Chapter 20: Pointless Efforts

They reached the cabin soon. The place was silent. Something inside him twisted, but then the dawn was about to break so Caleb was sure that she must be sleeping. Quietly he made it to the bedroom, but she wasn't there. Thorns of panic pricked his chest. The emotion of fear swirled in his mind. His throat went dry and he swallowed his saliva. "Elize?" He called her name as if it was a prayer to the gods.

There was no answer. He called her again, this time rushing towards the bathroom. He pushed the door open and found it empty. "Elize?" His breath was frantic and his mind started to get into a frenzy.

"Why are you shouting?" Arawn's voice from behind made him whirl around.

"She isn't here," Caleb said as if shocked and scared.

A crease of tension crept on Arawn's forehead. "Where would she go?" he said and then left the room to search for her. On his way down he said, "Sometimes she goes around exploring, but because of the spells, she ends up going in circles and returns to the cabin. I have seen her doing that when she gets bored."

Caleb rushed after him after checking the balcony. "It is nearing dawn. She knows very well that she can't take the sunrays for her skin burns."

"In that case she must come here soon," said Arawn. "However, let me go and find her just in case she needs to be rushed back." There was an edge of worry in his tone. He wasn't sure how far the vampire was and he had to find her in a large area surrounding the cabin. Suddenly he regretted that he should have cast the spell in a smaller area.

"I will also join you," Caleb muttered, his anxiety rising rapidly. He felt like clawing his chest out of unease.

"No, you wait for her over here," said Arawn. "She might be on her way back and when she is back, you can take her with you." He really wanted this to get over. "Don't wait for me." Saying that he got out of the door.

Caleb heard hooves crunching the snow on the outside, as he walked to the kitchen to investigate the blood bags, to do something that would keep his mind off.

As the minutes passed, the sun came up and she didn't return. Caleb rushed back to the bedroom and this time he started looking inside her wardrobe. Her clothes were not there. A roar erupted from him in an icy wave as he tasted blood. His muscles bulged. He burned with urgency to get to Elize. She was a vampire and if she was lost in this wilderness, then she might be dying because of her condition. "No!" he rasped, as a jolt passed through his body. He didn't want to wait for Arawn. He felt like removing the spell, but that would make Arawn's job to find her cumbersome. With a lot of difficulty, he came downstairs and sat on the sofa to wait for Arawn. Every passing minute was like a lifetime to him. He stepped out in the day and paced the porch.

After what seemed like when Arawn came, Caleb understood by his sullen expressions that he hadn't found Elize.

Caleb's stifled an urge to throttle the centaur. "You failed!" he rasped and then lunged at him to punch his hard across his face. Arawn fell back but he got up and lunged back at Caleb.

"You shouldn't have abducted a free spirit like her!" he shouted.

"I had to protect her!" Caleb shouted right back. "Don't you tell me what to do!"

"Stop it!" Arawn said, dodging Caleb's attack.

But Caleb was in a frenzy. He threw his head back and bellowed to the sky with frustration. He couldn't let Elize die. The heat consumed him. His cells tore, bones cracked and rearranged themselves. He dropped on his fours and then ran towards the jungle. He heard Arawn snapping his fingers to remove the spell. And he let his wolf rule their instinct. He sniffed the air for her scent, for her intoxicating and forbidden scent. He couldn't forget the look of confusion and hurt on her face when he abducted her. For a long time, he ran, dodging in and out of the trees, following her scent, following a weird trail. There was yet another smell mixed with hers—of an animal.

He wanted to claw the trees in frustration. His urgency, his need to be with her was killing him. Not knowing what else to do, Caleb shifted again to his human form. As he ran towards her, his thoughts wavered between hating himself and fearing for her life. He despised what he did to her and why she ran away. He was only thinking of her safety. What were the odds that she was safe? What were the odds that she was alive? The thought burned him and filled him with fear. He sent her a tendril of comfort through their mate bond. It was silent, as silent as the depth of night. But he didn't give up on the hope. Suddenly, a thought entered his wild mind. What if she had run away with a man of the Lore? The thought made him roar and he uprooted a tree in madness. What the hell was he thinking of going and helping Ileus? The whole thing left him without a mate, and now his fear that she would reject him, intensified.

Even as Caleb cursed his stupid actions, he couldn't help admiring as to how brave his mate was. She was so young, so fresh from the trauma, yet she was so resilient. His vampire wife was… so young.

A faint shriek sounded from a distance. Was that Elize?

He darted as fast as possible to the source of the scream. He was now least bothered about the thorny bushes and the vines and the branches that fell in his way and bruised his skin at various places. All he wanted was to reach her.

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Elize felt like a caged animal who was now wretchedly clawing at the mesh of woods, clawing at the spells, despite knowing fully well that she wouldn't get out of it, despite the pointlessness of her efforts. The passion with which she had come here, the passion with which she had endured the pain to break the branches, in order to have that one chance of escape—it ebbed and she felt that she wasted that one chance. Now she was back in shackles—from one cage to another.

"You are a vampire," Auril said as if it was something bizarre. "Your skin is burning."