Chapter 20: Abducted 

Nereus is with Lare, they are both discussing with the Alphas of Nyctimus and Eumon by the bar when he sees her walking up to him; Violet. “Ca fait longtemps ma cher” she says to him “may I have a word?” She adds, Nereus takes her hand and moves away from the others “what are you doing here?” he says she doesn’t respond, she just gives him a sly grin. “I hear you found a replacement for me? Where is she? I would love to meet her”  Nereus smiles and shakes his head “I don’t have time for this” then he walks away.

When he gets back to the bar, Lare is now with Alyssa and they are flirting with each other “where is Celeste?” he asks, Alyssa has a puzzled expression now “I thought she was with you” she responds. “Why would you-”, “one of the maids came to her room a couple minutes ago and said you wanted to see her by the pool”. Nereus is surprised “I did not send for her to meet me by the pool” he says 

“ err maybe it was your dad?” Alyssa says, both Nereus and Lare shake their heads as a statement that Alpha Zander definitely did not send for Celeste.

“Well it’s not like she’s in danger or else your neck thingy would be glowing” Alyssa whispers but Nereus isn’t wearing the necklace at the moment. The three of them are now worried, Alyssa leaves to check Celeste’s room and Nereus and Lare go to check the pool side. They get to the pool and there is no sign of Celeste, they are about to leave when Lare spots something shiny on the ground, it’s a silver earring he picks it up and heads back into the house with Nereus. They run into Alyssa who is coming back downstairs “oh you found her?” she asks when she spots Lare holding the earring, two of them look at her confused “that’s the earring she had on” she adds. Anthony and Mirena walk in at that moment Alyssa asks them if they have seen Celeste and as soon as they say “No” Nereus makes his way to his room to grab his necklace. He gets into his room and takes out the black wooden he uses to house the necklace and when he opens the box the necklace is glowing

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The smell of moss is everywhere and I can also hear water. I open my eyes and I am inside a cave and I am surrounded by selenite crystals. My hands and feet are bound by a double braid nylon rope, my head still hurts a little and my bracelet is gone. I sit up and I hear a voice say “sorry, your head might still hurt a bit and also I had to get rid of the bracelet, I didn’t want to alarm your alpha boyfriend”. I chill runs down my spine as I recognise the voice, a hooded figure presents itself in front of me and then he takes off his hood; Hunter.

“We hope to take you somewhere a lot more befitting of your status when you finally give us what we need” he says. I am too stunned to speak, I am just sitting on the ground completely shocked, Hunter? By “we”, I assume he is talking about his accomplice Violet; what is going on? My entire family trusts this guy, Gerald trusted him, he is the one with the dagger? He is the danger lurking that we were all warned about? “What is this?” I finally manage to say. Hunter smiles “Let me tell you a story, Celeste” he says “A long time ago there was a visionary named Calix, he tried to create a new world and a new order of wolves, not of the already existing seven bloodlines but you already knew this part” he winks at me. “Well these new wolves had to be perfect so he chose human children who showed promise and took them” I gasp, Hunter ignores me and continues his story. “Then he solicited the help of a few aetheria but they were blind, they lacked vision so they all turned him down, now an aetherius has to surrender her powers willingly but Calix being the genius found a way around it and helped relieve many aetheria of their powers. They weren’t utilising it properly anyway so he did them a favour, so with his blood and the powers gotten through the dagger he created new wolves. Then he was sabotaged by the overly righteous Athanasios”

“The wolves he created were malformed, barely human and barely wolves, they went mad and killed everything in their path, that is not success Hunter” I say 

“ah yes but all of them answered to him” Hunter responds. I am dumbfounded by what he just said, I let out a dry laugh “so your idea or perfect is basically utter rubbish that follows you about, not surprising at all” Hunter growls at me “I would watch your tone girl, you are the one at my mercy. See you maybe a powerful aetherius but I hear you face certain limitations” he makes a gesture towards the crystals “and now this isn’t just a bracelet, you are surrounded by crystals, do they look familiar?” I take a proper look and realise that all the crystals have runes carved on them; they were gotten from the cottage.

The horror on my face is evident “so I beg you to watch your tone” Hunter says in a condescending tone. I glare at him “Calix was sabotaged okay, Niovi didn’t tell him everything he needed to know and that was why the humans ended up that way”. I scoff “a young girl didn’t tell a full grown man that he wasn’t supposed to kill, kidnap and maim people, Hunter are you being daft on purpose?” he gnarls and lunges at me but almost like he is being controlled, he stops himself and backs away from me. 

“Well you obviously haven’t figured out what he did wrong, you’re still creating rogues so that means you’re still doing something wrong too” I say and Hunter smiles, it is the most haunting thing I have ever seen “yes princess that’s where you come in” three rogues step in from behind him, the look in their eyes is ravenous and they are all staring at me “you are going to tell me all I need to do to create a perfect wolf, separate from the seven bloodlines”. I start laughing so hard and Hunter has a look on his face that reads “what is so funny?”. 

“You are mad

You have absolutely lost your mind

Help you? Help you?

You have been abducting innocent people 

You killed Shaia

You masqueraded yourself to be friend to me and my family and you killed Gerald

And now you’re parading with three wolves that can’t even touch me”

A small blast of energy escapes from me in my anger but it barely touches Hunter who has a wicked grin plastered on his face now. The crystals have drastically reduced the strength of that ability, I am disheartened by this but I continue

“I am never going to help you” I say and break the ropes binding me, I throw it and smack Hunter in the face then he starts laughing hysterically. 

Not the reaction I was expecting and yet again like he is being controlled he stops laughing. “Oh but you are going to help me” Hunter says “because you see right now as we speak, the Lycian mansion is being surrounded by rogues and I can’t control them so unless you tell me how to make them work, you should start preparing for a lot of funerals”.