Indra slowly turned around to face the woman who'd called his name.
When his red eyes met her bright yellow ones, he could feel a wave of memories banging on the back of his mind as if they were begging to be let in.
However, he held firm and did not allow the memories to overtake him.
Now more than ever, he could not afford to be incapacitated for even a moment.
Doing so would risk his life and the life of the one he'd been commissioned to retrieve.
Indra leaned down in front of Keran and grasped her shackles.
"I'm sure you must have a great deal of questions right now but this is neither the time nor the place for them."
Keran believed that she may have been hearing things.
Her beloved was finally here after so long but the way he was speaking to her and behaving were both so cold that her heart hurt.
'He must be worried about the hero. Yes! That has to be it, there's no way he could treat me like this otherwise!'
Despite the urge she felt for a mushy reunion, Keran decided it was better to save such things for when they were somewhere much friendlier.
With the werewolf princess now free of her chains, she quickly stood up and closed her eyes to unseal her cultivation before Indra stopped her.
"Don't. If he senses you, he will come running."
Keran did not need to ask who her beloved was talking about, however she was mildly embarrassed that her eagerness had almost gotten them all killed.
Indra cut open a hole in the back of the tent with his claws and gestured for Keran to leave.
Immediately taken aback, the werewolf pointed at her companions that were still bound and covered with blood.
"You don't expect me to leave them, do you?"
The vampire looked at the three women who were staring back and forth between he and Keran.
'This is not part of the job...' He grumbled inwardly.
Indra's body blurred before he disappeared and the sound of snapping chains could be heard.
In an instant, he had freed both beast twins and even the human girl accompanying them.
"We have to move."
Without waiting for another word, Indra slipped out of the tent.
"Princess, how do you know him?" Kohaku asked.
"I will explain later, for now we have to get moving."
Keran quickly followed behind her former betrothed with Kuro hot on her trail.
Kohaku prepared to follow when she heard a small sniffle behind her and found a shivering Vermeil.
So far, the human girl had done exceptionally well maintaining her composure throughout this whole endeavor.
She'd been dragged to some foreign world without any prior knowledge or time to prepare and told that she was destined to be a hero who would help save their world.
She'd seen men die right before her very eyes and had learned that the people she originally sought to protect were a bunch of predators who thought it was okay to violate others so long as they were members of a certain species.
And to top it all off, some asshole had tried to shove her face in a plate of piss covered food before one of his lackeys literally EXPLODED all over her!
The limits to her endurance had finally been reached as she hunched over, crying and shivering.
Her mind was so unstable, she had barely registered the fact that a small bat no bigger than her fist had changed into an extremely handsome man and freed her faster than her eyes could follow.
She could not see anything through the blur of her teary golden eyes.
As Vermeil sat silently clutching her arms and sobbing, two firm hands suddenly helped her to her feet.
"W-What are you doing?"
"Repaying you for the chicken leg." Kohaku said without elaborating further.
The two women hobbled out of the tent and quickly found their companions who were slipping into the forest.
By this point, Kohaku recognized that Vermeil was in no way capable of moving efficiently so she had no choice but to practically carry her.
As the group traversed through the dark forest, Indra sent a silent message to Enyo who was acting as their eye in the sky.
'Have they noticed yet?'
'No but in a moment you will run into a hunting party of around five. It looks like they are all in the mortal realm with one member close to the beast realm. Do you want me to deal with them?'
'No, keep a lookout and I'll clear our path.'
Indra immediately stopped dead in his tracks, causing Keran to bump into him.
"My love? Is something wrong?"
Kuro nearly fell onto her pretty face. 'Am I fucking hearing things?'
Kohaku and Vermeil were staring at each other and having an entire conversation without saying a word.
'She had a boyfriend?'
'No... not that I recall. The queen is going to lose her shit.' Kohaku shuddered at the thought of the queen of the werewolves going on a rampage when she found out her daughter was seeing some random man.
Indra had no choice but to ignore the way that Keran had referred to him. "Get down into the bushes, do not make a sound."
Leaving no room for refusal, Indra's body vanished as he left into the trees to secure a good vantage point.
Keran could not quite place her finger on it, but there was something strange about her beloved.
Nevertheless, she obeyed his orders and took cover behind a gathering of thick bushes.
The rest of the girls did the same, while giving Keran curious looks that she had no intentions to acknowledge.
In a moment, the girls could see men carrying torches and approaching the direction they had just escaped from.
The men seemed to be in a merry mood as they laughed loudly, each of them proclaiming their spoils to be the best of the bunch.
Just when it seemed like the men were getting too close to the hiding fugitives, their torches were blown out, leaving them immersed in total darkness.
"What the fuck? Who cut out the light?!"