Demanding

An indescribable headache forced Keira to end the conversation with Azariah and retreat back to Xander's wooden dome lodge.

Gratefully there will be more help to find her mate, even though Keira couldn't be convinced if she can trust that Azariah would do as he said or find Arel faster than Xander, but even then, there was nothing else she can do. The feeling of nervousness was slowly enraging her, if anything happened to Arel she wouldn't stop blaming herself.

The lodge was empty, Xander hadn't returned yet. Probably because of his busy work. Though she didn't know if the cut-off road that Robin had mentioned had something to do with Mystic Forest, estimating the distance she escaped from, she believed it might be related to it.

Unexpecting, that the stories of monsters in this world would be this treacherous. How ironic that she once sympathize with them that was once a normal person who chose the evil path. Had she been just one second too slow that day, she wouldn't have escaped that hideous horde of Monsters.

Feeling like her brain was all over the place. How the headache disturbed her from getting more clues was irritating and thought it might be because she encountered so many events in a single day.

"sigh..."

Taking a step and had to stop when sudden vertigo caused her to hold tight to the wall. She felt a strange increasing in her heart rate that gradually affect her shortness of breath and indescribable numbness slowly weaken her muscles.

Collapsing to the ground, heart throbbing, her mouth went as dry as a desert, and laying boneless on the floor

"Help.." It was too weak for anyone outside to hear it.

Gritting her teeth, everything was too sudden, she had to fend for herself. She slid, scramble, and floor-rubbing with a lot of grunting, cursing, and whimpering across the three feet that felt like a mile.

The movement was no different from a boneless starfish stretching its arms and legs, trying to wiggle-wiggle forward. Although her body was useless, her brain was whole. She forced herself to slip, slide, and rub with another A lot of grunting, cursing, and whimpering that felt like ten miles and she was eventually about two feet away from where she was earlier.

"Fuck!" furiously considering if she really wanted someone to come in and then met her in this embarrassed clamber? or she would better just die? At least she can use the last of her teeny-weeny-but-still-there strength to maintain herself looking like a rational person if that was her last choice.

"Such a pity..tsk tsk" That damn voice sounds even more familiar than her own.

"Freaking Psycho!" She slip her floor-attaching face to the fireplace "Hey! if you're here, then do something" yelling with a few remaining voices and took another scrambled, swept, rubbed, and forty-seven panted to nearly reach the fireplace.

"Nahh you can do better" Was he.. disappointed?

"Better than what? Don't you see I'm about to evolve into a floor" She was very confident that it won't take long.

"Tsk..Do you need help or are you good?"

"Do I seem good to you?" rolling her eyes "yes, I'm fine. The floor here is great. It's shiny, thick, strong and smells a little musty with a rumbling noise when the knee crashes, damn it!"

"Ummm.." holding back his laugh "you're just poisoned, Don't overthink it"

"what! don't overthink it!? dude I-AM-DYING, of course I have to think"

"Where is the thorn flower?" asked the voice.

Stunned Keira, Completely forget about that stupid flower. Was he asking her about the flower while she was like this? C'mon guy the time wasn't right "I told you.. do I look like a capable person to find things? If I'm not lost in the forest, I'm misfortune, there's not a single thing in between. It's an uh-uh zero chance for me to find whatsoever damn flower"

"huh.." He was succumbing to laughter.

"Hello?? Are you done enjoying the view? I am dying here"

"I'll help you heal. But the poison has infiltrated deep into your vessel. I can't heal all the poison, but..." he paused "You must find the thorn flower"

"The heck is infiltrated deep? you are tying me down again ain't you? Hey, can you give me another job? This one was too tricky, just where is that damn wasteland"

"you haven't even begun to look for it yet"

Biting her lips nervously, this damn psycho knew too well "damn it.. Fine, I will find it so.. how do you proceed it from here? Wait for me to fully evolve into a floor or what.."

'Cring..' A mysterious object threw off the fireplace and rolled toward her. Keira quickly grabbed it with her mouth when her limbs were too useless to proceed.

She couldn't see clearly, but it looked like a small wooden bottle the size of a finger with a small branch covering its lid.

Using her teeth to unlid the branch and wrinkle her nose as soon as she smelled the liquid inside. It was fishy and pitch black.

"Please don't tell me.."

"Drink or die your choice"

Sniffing back her tears, slowly drank the liquid with disgust as if her breakfast was about to come back up

Muscle weakness gradually improved and her useless limbs were able to twitch slightly. She lay there waiting until she was able to lift herself up on her forearms and then carefully and slowly resting on her knees, pausing to deepen her breath and helped herself up until she was standing upright.

Panting and gasping for air, slowly breathing to allow her body to adjust and lower her heart rate. Finally, her body returned to normal.

"Psycho? Psycho are you still there" quickly stepped to the front fireplace "Hey! I need you to guide me to that location"

Sighing with displeasure "Damn it he's gone again"

'poisoned? the hell poison was that?' She began estimating what had happened today. How did she get poisoned when all she did was just lay aimlessly and went out of the lodge and met with a red-haired guy and met a brown-haired and a fox girl and another black-haired guy... and wait..The red-haired guy. Keira just recalled that she almost mate with him over there.

The crimson red-haired with those fiery eyes..combined with the feeling of yearning for him as if being possessed was still faintly on her mind. And.. he bit her breast, that fangs. she looked down at the fang marks on her chest that has fading nearly invisible and only a small spot of blood remaining.

'Don't tell me that bastard poisoned me?' she didn't even know who he was. Even though those red eyes were hard to forget, she really couldn't figure out where she had met him.

Rather than being frightened of him, she felt familiar with him. There was no fear whether it was his kiss or that .. fierce touch.

She pursed her lips as soon as his face appeared in her mind. Still longed for him, she wanted him, it was an extremely powerful desire as if she was going wild just by the image of him coming up in her head.

Shaking off her thought, deepening her breath, now it was the time for her to plan fast how to find that damn flower. Though she has not a single clue, guessing from how the psycho mentioned she might need to ask around. If it was being hunted then it probably means that a person who did a lot of trade will know about it. Likely need to ask Xander what he might know.

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