Chapter 94 - PAYING UP THE DEBT

"Queen of the witches..?" Maya and Derek croaked out, their eyes widening in disbelief. What the hell was the queen of witches want with Emma?

"Did she say why she wanted the human?" Melvina asked the apparition, wanting to get to the bottom of the issue already.

"No, She didn't. She just gave me the message to get her." Azeera replied.

" Okay. But you have to let her go. Just tell Leonarya that you didn't see her." Melvina said, drawing closer to the apparition.

" You know I can't. Leonarya doesn't tolerate failure, and she knows I never fail in my mission." Azeera stated, gearing up to zoom away.

" I don't care." Melvina replied. There was no way she was letting the apparition take away her son's mate. Knowing her son he might go beserk, forever.

"You have to." Azeera stated determinedly.

"You owe me." Melvina said, remembering the event of more than twenty years ago, when she had still been a teenager. She had saved the phantom from annihilation in an unlikely way, and the ghostly feature which called itself Azeera, has promised a debt to her, anytime, anywhere, anything at all.

The apparition floated up as if to go away, but then stopped. Phantoms don't break their promises.

"Okay." It muttered in a lowly voice, before dropping a still sleeping Emma on the grassy land.

"Thanks Azeera." Melvina said, sighing in relief, not missing the shade of happiness which appeared on her son's and Maya's face.

"Don't thank me yet." Azeera stated.

"Keep her out the forest and sinister places. I don't think Leonarya is the only one searching for her." It added.

" Why do you say so? She is just a human." Alpha Peter said, getting closer to Emma's body. He could have sworn that she was Sheila's daughter, but then, she was a human. But they still looked so much alike. He thought, noting her reddish hair and pale white skin. He wondered if his mate knew more about the human; she seemed so protective of her. He would have to ask her later. But again, he wondered whether his brother had an inkling about this too. His brother was always on the bad side.

"That's what y'all say." Azeera said, startling them all.

"What do you mean?" Melvina's friend who was a witch asked.

" I don't know. Time will tell." It said, before zooming off in a flash.

An eerie silence dropped in the forest, immediately the apparatition zoomed off. Everyone was lost in their thoughts.

Alpha Peter still ruminating on the uncanny resemblance between the human girl and his best friend then, Sheila and why the witches were interested in her.

Melvina thinking on the strange things happening around the human at this time, and she deciding to look into the human's history further. 

Maya, still shocked about the turn of events. Emma was her friend from the Florida. A human. Why was her life getting more complicated? The human wouldn't like this if she awoke from her sleep. She thought.

Derek. Derek was just happy that his little witch was okay, but he was a little bit unsure, about going over there, where she lay like dead, to pick her up. His dad might get suspicious. He didn't want that; he already knew that he had enough questions awaiting him when they got home.

Maya should go pick her up already. He thought, squeezing and unsqueezing his hand in impatience, wrestling and contending with his wolf in his mind. Maru was  pushing him on to pick their mate. She might catch a cold. It said.

And Melvina's friend? She thought that there was no way Emma was a human. She didn't know how or why she thought so. But her guts  told her so. And her guts were never wrong. And also, there's Leonarya. Leonarya, one of the most strongest witches, and she wanted the redhair? Something big was really on. She decided to do the research herself, and perhaps tell her friend, Melvina. She knew the same thing was going on in her mind too. They had to know more about the human.

"Lydia, aren't we going home?" Alpha Peter said to the witch, breaking the thick silence.

He needed to get to the familiar places of his Pack. He didn't like this place. It reminded him of things he didn't want to remember now, or anytime soon.

"Sure, Peter. Let's go people." Lydia said, before muttering incoherent words, and creating a vortex which will suck the back to the normal time frame of the earth. Each wondered on how many more days they had spent unknowingly in this space of time.

When the vortex sucked them all in, Derek saw that they appeared few metres from where he and his little witch was smooching. The rememberance of that event got his groin area tightening again. Turning away his face from there to his little witch who laid limp in his cousin's hands, he couldn't wait for her to wake up. He also promised to protect her no matter the costs. The witches, the phanthoms or whatever, were not going to take her away from him.

He also noticed that his beta and gamma were with some other people in the forest, like in wait for them. He could see his father's beta, Clem's father, and Claire.

He sighed as he watched Clem and Shane looking at him and then Emma, inquisitively. He knew he owed them the story  of what had transpired in the forest. He needed their help too.

"Who is she?"

He heard Clem's father ask.

"My good friend." His mother replied, making him to breathe out in relief. He owed his mother one.

"She is a human." Claire's mother stated, her mouth turning up in disbelief and disgust.

"Clearly." Melvina stated, not understanding why the beta's mate had hated her ever since she came into the pack as a rogue. 

"What happened?" Clem's father threw another question.

"Nothing much." Alpha Peter said

"Let's go to the pack house first ." He added, before walking away.

"How many days did we stay out?" Maya asked Shane, when she got to him, transferring Emma to his hands, ignoring her cousin's growl of discontent.

"Three days." Shane replied, carrying Emma firmly in his hands.  He thought the human was looking paler than usual.. What had happened? He thought, shrinking away, as he caught Derek throwing heated glares his way.