Kaide returned to the cave a few hours later, his body and clothes drenched with blood. The scent of Celeste's blood attracted quite an audience of beasts and monsters which Kaide happily disposed of.
Celeste, however, was missing from the cave.
Lucas had just woken up when his older brother suddenly grabbed him by the collar. "Where is she?"
The brown-haired boy was beyond confused and slightly afraid. His brother had such a wild look in his eyes and was covered in blood. 'Was he feeding just now?' he wondered.
Kaide shook him, a growl in his voice as he asked again, "Where's the little girl?"
Lucas almost wet himself as he quickly answered in a high-pitched voice, "I don't know, man. I don't even know which little girl you're talking about."
Kaide roughly unhanded him before pacing the cave, running his hand through his messy white hair. His purple eyes which were focused on the ground found Celeste's shirt crumpled in the dirt. He furrowed his brows as he thought, 'Is she out there, butt naked?'
His eyes narrowed at the darkness, 'She'll freeze to death if something doesn't kill her first.'
Kaide wondered if she was taken, but he didn't see any sign of struggle. His only assumption was that she ran off. "You don't meet sane women in the woods," Kaide muttered to himself as he took up the shirt. He threw it on the fire as he continued, "The little girls are just as crazy."
The next morning, Kaide took a bath in the river that ran through the woods. His gaze was focused on his reflection in the clear water, but his mind was elsewhere. He couldn't stop thinking about Celeste and the opportunity he missed to find out more about her.
"Hey," Lucas called in a monotone from the river bank. His face twisted in displeasure as he held Kaide's bloody clothes in his arms. "Why do I have to wash your bloody clothes?"
Kaide hummed, "I should've let the black wolf rip you apart; at least then there wouldn't be any blood on my clothes."
Lucas grumbled under his breath as he sat on a rock by the river bank; his displeasure clear on his face as he dipped the pants in the water first.
'Celeste Gerald,' Kaide thought as he washed his hair. 'Was she a runaway slave?' He immediately dismissed that thought since there weren't any chains on her. 'Runaway princess would suit her better.'
"Yoohoo," the voices of two women came from across the river.
They were female minotaurs grey in color and particularly busty with big boobs, wide hips, and large posteriors. No clothes covered their exposed bodies; only golden jewelry ornamented their grey horns and bull's tails.
Their cheeks flushed a bright pink when Kaide looked at them.
He slicked his wet hair back as he stood in the river, revealing his nakedness. He held the women's gaze as he flexed his muscular arms. Droplets rolled down his face down his neck to his perfectly sculpted, muscular body that glistened like diamonds under the sun.
A loud splash followed shortly after when the minotaurs fell face forward into the river after fainting.
"How do you do that?" Lucas questioned when his older brother got out of the river.
Kaide dried his hair with his blanket before wrapping it around his waist. "Do what?"
"Have that effect on women," Lucas responded.
Kaide ruffled his younger brother's hair, "I'll tell you when you're old enough."
"I'm thirteen years old," Lucas argued with a frown.
Kaide looked him up and down before saying, "I'll tell you when you get that squeak out of your voice and your dick no longer looks like a peanut." He walked away afterward with the words, "Hurry and wash those. We need to get out of here by noon."
"My dick doesn't look like a peanut," Lucas argued as he looked into his pants, but his brother already left.
Kaide was packing up their things at the cave when he came across a white feather in the ashes of the bonfire. He picked it up by its transparent quill, analyzing it carefully as he carefully twirled it between his index and middle fingers. It was quite large and heavy and was by far the purest white he had ever seen.
Kaide is a biology major at the prestigious University of the Supernatural; there weren't many creatures, species, and beasts he didn't know about. However, he couldn't pinpoint which specie of supernatural creature the feather could've possibly belonged to.
For some reason, the little girl in the woods came to his mind. Her silver eyes still haunted his thoughts, and now this feather appears. Were they connected? Was there a new specie the world hasn't found out about yet?
The thought excited him; he was hungrier than ever to find out more about Celeste Gerald. "She's long gone by now," he muttered as he looked at the feather. "But I should at least be able to find out what she is for now."
Kaide carefully tucked the feather into his bag before taking all his things and marching down to the river where Lucas was hanging the clothes on the limb of a tree.
Kaide threw Lucas' bag at him, hitting him in the head with it. "What the fuck?" Lucas cursed as he rubbed the back of his head.
His older brother hit him in the same spot the bag hit him, "Language, idiot." Kaide took the wet pants from the tree and put them on before reaching for his equally wet shirt.
"You do know that they're still wet right?" Lucas questioned with a frown while rubbing the back of his head.
"There's no time." Kaide hastily put on his shoes. "I need to get back to the lab."
Lucas swung his bag onto his back. "Did you find something?"
"I might have."