A few meters away, they could see Lana's beast and a few centaurs were running in their full speed towards them.But that wasn't the thing that made Hope, Ian and Ethan frown.
The fact that all the centaurs were holding their bow and stretched their arrow as long as the string could stretch out, made Ian curse under his breath.
"What the hell…?" Instinctively, Ian hugged Bree a little bit tighter. Then he slightly turned his body, so he could shield the little girl, in case those centaurs were crazy enough to make them the target of their arrows.
"Why do they aim at us!?" Ian did the same to Hope, he pulled her behind his back as they watched in horror the determination of Chiron's expression when he led his people to aim at them.
However, before the lethal arrows could be released, Chiron roared loudly. "GET DOWN!"
"What?" Ian knitted his brows, he wanted to ask more, but he felt someone had tugged the back of his robe and forcefully made him kneel.
Right at the same time, there were around ten to fifteen arrows being released in the air.One or two of the arrows brushed past their head, only slightly an inch from their skin, as they could feel the billowing of the sharp wind that followed its speed.
Lana was the first who rushed towards the three confused teenagers there, and growled to, whatever, creature behind their back.
When the centaurs stopped shooting their arrows, only then Hope, Ethan, and Ian dared enough to raise their head, and looked back through their shaking shoulders.Just in time to see the last demon wolf puffed into a black smoke.
"What?!" Ian's eyes grew wider, "But, how?!" He was having a hard time forming a full question sentence.
Yet, it was understandable enough for the rest of them.
The demon wolves were that close to them.But how could Ian and Ethan couldn't feel their presence? It wouldn't be weird if it was Hope, since she was a human. But for the shapeshifters like the siblings,having such danger at that close range like that, and didn't even realize it, was something questionable.
"Don't you even notice that they were around?" Lana shifted back into her human form, as she glowered at Ian and Ethan. She couldn't understand why they were not aware when those demon wolves were so close and were about to bite off their heads.
"No," Ian shook his head profusely, "I couldn't sense them, and neither can I smell them."
Lana was still staring at him incredulously.
"It's weird," Chiron spoke flatly.
"What about Mr. Lori?" Lana didn't even bother to discuss this further, as she snapped back to her sense and remembered the reason why she left them.
Upon hearing Lana mentioned his name, the crestfallen expression crept across the teenagers' faces as they lowered their head.
"I am late," Lana concluded. She didn't seem better after finding out the fact that she just failed to save the father.
On the other hand, Chiron gave a silent order to Zarrn, who walked away to the rumble of the house with the other three centaurs, probably to retrieve the bodies of Mr. and Mrs. Lori. At the very least, that was all they could do for now.
"What happened to him?" Chiron nodded his head to the white beast, who seemed writhed in pain as he kept tearing flesh after flesh of the dead troll, growling and snarling to nothing in particular.
"I don't know…" Hope's voice was barely a whisper as her eyes trailed the magnificent beast.
Lana furrowed her brows when she realized there was something odd with Kace's beast behavior.
"Since when has he been like that?" Chiron asked again. He took a few steps closer towards the beast, only to earn a sharp vicious snarl from him.As if he didn't recognize him at all.
"We don't know. We just came here when Mr. Lori couldn't make it, and then found that he was already in his current state like this." Ian explained as he hugged little Bree close to him.Occasionally, he would check her breathing by putting his hand in front of her small nostril. Afraid something bad would happen to her.
Chiron looked at Carina beside him, "What do you think happened to him?"
Carina squinted her eyes and stood two steps in front of Chiron, "I need to have a closer look, he is too far," she murmured to herself and said a little bit louder. "But, I can assure you this is not black magic."
If it was not a black magic, so what is it?
Now, the white beast seemed to be fighting something that they couldn't see. However, what was he fighting about?
"What do we have to do now?" Lana felt her heart ache when he saw the white beast was in immense pain.It almost seemed as if the beast ripped the troll apart just to elevate his own pain, which they could see didn't really help.
Chiron didn't answer for a while, as he considered his option. "I think we need to wait.It is too dangerous to go near the beast now." He knew very well, a feral Lycanthropes was not something trivial. They couldn't put their guards down, or else they would end up in a bad shape, or the worst case was that they could lose their life.
"Wait? We can't just wait!" Lana glowered at the centaur, a thick emotion of concern flashed on her eyes. "He is in pain! Why do we have to wait!?"
"Lana!" Ethan shouted her name in a warning tone. Lana had become unreasonable with her behavior now. He could understand if it was Hope, since she was Kace's mate.But Lana was… Ethan didn't know how to put it, but it seemed there was something more in the way Lana saw Kace.
On the other hand, Hope was aware of Lana's outburst, just how she was aware of her feelings for Kace. She was not blind to see it.
However, there was something that couldn't be explained that drew Hope to walk closer to the beast, and when their eyes locked, everything went completely dark.