"Don't you have a home to return to?" I ask once again, wanting to be away, alone for just once, to gather these muddled thoughts of mine. But my stranger mate was making it impossible to do so. He even took like a fraction of a second to clean out of his bloodied self. I mean who does that. Insane, he was.

"I am home Althea." And here he goes again. He smiles, eyes twinkling, a bright glimmer now replaced his tired look from hours ago. "You are my home."

And here I thought Alex was bad. But where was that boy anyways?

He had been out of my sight since the moment Aries, as he calls himself, arrived, but I know that he was around. I could feel his presence far away but close enough. If I tried harder, I could find him, but this man in front of me was taking away all my patient and hence my focus.

Being around him made me feel-

I sigh out. I don't know what he makes me feel. I don't know this feeling. He calls me his and I do feel this connection, I do, trust me, it was loud and clear, he made it so. But-but what I don't get is his behaviour, his actions towards me, he pretends to know me, and the scary part is he really does seem to know me. And it just makes me step back a little cause I don't know him like he does me.

Or do I?

There's something heavy in my heart. I know it knows too but I just- I still cannot hear it and it kills me not knowing what secrets it holds.

I stare into those blue, those eyes that I only ever saw in my dreams until this morning. Those eyes that spoke to my heart. Those eyes that I never thought I will ever get to see once I walk into the reality. I thought I would get all the answers if- once I meet its owner.

And here he was.

Dashing. Brilliant. Inhumane. Everything that made my heart flutter and my senses wild. But I still don't know anything. His sweet smile melts my heart. His loving glance lifts my soul. And most of all his touch lights up my entire body in flames. It makes me senseless to the point that I can't see anything else and creates a puddle of my thoughts.

He was a sin that my heart was ready to commit.

"Just who are you really?" I ask him again for the untempt time as I stare deep into his eyes.

He steps forward until he's nose to nose with me, his eyes never leaving mine. "I'm Aries, Althea, your mate. I'm yours. All of me." And he replies the same. Again. For the untempt time.

His nose brushes against mine, and the sweet current zaps me again. "And I'll be with here with you till the end of my time. Tell me otherwise and I won't listen." A corner of his lip lifts up, lightning up that handsome face even more and I fall for him jut as much, more.

"You are so beautiful." His hand hovers over my face, desperate to touch, to feel but he holds himself back, just satisfied to be just near me. But I wasn't so.

I wanted him to feel his touch. I wanted to feel that spark again.

"I really don't get you." I breathe out those words, barely able to hold myself together, mesmerised by those blue. "You don't have to, Althea. Just- just don't push me away please." He brings his head down and places it on top of mine, sucking my breath away.

My heart was in shambles and I know he heard that, the beating of my heart as it drums crazily. "I have waited long. For you. If you push me away, I don't think I will be able to survive this time." His knuckles finally comes in contact with my cheeks, just a light touch but it was all it took to knock my breath away.

"Why?" I shallow hard. "Why did you wait for me? Why do you know me even though we have never met before? Why do I feel like there's so much more that I don't know?"

I can see the struggles in his eyes, hear the strain of his voice, the pain. "Because I pushed you away many times. I hurt you knowingly and unknowingly. I- I" He closes his eyes for a brief second. "You left me, and I let you leave."

"I don't know what you are talking about. I have never met you in my life-" I close my own eyes and shake my head, leaning a little further away but he cups my cheeks and once again connects our forehead together.

"Not this life, we haven't met. But the one before and the one before that, we have. We have met through time. Your soul knows me. And I, yours-"

I continue shaking my head, unable to believe his words any longer, the stories he was making up. "You are crazy. None of what you are saying makes sense to me. I get that we are mates but why are you weaving lies, just tell me the truth. Do you know me from someone? Or have you been following me around, stalking me? Because that seems more believable than what you are saying right now."

"I'm not lying Althea. Please trust me. We have met before in your previous lives-" Biting my lips hard, I grab his wrist and pull his hands off my face. "Stop. Just stop please."

And immediately he lets go. He takes a step back, leaving me by myself, empty, a little hurt.

I never felt this alone before. He wasn't even far, just within my grasp, just a stretch of my arm and I could feel him. But the absence of his touch made me feel so... abandoned?

I look back at the empty space and a lonely tear rolls down my eyes unable to bear this void he created, that I created. I want him back. I want to feel his touch. I miss him. I miss you.

"It's okay. It's okay. I will stop. It was all a lie. I made up lies. We never met before. You are right, I have been following you. So, please stop crying. Please don't cry. Please just look at me. I'm sorry. Just please..."

His words were meant to cure the wound, but it only hurts me even more. It pains me to hear him beg. It pains my heart to hear his cries. "You want me to leave?" Immediately my eyes flies over to him and more tears cascades down the valley of my cheeks.

No.

