"Forgive my minions," the shadow slurred, sounding so ancient and not in the least bit apologetic. "They tend to relish in dramatic entrances each time we stumble upon a potential member of the family."

After those words were spoken, I felt like scraping my nails over the bastard's face, my heart suddenly racing in turmoil.

I gritted my teeth. If one would even call it a face. His whole essence was black. Inward and outward. The only two structures that stood out completely were his eyes and his fangs.

Both were white. Purely white. He had no irises, no pupils, not even a tongue or a nose. Against his deadly black entity, those two white parts were a huge contrast.

A terrifying one.

He had the ability to take the shape of any living thing he wanted and control the shadows. At least that was what I'd thought before he had somehow found a way to hypnotize me into doing something I still regret to this day.

"How did you find me?" I mentally panicked but squelched the feeling and chose to resort to glaring into the eyes of the Shadow Bender. Or rather, the King of the Shadow Benders: Et Kar.

Despite the yellow eyes in the background being a troubling first, I'd know that ancient, dark voice anywhere. The bloody psycho.

He brushed my question aside. "Is that any way to greet your soon-to-be master?"

Instead of retorting, I suppressed a groan of despair before unwillingly starting in slight fear when his shapeless figure loomed even higher and brooded arrogantly over my tiny frame, blocking the only available light source from view.

Even as I tried to hide my reaction, Et Kar quickly caught on it before I could cover it up, his grin widening further.

"Frightened, love?" he asked smugly, already aware of the answer.

Nevertheless, I instinctively tightened my grip on the object in my hands - although knowing the freaking thing was a useless toy against Et Kar's incorporeal form - and watched the devil casually shrink to my level and take the shape of a man. "This more to your liking?"

"How the hell did you find me?" I held myself from taking a cautious step back after I'd asked. This Shadow Bender hadn't harmed me - yet - but that didn't mean I trusted him in the slightest.

He grinned again. "Ah, Maera. Such a beautiful black rose you are."

"Don't call me that! And I said, how did you find me?" I repeated, my voice as cool and guarded as ever, contrasting deeply with my inner turmoil.

"Well, Maera," he began, ghostly circling a path around me and ignoring my outburst, "a loyal little servant told me that a little mysterious dog came sniffing around my prized possession in my absence."

I gritted my teeth as a wave of anxiety swept over me. I knew it. I had known it all along even as I'd kept on deceiving myself. The bastard had been watching me this whole time. I couldn't believe that I'd thought for a bloody moment that I was safe.

My gaze unconsciously diverted to eye the yellow creatures still hissing and glaring at me from the bushes before quickly returning to the threat now lingering behind me.

"They've been watching me," I said, fighting to suppress my dismay at the same time being hesitant to face the monster at my back. "All this bloody time I thought..."

"Language, love." Nevertheless, I could actually feel his eyes glistening with excitement, apparently showing no signs of offence. "I assumed you were smarter than this, Maera. I am the King of the Shadow Benders and shadows after all. So as long as you have that harmless-looking black figure trailing you wherever you go, know that you cannot hide from me."

I breathed in deeply, fighting to control my emotions.

I'm so stupid...

"Besides, I was merely discreetly making sure no harm came to you."

I almost made a small noise of disbelief, but instead swallowed and permitted less crude words to escape from my lips. "So is that why you came? To make sure I wasn't ruined?"

"Yes," he admitted, but then added, "though not quite."

Et Kar paused, leaning forward to brush a translucent hand against wayward strands of my hair. "For some reason, my minions are not able to disclose to me what exactly transpired between you two so please, tell me, what did he want?"

"Don't touch me." I span around quickly and made a move to slap his hand away from me. But he caught the move before I could even lift my palm - as I knew he would - and my hand immediately swung through nothing as his once tangible hand, at that moment, switched to incorporeal.

He smiled. "Fighting me is a lost cause. You are aware of that," he said. "Now I am going to ask you again, what did he want?"

"I don't know."

"Maera..."

"I don't know."

Still, Et Kar retained his creepy smile. "No matter, I will find out soon enough."

