Fangs of Desire (Book II) (Completed)

Chapter XXI

(A short author's note. Thank you for all your patience and support while I held the book on hiatus. It's a story I truly enjoy writing but I've been going through some serious life events. I can finally resume writing, and I hope you enjoy the new chapters. Genuine thanks for all the well wishes.)

Emma took off her dirty clothes, trying to wipe the blood on her skin off with the fabric as much as she could before putting on the new ones. The pants didn't fit her too well, Rhiannon definitely had wider hips and waist than her, but she used a belt to hold it in place and put on the shirt which fit her top better. She buttoned it up and tucked the bottom under the pants, overall it didn't look too bad on her. After trying to comb some of the blood out of her hair she checked her attire once more and got out of the room.

She stood in front of the door to the bedroom, getting ready to face whatever was ahead before knocking on the door and entering. Caleb was on the bed sitting next to Jes, his arm over her shoulders in a comforting way. She was still sitting down with her head in her hands but seemed calmer, listening to Caleb.

"Hope I didn't interrupt something."

Emma stepped in and sat on a nearby couch. Caleb shook his head.

"It's good, we were just talking about what to do next. In case Tristan is a reaper it's pretty dangerous for you to get further involved in this."

"You know-"

"That won't stop you, yeah."

She nodded, crossing her arms and hitting her foot on the ground in a rhythmical way.

"There has to be some kind of an indication to where they are going next. I'm assuming it will be another Ancient, so who would be the closest one to here?"

Just as Jes opened her mouth to talk a cloud of shadows formed at the corner of the room and Vihan stepped out, the shadows retracting back into his tattoos. They all fell quiet while watching him check out and whistle at the scene inside the room.

"Oof boy, things aren't going so great huh."

Before anyone could talk he turned to Emma and reached his hand out.

"Kat has news, let's go."

Emma opened his mouth but couldn't form words at first, stammering from her surprise.

"Oh, um, yeah okay."

She stood up and looked at Jes and Caleb, but Jes made a dismissive gesture with her hand.

"Go, we have a bunch to take care of here anyway."

Emma looked unsure before nodding and holding Vihan's hand. He quickly pulled her inside the shadows, his tattoos warping into a cloud of void and pulling both of them in. When they appeared again the nausea hit Emma pretty bad, so she could guess the distance they traveled was pretty far. She stumbled but Vihan caught her arm, helping her stand up. She blinked a few times, looking around as her vision cleared and seeing Kat waiting for them. It had been such a long time that it felt weird so see her again, her hair had grown even longer, tied up into a small ponytail behind her head.

"Hey."

Kat waved her hand once as greeting. Emma pulled herself together before walking closer while fixing her clothes. Kat raised her brows at her attire.

"Looking fancy," her eyes went up to all the dried blood on her face and hair, "Partially."

"I'll take that as a compliment... So, what's the news you got?"

"I have contact with Marius. Interesting part is he was the one to reach out to us."

It took a while for Emma to process her words.