Scared, he takes a further step back. His blue eyes flickering in worry. "I will leave, but please don't cry." His own expression looks pained as he takes one more step back and another.

"Please Althea."

"No..."

I finally manage to whisper but it was enough to stop him from taking another step back, I know he heard me loud and clear. "Do you want me to leave, Althea?"

No. I did not.

I don't want you to leave me. I want you to hold me. I want you to stay with me. Please don't leave me.

I bite my trembling lips and slowly turn my head side to side. And just like that, I'm engulfed into his warm embrace. He holds me tight and places kisses on top of my head as I bury my face deep into the crook of his neck.

"I'm sorry." But it only makes me sob louder.

I wonder when I became this weak. Just pathetic.

"Tell me a story."

I lay sideways on my bed, watching his golden hair shine through the night, as he sits on the floor, leaning on the bed. I was still reluctant to let go of him, in fear that he might really leave. So, I hold him where my eyes can see, right in front of me. 

"What do you want to hear?" And I just love the sound of his voice. I want to hear more.

"Anything..." His disarrayed hair now looks clean and soft, tempting me to run my wild fingers through those locks, but I form a tight fist and hold back, moving my eyes away from them only to that perfectly lined jaw and its sensual movement as he speaks.

"Do you want to hear a story of the most beautiful goddess and her stupid wolf mate?" I nod my head and whisper. "Yes?"

I hear a light chuckle before he clears his throats and starts to tell their story but not before the corner of his lips curve upwards as he smiles probably reminiscing in them once more.

"Once there lived a ruthless Alpha, powerful, fierce and mercilessly cruel. The smell of rogues made his blood boil, a sighting of one and the rouge would not see the daylight again. But so, happens that one day, a rogue manages to enter his land, says she came for her mate. Furious hearing that a rogue still breaths while on his land, he goes to her in hopes to annihilate her like he did the rest.

But the moment he lays his eyes upon her, he could do nothing but fall deep into the pool of blackness, her eyes held. She was the most stunning woman he had ever seen. Her beauty parallel to the goddess. And he was ignorant to the truth because like him, she was both powerful, fierce but unlike him, she was kind, gentle and loving. She indeed was a goddess."

I see the shine in his eyes as he talks about her. I see the love in them, hear the fondness in his voice and it somehow makes my heart burn a little. But I continue to hear him exhale and watch him shake his head a little and instantly I feel better, for those little movements, the sound of his breath, the presence of his existence, I was starting to fall hard for.

"The goddess was cruel when she gave her only daughter to him. She knew how much he despised rogues, but she still paired him with one. Maybe she thought that having a goddess as his mate will change him and the way he thought.

Time passed by and unknowingly he started looking her way, his eyes searched her, while his wolf desperate to take a claim over his mate. And soon he does accept her into his life, but everything falls apart, the day he finds the body of his brother, his only family that he had left, lifeless by his door and even more so when he hears of the lies, she spewed of. And as heartbroken as he was, he was even more of a fool when he rejects her, pushes her away, blames her for his misfortune."

Somewhere along the story, my heart squeezes a little. It was just a story, but he tells them with such a depth, so much pain as if he was reliving a past, as if he was telling a story of his own.

"A war breaks, and still, she comes to his aid. He wins the war but ends up losing his soul. He finds the truth a little too late. The mate he rejected was no other than a goddess herself, she returns his little brother as an apology for breaking his trust and gives a blessing to find another love as she ascends back to heaven..."

A tear escapes the corner of my eye and runs past the bridge of my nose. "What happens next?"

He turns around to look at me and immediately kneels just where my head lays as he cups my cheeks, wiping the tears off my face. "I'm sorry." I shake my head and hold his wrist. "I want to hear more."

He leans down and places a light kiss on my forehead before he settles down again, but this time looking straight at me. "She keeps her promise." A gentle smile takes over his face as his thumb lightly caresses my cheek. "She sends this-this small blessing to him. She was this tiny little thing. She was so pure, utterly beautiful, she was his mate, but he could never accept her."

"Why?"

"I told you, he was fool. He so hoped for his real mate to return that when she truly did, he failed to really see past her layer. He failed to listen to his heart. And so, he lost her again."

His voice so faint, so soft, like a lullaby, it drives me into a dreamland. My eyes flutter close as I fall under the hypnosis of those soft caresses. But I wanted to hear its ending. It can't just end like that. He sounded too pitiful like that. How cruel must the goddess be to leave him all alone? So, broken?

No matter how stupid he was, he was crazy in love. Wasn't that enough?

I want to hear its ending, but he stops it there. "Tell me..."

More...

"Then he waits all eternity for her to return again..."

But as I fall deeper into my sleep, his words reaching not past my ears, I think to myself, if love doesn't win, what was the point of hearing its ending, I would be just happy making up my own. A happy ending for the stupid wolf that falls mercilessly in love with his little goddess.

And they both live happily ever after in a world of their own...