I glared, feeling all sorts of emotions swell within my chest at once whilst the King of the Shadow Benders made his way towards his minions. "I will get rid of you," I spoke with indignation even when he and I both knew my words would mean nothing.

"I am the shadows, love, so I will always be watching." He looked back only to permit me to see the sudden viciousness in the terrifying depths of his blank eyes. All traces of mockery and amusement gone.

"You will never be free."

☆ ~☆~ ☆

Continuous violent knocking on the front door had me deliberately taking my time to walk down the stairs instead of hurrying to answer it.

Strange - not to talk about it being a really impolite thing to do - but if anyone in my shoes knew what kind of person would be knocking so irritatingly on my door at this time of the day, then they wouldn't have even bothered to answer it in the first place.

"She's not here," I announced the second I pulled the door open in mild annoyance. Although I was feeling something way potent than that, as usual, I forced to rein it in.

"Look," Felicia began, narrowing her eyes; one hand loosely holding the strap of her handbag and the other pointing a finger at me, "I didn't come here to argue with you, alright? I want my daughter. Now."

"And I said, she's not here," I replied somewhat calmly, still maintaining my grip on the door in case things got out of hand. At least then I'd have the privilege of shutting the door in her face and locking the damn thing afterwards.

However, even though that thought was tempting, it was Saturday, and I usually spent the rest of my afternoon in the bar down the street so I couldn't afford to have her lingering around my house while being forced to lock myself in.

Time to get this hypocrite to leave.

"I know my daughter is in there," Ellie's mother snapped. "Let me in or I promise this will be the last time you'll see this town, Witch."

I sighed in exasperation - that same old threat was really starting to bore me. Now entertaining a fed-up expression on my face, I moved past the threshold and shut the door behind me so quickly that it slightly startled the woman.

"I'd let you in to see for yourself that Ellie is not in there," I said as I turned to lock the front door. "But I don't want you anywhere inside my house."

Slipping the key into my dress pocket, I jostled her out of the way and began trotting along the streets and towards the direction of the less popular bar in town.

Or rather, the second aside from the first oldest bar, since those were the only two available in this forsaken town.

"Where the hell do you think you're going?" Felicia angrily stomped behind me as she quickly matched my pace and caught my arm, her horrid nails sinking in deep. The contact immediately made the rein on my temper snap and I felt a growl slowly rising from within my throat.

"I want my daughter right now! Or I'll tell everyone that you kidnapped her and they'll do me a favour by slicing your pretty neck. This is the last str-!"

Her words were suddenly cut short the moment I swiftly span around and seized her thin neck in a vice grip, not for a second loosening my hold when I saw her eyes widen in shock before she had some sense to claw at my hand and gasp for breath.

"You're stupid, fake, and a low life." I squeezed her throat tighter, not caring if my arm was at the mercy of her dreaded nails. After all, those mere scratches would heal in seconds. "You should've come to my house the second you realized Ellie wasn't at home. But what did you do? Lounge in your worthless house until after noon before coming to search for her, not even giving a flying fig about what had happened to her in the morning, and you have the nerve to threaten me?"

I slammed her back against the pole of a streetlight and watched as she choked violently, her face turning a nasty shade of red. "If you cared about Ellie, you'd have run out of your house the moment you realized she was missing and would've come pounding on my door early in the morning while I was forcing her to leave to a friend's house to spend the rest of the day since she didn't want to see your face until she was ready. Then, you would've had the chance to take her back home before I had escorted away and wouldn't be accusing me of kidnapping and pretending like you give a shit."

Regretfully - and with a huge amount of self-control - I released her when I saw that her eyes had begun to roll to the back of her head. I would've taken pleasure in seeing her writhe in pain until her soul abandoned her. But for only Ellie's sake this time around, I spared her life.

Her body immediately fell to the ground and she gripped her neck whilst coughing and spluttering saliva all over the pavement.

Ignoring her rapid, hoarse breathing and failed attempts at threatening me once more, I turned away from her and walked towards my destination. Not caring for the first time if the little scene I'd created was witnessed by others or not, I pushed my shades up my nose - which had slanted over - and never looked back.

Hell, I needed a drink.

☆~☆~☆