Chapter 160: 160-Scary smile
Standing in that room and having another bomb dropped on her, placed Maisa in a difficult place.
Her eyes found Freya’s panicked eyes. Her own face reflected in those pools and Maisa didn’t see herself, no. She saw a vampire whose world was crumbling.
Vaki looked at her. His gaze was steady with no hesitation or sympathy. "Want has nothing to do with it," he delivered.
Maisa’s fists tightened. She knew what it meant to have someone else decide her fate. She knew what it meant to live beneath chains she hadn’t chosen, and she had spent too much of her life being controlled by other people’s decisions. The last thing she wanted was to become the person holding someone else’s chains.
The thought of Freya being forced to obey her made her feel sick. It wasn’t in her cards to have a bound servant, she already had bound mates and she was doing a terrible job at keeping them or even making them happy.
"There must be a way for what I want," she argued.
She had grown so tired of being told that she can’t have what she wants. That door with a permanent mark of the words "no" was stuck before her and every time she reached out to open it and get out, it shut more tightly.
"There must be..." her voice broke, she felt like she couldn’t breathe.
Freya stared at Maisa. Her anger had disappeared, replaced by far more terrifying helplessness. "So I’m bound to her?" Her voice shook as she spoke.
Vaki nodded. "Yes."
Freya looked down at her hands. They trembled, and she curled them into fists as though she could crush the invisible restraints around them and then she looked back at Maisa.
"What if she tells me to do something I don’t want to do?"
Vaki’s answer came without hesitation. "You will do it regardless of your own feelings towards the deed."
Freya’s eyes filled with horror. Her eyes darted to every corner of the room. She blinked, holding back the waters in her eyes.
She had fled from one captivity in her pack where her alpha wanted to sacrifice her to strengthen the rest of the back, run away from being forced to choices and decisions she had no say in and took one wrong turn into vampire territory.
At that time, Freya thought that her pack would be to coward to follow her into vampire territory. And Felor was rarely habited and that’s why she chose to flee there. Who could’ve known that the choice she made to flee from captivity would end yo delivering her to another set of chains. 𝒻𝑟ℯℯ
Freya shuddered. She couldn’t decide which one was worse; physical captivity where her will was still hers or a blood bound captivity where her body and heart were hers but her mind and soul were someone else’s.
"..."
She parted and closed her lips again and again. Words failed her. She had many questions but none could be put to worse or erase the pain of that reality.
Maisa stepped forward. "No... please," she cried, she already had enough on her plate. She didn’t need more. "I don’t want to be her master... or anyone else’s for that matter."
Vaki raised an eyebrow. It amused him to see a girl with power over so many people claim she didn’t want power.
Maisa’s voice hardened. "I won’t command her."
Vaki’s smile returned. "That may be your choice," he leaned back in his chair. "But the bond doesn’t care about your morality, Maisa. Because you want it or not, youre stuck with it and mind you, the bond has no commamd word.... even just accidentally saying "just disappear" during a conversation will be registered to her like a command that she will follow and disappear. I’d watch my words moving forward if i were you."
Maisa stared at Freya, and Freya stared back. Both of them felt like they couldn’t breathe as they understood the horror of what had happened.
One had gained a power she never asked for. The other had lost a freedom she could never get back.
Vaki smiled at their frightened faces. It was such a real emotion that tasted so good in the air he was breathing.
He was tempted to pick up a brush and paint a perfect paradise with their broken emotions. His idea of paradise appeared in his mind and he couldn’t resist to touch the latest braid in her hair.
"Soon..." he whispered under his breath.
"Nersus," Maisa broke eye contact with Freya and faced him. "Or whatever your real name is..."
The image playing in Vaki’s eyes broke and he slid back into his smiling expression as he gave Maisa attention.
"Is that your real name?"
Maisa knew he had lied about his story and seeing him here and not in the dark forest was proof. He was never a prisoner there, he had gone there specifically for her.
She folded her arms to her chest and demanded, "What is your real name?"
"I’ve had so many names that even I forget my real name sometimes," he said, his eyes meeting hers.
His pupils glitched, switching between black and white like it was suffering an identity crisis.
Maisa felt a chill run down her spine. When his eyes settled on white color, she felt that same pressure like her skull was about to explode that she got from the white-haired girl earlier.
She took a careful step back and to her surprise, Freya by her side also stepped back, alot further than her though.
’Did she also feel that scary pressure?’ She wondered.
The answer was yes, Freya’s wolf picked up the powerful aura and warned her of the danger. She stepped back to let Maisa and the powerful vampire talk, hoping he’d forget her and she’d vanish into the wall like a wallflower.
"Even if I tell you my name, Maisa. I swear on the first mother that you wouldn’t remember it," Vaki added.
Maisa frowned. She didn’t like talking to Vaki, the man was mysterious and the fact that he never stopped smiling even once since they started talking, truly unsettled her.
"Where are we?" She changed the subject.
She chose to swallow the other questions she had for him. Maisa had been curious to know whether he was the mysterious benefactor and if he was her friend or foe. But seeing how scary he was unlike the first time they met, she chose against it.
"The night castle," Vaki replied.
"Are we prisoners here or are we free to leave?" She asked, her eyes glancing at the door.
Freya scooted close behind her. She was against being Maisa’s slave but more than that, she wanted to put as much distance as she could between her and the powerful vampire who didn’t seem right in the head.
Vaki snapped a finger and a door appeared in the wall. When Maisa and Freya looked over, they saw a dirt road right outside. They were amazed.
Maisa had read up on vampire magic and nothing mention vampires who could do magic outside of elemental magic. She felt all of her body stiffen, especially when that snap reminded her once more of thar white-haired girl who had also done the same.
’Who are these vampires? And what do they want with me?’
She met his eyes. They were black again and that friendly smile was still plastered on his lips.
"You’re free to go," he said.
Freya didn’t linger, her wolf urged her to run. She did. She reached outside and stopped, with the sire bond in existence, she didn’t feel safe with Maisa being out of her sight. Until she understood what it was and broke it, Maisa was going to be where she can see her at all times.
She rushed back in vampiric speed, grabbed the frozen redblood and run out of the night castle.
Maisa blinked once outside. She turned around to take one more look at the castle and was stunned to find nothing but trees there. "Where did the castle go?"