The males kept this pace up for fifteen minutes until they both suddenly stopped moving.
"Rin" Zephyr said, quietly landing beside Laine.
"Hide her and get her out of here." Laine ordered. Ro's vision suddenly became obscured as the air shifted around her. She felt herself being lifted off the ground. Trees began hurtling past her as she was carried into the forest. Then as quickly as it had come, Zephyr's magic left. Ro was able to walk a few feet before a thick tree limb wrapped around her waist and pulled her through yet more trees. However, this one didn't let go when it stopped moving. It held her up about a few feet off the ground. Smaller limbs darted out and pulled her legs apart and held them. More did the same to her arms. Ro attempted to use shadow magic to blow them up, but it didn't work, she was trapped.
Laine and Zephyr watched as Rin walked up with Torin and Shiki.
"We got reports of you two fighting." Rin said with a smile. Torin lifted his head and smelled the air. He recognized the scent as that of the girl from Laine's mind.
"It was just a friendly little sparring match." Zephyr said with a wide smile.
"Well next time you two feel like fighting let someone know ahead of time. You disrupted some delicate workings." Rin said not at all admonishingly. He turned and began walking away. "Oh, now that I have you here. I want you to begin investigating Momo Arzandia from class 1-E. Carry on with whatever you were doing." Rin tossed a hand over his shoulder. Laine nodded uneasily and turned into his forest.
"Zephyr." Torin said quietly. Zephyr turned and looked at him.
Meeting Zephyr's eyes, Torin forced his way into his mind. He looked backwards from the fight to the entrance of the girl. It was the ugly one from Ky's class. Torin felt happiness as he realized that he had found her. He released his hold on Zephyr's mind. Zephyr put a hand to his aching head.
"What the heck, man?" He asked Torin rhetorically. Torin shrugged and left to rejoin Shiki and Rin.
***
Ro waited alone in the woods completely helpless. She stewed in anger for a while before slowly realizing that she wasn't alone anymore. She craned her neck around to see who was there and Laine in demon form stepped out of the trees. He came towards her.
"Oh good, Laine can you let me down now? I can't seem to blow them up." The tree limbs drooped a little, lowering her to Laine's height. The anger was gone from his face but replacing it was an emotion Ro couldn't name. He leaned his forehead against hers.
"Roselyn," He breathed her name like a prayer, "One day you will be mine, but until then don't let anyone touch you." He lifted his hand and gently wrapped the wayward strand of hair by her right temple around his fingers. "I can't stand it." Awareness suddenly dawned on Ro. The emotion on his face was jealousy. The reason he always seemed to clench his fist around her was desire. She felt his tail brush her leg. The reason he always appeared as a demon now was his desire for her to see him as he truly was. Momo and Aerie had been right to question his motive for wanting to train her alone. Ro swallowed hard.
"I suppose then that this is a bad time to tell you that I'm going on a trip with a classmate next week."
"A male?"
"Yeah." Laine heard crunching behind him and Zephyr appeared. Instantly a tree limb shot out and slapped him in the face.
"Oiy! First Torin and now you. Do I look like a punching bag?" Zephyr cried. Laine turned abruptly, his fingers still wrapped in Ro's hair.
"Torin? What did he want?"
"He just looked through my memories until he saw the Nug." Laine turned back to Ro and placed his forehead on hers again.
"Another one." He muttered, realizing that Torin had found her. He released the trees holding Ro up. Her body sagged into his and he slowly lowered her to her feet. "Practice time." He told her.