce of their power. And what power!

Rogan grunted when he felt teeth sink into his shoulder. They had been given even more power than he’d thought. Three of them was like one of him!

Rogan cursed the person behind this.

Shrugging off the one biting into his shoulder, Rogan swept his arm back, slicing a dagger through the Vampire’s neck. A spray of blood coated his face, momentarily blinding him.

That was the chance they took to sink their teeth into his neck. The pain was sharp enough to reach the core of Rogan’s soul.

Baring his clenched teeth, he clutched the head of the biting Vamp, pushing it against his throat. The bastard wanted to rip his throat out, but Rogan wouldn’t let him.

Raising his arm behind the unsuspecting Vamp’s head, Rogan gripped the back of his neck and poured dark magic into him.

With a chocked gurgle, the Vampire took his teeth out of Rogan’s neck and stumbled away, his face turning sheet-white as his throat clogged and no air made it through. He dropped to his knees, slowly suffocating to death.

One of them had dedicated himself to breaking Rogan’s ribs while the other slashed his claws repeatedly across Rogan’s back. Their leader was trying various methods to get Rogan on the ground.

They were strong, Rogan admitted. But they were no match for him. If they were all to die, Rogan could safely say these three would die before he did.

But the fact remained that he could very likely die too.

A sudden deep stab into his back confirmed that. With a groan of pain, Rogan dropped to one knee. Swiping back his arm, he delivered a clean blow to someone’s neck. A head rolled across the ground.

With two left to fight, but with a knife in his back, Rogan had equal chances of killing and of being killed.

These boys weren’t sent to stop him from following Maia. They were sent to kill him.

The image of Maia walking further and further away from him as she was led to her enemies filled his mind.

Maia. She would be killed if he died here.

Rogan was on his knees, taking the blows the last Vamps dealt as his mind filled with thoughts of her. He hadn’t thought about it before, but this was it. His chance to die.

He’d been chasing after this for the past fifteen years. Spending millions, going in search of the rarest of ingredients, all to make a spell strong enough to break Ursula’s. All so he could die.

It was clear now. Rogan didn’t understand how it had happened, but it was clear now, that his curse had been broken. He’d seen Viktor that morning and he’d fought him, but could it be?

Could he have, by some inexplicable circumstance, somehow forgiven Viktor? That was what Ursula had said. Her curse would break when Rogan forgave his brother.

Rogan laughed, coughing up blood when someone’s knee rammed into his gut.

Him? Forgive Viktor? Balderdash.

Pissed off, he gathered power, infusing it with the cursed energy he’d been making in potions recently. Filling the magic in his palms with darkness, Rogan made it potent enough to kill a pet dragon.

With a dark chuckle, he reached out and snatched the two Vampires towards him, his hands tightly gripping their throats.

They stared at him with bulging green eyes as he killed them slowly and painfully.

Rogan’s teeth bared in a frightening grin, the pearly whites coated with blood. “Die, you bastards.”

His hands curled around their necks flared with the intensity of the purple cursed energy he was forcing into their souls. It was torturous and Rogan was satisfied to see the plea in their eyes, even if they couldn’t speak. He saw their begging, saw their submission.

His heart kicking up in delight at their misery, he doubled the power killing them.

Thin patterns of black forked up their necks, flaring out onto their faces like the roots of a tree and Rogan saw the life leave their bodies.

Finally, they died.

He held them for a moment more before he let his arms drop, the bodies slumping to the forest floor.

The exhaustion suddenly hit him and Rogan sat on the ground, closing his eyes against the pain numbing his mind.

Dizzy, he fell back until his back hit the ground. It was death.

The little clearing in the forest was filled with bodies strewn all over, but it seemed death wasn’t satisfied. Rogan could feel it hovering around him, refusing to leave until it had him in its icy cold grasp.

A splutter of blood coated his chin as violent coughs shook his chest. “Arhh… fuck…”

Rogan’s eyes fell closed on a raspy breath. The knife in his back had done the most damage of all. Rogan was sure it had at least scraped his heart.

He was dying. Finally.

A grunt of pain left him and Rogan’s head fell to the side. He couldn’t die. Maia, the weak human, literally would never survive without him. Maybe in her forest, she would, but not against a kingdom of Vampire Sorcrers. So what if he no longer needed her to find Trojans? She was the first person in a long time that he hadn’t felt like tossing into his magic cauldron. Instead, he felt an irrational desperation to protect her.

Maia’s face filled his mind, her grey eyes wide and innocent. Real panic filled Rogan’s heart. He had to survive this. At least for now. He could die later, but he had to go and get Maia first.

His mind willed it, but his body wouldn’t budge. It felt like he’d been injected with a paralyzing potion in every single muscle he had.

He would die.

Rogan opened his eyes, looking at the sky through his blurry vision. He would die and so would his little human.

“Maia…”

Another cough sputtered blood out of his mouth and he groaned.

Something made him still. His head was filled with the slow pounding of his heart, but Rogan thought he heard a sound different from that.

Trying to focus as best he could, he heard it again.

A rustling of some sort.

For a long moment, everything was silent again, but just before Rogan blamed it on his desperate imagination, it happened.

A sudden grip on his arm startled him and he slowly turned his head. A blurry, dark-haired head shot into his sight, a pair of wide eyes in the face.

“Sorcerer! Sorcerer!” yelled the woman urgently.

Rogan stared blankly at the blurry face. With a slow blink he realized. Of course. Cassidy’s aunt and… the woman who helped raise Maia.

“What the hell happened?” she asked in horror. “I thought you went after Maia?!”

As he tried to breathe through the blood clogging his throat, Rogan’s mouth spread into a grin. Thank God. A fairy.

“Is this time to smile?!” Laurel demanded. “How… how are you still even alive?!”

Rogan painfully raised a hand and gripped hers. “…”

Laurel frowned, leaning over. “What?”

His grip tightened on her hand. “M… Maia...”

Laurel looked at him, her eyes dark with fear. “Was Maia taken? Is she in danger?”

Rogan released a shaky breath. “H…. heal me…”

She shook her head, her face paling at his state. “I can’t heal you, not in the state you’re in. But…” She looked him in the eyes. “There’s something else we can do.”

The look in Rogan’s eyes told her that he was willing to do anything.

Laurel nodded. “I’m a fairy. So I can grant you a wish. But in the state you’re in…. it’ll take a lot, so you’d have to make a sacrifice for that wish.”

Rogan didn’t care. “Do it…”

Laurel pursed her lips. “It won’t be easy, you really will lose something you desperately love in exchange for your wish. That’s the sacrifice.”

He gripped her hand tighter. “Do. It.”

Laurel stared at him. Did he understand what he was asking for? From what she could see, the one thing this Sorcerer desperately loved… was Maia.