"Care to explain the current situation?" asked the man who came out of the elevator in a black hood and partly ripped jeans. There was no way anyone could recognise him with the full black face mask that he wore on the visible lower part of his face.
As a whole, he looked no less than a devil who had ascended from the depths of hell. His whole attire and demeanour said so, even if his body said otherwise, for the skin peeking out of the jacket was fairly white under the strong light in front of the elevator.
"I thought the instructions given out were very clear," he said again in his daunting voice that sounded more than seething. "Is there something else you need to know or be explained since you can't understand the very language you speak?"
"No, Sire," said the man holding me captive in a very calm voice, except for the hint of frustration in his voice. He immediately released me once he took notice of the way the devilish man's fingers pointed at me.
"But you might as well want to—" he started again with indignance.
"I don't need to verify or see anything, if that was what you were going to say. I have seen enough from where I have been standing, watching and understanding the heated situation the two of you were in."
"It was a threat, Sir—"
"I thought you would be running to do your remaining errands, yet here you stand, trying to explain a situation I am already aware of, as you know."
"As you say, Boss. I will be right here if you would need any assistance."
"You would know better than me about that."
Gean either scoffed or huffed out a feigned laugh, I couldn't tell which, although I knew he had much respect for the person in front of him. My head was already whirling with all the new info it had to register so adding anything extra to it would just damage my health further.
He turned back his face to meet my dark coloured eyes before looking directly into the eyes of the man in black clothes. My back was facing the stranger and it made me feel conscious of myself, even more, when Gean gave a low bow and left the premises.
I was left alone with a person whose very identity I didn't know, except for the hint that he could be another werewolf who had been ordered by the king to be with me rather than Gean himself. That seemed a little strange since I knew that he had always been capable and he wouldn't have gotten the position of the CEO's personal secretary, not someone who had been appointed with some inexperience.
'Maybe, after what happened,' I brooded deeply, 'that Lycan King had decided that it would be better for him to be removed from the scene to avoid any sort of damage.'
The stranger behind me took the liberty to step in front of me and bent down on the ground with his back facing me. I wondered if it was a good idea to even attack him from the back and get away from this foreign place where I wish I hadn't been brought at all. The strange events taking place around me after meeting the CEO and his secretary made me feel on the edge.
"Don't even think about it," he said in a rough tone as he picked up something that shiny in his eyes that my glassless couldn't make out very well.
"Even you can read my mind now?" I asked with wide eyes. "This is extremely annoying. Why can't you keep away from my personal space?"
He scoffed as he got up from his crouched position to look right into my eyes. Then he said in a sour note, "Don't think you need to learn to keep your thoughts to yourself?"
"They were pretty much in my head until you decided to dive into my head and get access to them," I backfired, notwithstanding his utter nonsense.
"Then I suppose the first thing that you'll need would be required to do would be to correct not only your tongue but also your head."
"You have quite a few words to say when I don't need or have anything to do with you."
"And you have quite a lovely tongue to use as a blade against the wrong person."
"No person can trust a stranger. I don't know a thing about you. How would you expect me to react to you when you not only intrude into my problem but also my thoughts?"
"Ah, now that you have reminded me, I have forgotten to introduce myself formally to you because of the situation you had created."
He threw back the hood of his jacket and then shook his head, straightening out his fringes with the fingers of his ringed, whitish fingers. They came to settle in a dishevelled manner on the front of his forehead, covering his eyes pretty well. It would have been impossible to tell their colour if it weren't for the glow of the light that directly reflected the gold of his eyes that changed to amber.
"Rafian Maccon," he said with a short bow. Then he stepped forward and took my hand in his as if to lay a gentle kiss.
"It is nice to meet you, milady," he said, turning my palm upwards and plopping my chain in my hand instead. I had forgotten that he wouldn't show me his identity at any cost for he had worn a mask for the same reason.
"It is certainly 'not' most lovely to have met you, Mr Maccon," I said. "I wonder if it worth telling you my name since you must already know it by now."
"Well, you had asked me for an introduction when you called me a stranger," he returned with a shrug of his shoulders. "I hope now we aren't strangers, since you choose to not introduce yourself. Also, you might as well drop the honorifics to remove that strangeness you speak of."
