Chapter 5

Cassius angrily threw Rose to the floor when he sensed a presence in front of his room.

"Uh!" Rose grunted as she fell to the floor, quickly scanning her eyes over the darkroom for the quickest exit.

She watched the tall man turn his back on her and walk toward the tall dark door.

She wondered if she could quickly escape the moment he opened the door, if she acted fast enough, she might outrun him.

Panting, she observed the door open without the man even lifting a finger, and she understood that this was no ordinary man, she immediately canceled her escape plan, she'd be dead before she even raised a leg.

She almost thought he was going to kill her when she saw his fangs shoot out, she had to thank her lucky stars that he found some other interesting thing to do at the door.

"Master, he's a pure elf," A lady's voice sounded from the door.

Cassius said nothing, only moving to the side to let an average-looking teenage boy into his room.

The door shut immediately, and the boy slowly turned to Cassius like he was in some kind of trance.

"Elf, will you let your master drink from you?" Cassius asked in a very soothing tone, gently placing his hand on the boy's shoulder.

Rose couldn't believe her eyes as she stared at the boy's willingness to let Cassius drink from him. 

What did he even mean by drinking from him?

Did he mean?

"Yes, master, I'll be honored," The elven boy said hypnotically, tilting his head to the side to expose his neck to Cassius. 

And just like a flash, Cassius moved with fluid speed and sank his fangs into the boy's neck. 

Rose sucked in a sharp breath as she witnessed the dreadful sight of someone getting sucked dry right in front of her.

She put her hands over her mouth to keep any sounds from coming out as she saw Cassius close his eyes in concentration as he sucked the blood from the boy's neck. 

Rose saw droplets of blood escape down the boy's neck from the side of Cassius's mouth and she almost fainted.

Reality was nothing as they described it in books or movies, they made it look like a very fun activity in novels, but in real life, seeing someone's life being sucked out of them right in front of you wasn't fun at all.

It was a gory and traumatizing sight.

"Argh!" Rose screamed frightfully as she saw the boy's body fall with a thud onto the floor, exactly beside where she was hurled up.

The once-living boy was now as white as a ghost.

She dared to let her eyes travel to Cassius, and she saw him licking his lips in a slow savory manner with his eyes closed. 

Her lips quivered with fear and withheld sounds as she stared at him, she panicked when she saw him suddenly start to open his eyes.

Her heart rate started beating erratically as she thought of how she could possibly defend herself if he decided to make her his next juicy meal. 

But when he opened his eyes and locked his gaze on her, Rose couldn't believe it and couldn't explain how those scary red eyes suddenly changed to deep sea green.

He was still frightful nevertheless, but, he looked a little bit more easy to the eyes with his red eyes gone.

"No! Please, I beg you, stay away from me," Rose gathered her legs in front of her, wrapping her hands around her knees as Cassius slowly approached her, his fangs still very visible.

"Shh!" Cassius placed his cold fingers on Rose's lips and slowly took his fangs in.

"Now, tell me, who let you in?" he asked again, slowly moving his fingers along her red cheeks and down the side of her neck.

Rose felt the cold fingers on her heated skin and shivered from the fear and cold.

'Why was he touching my neck? Was he planning to suck my blood?'

"No, little human, I won't suck your blood if you tell me who let you into my kingdom," Cassius gently caressed her hair.

Rose widened her eyes in disbelief.

'It was over for me,' Rose thought hopelessly. 

If he could even read her thoughts meant that there was no hiding place for her, not even inside her mind.

"I- I don't know what you're talking about," Rose stammered, looking everywhere but at him.

"You're testing my patience, little human," Cassius said dangerously, his hand went to her neck and he threateningly wrapped his cold fingers around her little neck.

"Oh, please! I really don't know how I got here, I just want to go back to my friends," Rose begged, putting her hands together in front of him.

"You think you can fool me?" He released her neck and stood up, going towards the door again.

"No, I mean everything I said, I know nothing of how I got here-"

"Silence!" Cassius growled very lowly.

Rose instantly shut herself up by placing her hands over her mouth.

