The Battle of Wills | Gay MxM |

7. Escape Art

-Adrian-

"Where the fuck is he?" I growled. "I can't even smell him!"

"Well of course you can't! He just shapeshifted!" Wendell said angrily.

I knew why I couldn't smell him, but Wendell was such a know-it-all that he just had to open his annoying mouth.

"I know that!" I hissed at him, but Wendell just rolled his eyes and opened a door on our left and peered in.

"He will start to smell sooner or later," I said. "Then I'll find him."

"Unless he keeps changing forms," Wendell spoke and closed the door again. "Then his scent keeps resetting."

It was the sweat and dander and bacteria and every other smell that caused the problem – or the lack of them to be precise. Every time Micah shapeshifted, his new form was sterile, meaning that he didn't have a trace of any kind of smell in him. If he stayed long enough in one form, he would start to sweat, and pick up different scents from places where he walked. But so far I couldn't smell him over my half-burnt house.

There was another downside to his shapeshift.

"I drank him dry. He got electrocuted to the point where he couldn't even breathe. Then he fought with the magical restraints, almost killing himself," I muttered in fury. "And now he's playing hide and seek with us."

"Yeah, well, all that happened to his human form," Wendell spoke quietly and opened yet another door of the long hallway. "His lynx form never suffered from it. That's why he's still alive."

I pursed my lips and continued walking. Micah was lucky that his survival instincts had kicked in, even when he was unconscious. Fatally injured demons started their transformation to save their hides – it didn't matter if they were conscious anymore, because their magical and demonic instincts were so strong that their bodies acted on their own.

And that was why it was hard to kill a demon. They were hard enough to kill, with their incredible healing abilities – even us vampires didn't heal that fast - but if they managed to change their form, it was nearly impossible. Transforming into a new body healed their wounds and recharged their energy, so they were ready to flee in mere seconds.

Something that Wendell and I both forgot.

I let out a deep sigh. My house was big, and my lands were even bigger, and I had always loved the space, but right now it was just another enemy. Micah could be hiding anywhere! Lynxes weren't big cats, so he could be hiding under one of my many beds for all I knew. The golden necklace was designed to shrink or grow bigger with the transformation, so Micah couldn't get it off. It would be surprising if the demon was stupid enough to try to leave my territory, even though it would have been really helpful.

"I'm going to sleep," I said and stopped to a halt. "I'm so done right now."

"I don't think that we can find him right now," Wendell sighed with a nod. "Hid your food and –"