"That is completely my wish. Now, please return my necklace so that I can get back to my house and my job."
I put out my hand to demand the chain back from him rather than snatching it from him. It was surprising that by holding the chain he wasn't affected at all like the people around him. I had expected him to be a werewolf, but it didn't seem like he was one although the glow of his eyes spoke otherwise.
"This?" he said in such an oblivious tone but with such a lunatic smile that I started to wonder if I was going to be chased to the end of the world again. "I think I would be a better person to keep it and be in charge of it, don't you think?"
"That is indeed a great idea," I replied in a half-merry and half-sarcastic tone. "It would be lovely if the chain killed you or found someone else as their saviour. That would be absolutely lovely, wouldn't it?"
"Does sarcasm need to be replied back with sarcasm? I was merely testing how close you are with it since your very own parents g—"
My eyes took notice of a purple fire surrounding him like a perfect circle that closed in on him slowly. It was only then that I realised the emotions I had let out through some sort of power that wasn't supposed to exist. I screwed my eyes, trying to think if it was my ability at all and if so, how I could reverse the action I had started.
The man had kneeled down and now coughed as he laughed. I stared hard at him, watching how this madman had been placed right in front of me. Because of him, my emotions flickered and were confused between swallowing him or letting him free.
"It seems like what you wished for hasn't come true," he said with a swish of his hand that immediately extinguished the fire around him. "Now let's see what would make you disbelieve in it."
My eyebrows drew themselves together as I wondered how he was capable of handling magic when were-creatures were not given such liberties. I felt my hands and body heat up as he jingled the chain in his hands in such a carefree nature that I wanted to rip them apart.
"Every ounce was taken away from me that night," I rasped out. "And the last remnants of that burning fire that ensnarled me and let everyone else but me perish, you want to take it?"
'This isn't me,' I told myself as I saw my thin, weak frame approach the great man who stood in front of me with a wild smirk splayed on his face. 'This is certainly not me. I wouldn't have lost control of my emotions and my tongue.'
"Every bit of truth is hidden and it only comes out when someone tortures, isn't it?" he said in a carefree tone, not worried about what he could get out of me and what it could cost him. "The fact that you can now see your true form should be enough for you to know that I am not doing anything against it."
"You will regret it with all your heart for trying me out," I roared at him after closing the distance between us and letting the purple blind both of our visions, "someone who has suffered more than enough from life and who didn't do anything to deserve such a fate."
He chuckled and reached his hand for my face which he held firmly with just his white fingers. The fingers of that ruffian then squeezed my jaw after which he drew a bold line down across it. The small area stung and pulsed as my exposed blood met the air.
"Punish me in whichever manner you wish and see fit then," he said as he caressed the sharp edge of my chin and the wound he had created. "I shall bear it without a word of refusal and resistance, just as you bore mine."
The violet flames roared around me as I watched the man continue to smile whilst holding my jaw in his sturdy hands. For the fingers that looked long and thin, his hand had much strength and at the back of my mind, it made me slightly afraid of how easily he could snap my neck without a trace of any type of abuse being used on me. Plus, if he had any werewolf blood in him, he would escape scot-free.
"Why would you come and take care of me?" I asked in a low voice that wanted to hold command of the situation, but I knew that a slip from the problem could land me in a well-hidden trap. "I am sure I mean nothing to you like I meant nothing to my dearest friend, whose true name I would probably never know."
He laughed like the madman I had come to see him as. I couldn't believe that even in this situation he had the audacity to mock me or laugh his situation off. That is unless he had some sort of magic to defend himself against these different and bright flames, which I highly doubted since he hadn't made a move to get rid of it.
"Ralph would have no heart in this since he loves to shed blood more," he said calmly. "I wouldn't say I am any different, but I have resorted to taking the peaceful approach for the betterment of my kingdom and this country before it gets out of hand and spreads to the other lands. And if you meant nothing to me, I would have not even taken the time to glance at your countenance."
He dangled the chain that belonged to me in his now reddish fingers before dropping it to the floor. And that was the exact thing he needed to give me so that I became inflammable.