Cassius opened the door and Rose watched as two tall men walked in, none daring to look at Cassius's face as they carried the dead boy out of the room.

When they left the room, another man instantly entered, bowed his head to Cassius, and said, "Felonious at your service, master. what is your order, master?" Felonious asked, his head still bowed.

"Bring the human to the common hall," Cassius ordered and immediately left the room.

"Yes, master," Felonious replied.

Felonious straightened and walked towards Rose.

Rose saw that Cassius had left the room and immediately sprang to her feet, quickly running to the other side of the king-sized bed.

"Listen, Felony, let-"

"Felonious," Felonious corrected as he casually approached the girl.

"I'm sorry, Felonious, how about we strike a deal?" Rose tried to reason with the vampire or wizard; she didn't know what he was, but she was sure he wasn't human from the runes that were tattooed on the side of his face.

"Try me, human," Felonious replied in a bored tone, still walking towards the scared human.

"Um, uh, how about this!" Rose suddenly saw her phone lying on the bed and quickly picked it up to show the man.

"I'm sure you've never seen this before, you can have it, and in exchange, you don't take me to this common room? Huh? How about it?" Rose stretched her phone in front of her, offering it up as a bargaining chip.

"I have mine, human," He took out his phone from his pocket, and showed it to Rose.

Rose was left speechless, she thought the creatures here weren't supposed to know what technology was, talk less about owning a freaking phone!

Now what was she supposed to do?

"Come on, human," Felonious said.

Rose felt her legs start to move against her will.

"No! What are you doing to me?! No! Please, stop it at once!" Rose panicked

But it was too late, because in two more steps, Rose found herself in front of Felonious and she watched with horror as he raised his hand to her head, and in the next moment, his hand touched her forehead, and before she knew what was happening, drowsiness crumbled her and she willingly fell into Felonious's awaiting arms.

***

Elliot was beyond pissed.

He stared angrily at Penelope who sat on the grass crying.

"I swear, I didn't mean to push her, Mr. Elliot, please, forgive me," Penelope begged.

It was already late afternoon, and the sun was starting to set.

Elliot had already called a search team a few hours ago, and after their thorough search, they reported that Rose was nowhere to be found in the whole forest.

They speculated that she might have fallen into the river down the cliff and drowned and her body might have been carried away from that location to another far place.

"Liar, I saw you! Everyone saw you! Because of your jealousy, you pushed Rose off that cliff!" Laura was screaming in anger as she pointed agitatedly at Penelope.

"I saw her too, Mr. Elliot," Amber confirmed.

"Mr. Elliot, we've arrived," A police officer marched towards them, with four others behind him.

"Take her with you, Frank," Elliot ordered coldly.

"No! P- please, Elliot, I did it because I love you. You can't do this to me! No, unhand me immediately!" Penelope resisted as the officers easily put her hands behind her back and cuffed it.

"We'll be on our way, Mr. Elliot," Frank said and left immediately.

Laura and the rest of the colleagues watched as Penelope tried to put up a fight as the officers forced her into the police car.

"Everyone, I'm so sorry about what happened to Rose, I promise I'll do everything possible to find her and bring her back to us," Elliot promised.

"Please, please, bring my Rose back to me," Laura begged, sobbing.

"I promise, Laura, she means the world to me," Elliot affirmed.

"I- excuse me," Elliot wanted to say but suddenly saw a message on his phone, and the message wasn't just a regular message.

INBOX: "We have a meeting, Alpha."

The message was brief but he knew it had a heavy meaning.

He looked up at his employees and sighed.

"Everyone listen up, I'm sorry to announce that this is the end of our camping, I can't risk anyone else getting hurt," Elliot looked at the crowd in genuine concern.

"The bus will drop each of you off in your respective homes, please proceed to the bus,"

He stayed back and made sure every last one of his employees entered the bus before he entered his car and zoomed off.

"Create me a portal, I've sent you my location," He spoke into his phone and ended the call immediately.

In the next second, a dark portal appeared in the middle of the lonely road, and Elliot zoomed his car into it, disappearing together with the portal.