'cause I can't help it if you look like an angel / can't help it if I wanna kiss you in the rain, so / come feel this magic I've been feeling since I met you / can't help it if there's no one else / mmm, I can't help myself

After a while, I ended up falling asleep, and by the time I woke up, my whole body was aching. I stretched my body before I slowly rose to my feet. I pulled my phone out of my pocket and realized that it was four in the morning. My throat was on fire and I was feeling a little hungry, so I decided to head to the kitchen downstairs. Yet as I unlocked my door and swung it open, I was taken aback by the sight of Ryker sitting on the floor, his head resting on his bent knees and his back was on me. He was asleep.

Using a flick of my hand, I used my power to grab the blanket off my bed, then I placed it carefully around him. It must be chilly here and even though I was annoyed at him, I still didn't want him to get sick. Carefully, I walked around him and quietly made my way downstairs. I found some frozen bagels and popped them into the microwave.

Once I was done eating, I made my way upstairs again, but when I walked past Ryker's figure for the second time, his hand caught my calf and I nearly jumped.

"Oh gosh, you scared me!" Thank goodness I hadn't kicked him.

"I'm sorry," he muttered as he held the blanket and stood. He groaned as his muscles protested. "Look, you should go to bed. We can talk tomorrow." He started to move towards his own room when I surprised myself by prompting him from doing so. Ryker's silver eyes gazed down and stared at my hand, which was still holding his wrist. I quickly let it go and looked away, hiding my blush. "What is it?" he asked, his voice calm.

"I need to talk to you about something." I rubbed my arms up and down with both hands. It was cold out here, but I knew I couldn't possibly invite him into my room. Not with what had happened last night.

He seemed to notice my discomfort as he gave me a nod. "How about we go to my room? I can make you a cup of tea."

I frowned. "You have a teapot in your room?" I asked incredulously.

"Of course I do," he answered nonchalantly. "We Brits could hardly survive without tea." Then, as if he knew my hesitation, he added, "We can leave the door open if that makes you feel more comfortable."

"Okay." I followed him to his room and true to his words, he had a teapot, some cups, and saucers, as well as tin boxes which I assumed contained tea leaves. I sat on the sofa as I watched him put the tea leaves and pour some water into the electronic teapot, then let it brew.

Ryker took a seat diagonally across from mine as if he could tell that I was not comfortable being close to him. He probably thought I found him repulsive now, but I wasn't about to tell him otherwise. No, that wasn't why I wanted to talk to him.

"About that dream, where you," I cleared my throat, this still felt odd to say this, "you killed me, did we have sexual intercourse leading to that?"

His silver eyes widened in shock. Then he blinked twice. "Yes. How did you know?"

"Because I had a similar dream a few nights ago except that—" Gosh, how was I supposed to say this without causing a misunderstanding?

"Except what?" he asked softly. "You can tell me anything, Xyrra, and I wouldn't judge you for it."

"Except that in my dream, I was the killer." I took a sharp intake of breath. "I killed you. Or it was an older version of you. I'm not sure, but he looked so much like you yet at the same time he didn't." I looked away. I couldn't meet his eyes after telling him this. I let my eyes wander about his room. For a guy, his room was quite neat and clean. His bed was made. Every book was placed on the shelves, although there were two which were laying on his desk. He probably was still reading those. I squinted my eyes, trying to figure out what he was reading, and that was when my eyes caught the photo on the frame next to it.

I stood straight so fast that my knees were protesting, but I ignored it as I strolled to his desk and grabbed the frame. "This. This guy was the one in my dream."

Ryker's face paled. He looked like he had just seen a ghost right now. "That's impossible."

"Actually, I have a good photographic memory. I can't be wrong when it comes to faces." I glanced at the photo on the frame one more time and knew for sure that I was right. "This guy was the one in my dream."

"But that's my brother."

Which made perfect sense why he looked like Ryker but had older facial features and seemed to be more mature.

"How come you dreamt of killing my brother? He's already dead."

It was a relief that he didn't immediately accuse me of murdering his older brother, because I had another thing coming for him. "I'm not the killer, Ry." I shook my head. "I thought I was but then after the killing, I walked to the bathroom to clean myself and—" I inhaled a long breath, knowing that this was the difficult part because this was the part where I actually would accuse someone and given what had happened last night, this could be misinterpreted wrongly. "I looked at the mirror and it wasn't my face staring back at me. It was Alana's."

The teapot whistled, informing us that the tea was fully boiled, but none of us moved. We continued to stare at each other, our gazes holding one another. I was the first to break eye contact and turn off the electric teapot. "I know it doesn't make sense, and maybe that dream doesn't mean anything." I carefully walked toward him, but still did not touch him because I didn't know how he would react.

Then I realized that I was not afraid of him. He may be able to turn into a giant werewolf, but I was not the mere human I had been a month ago. I had this magical power and if he tried to do anything violent to me, I could always slam the teapot on his head or something. Plus, I still remembered all the fighting moves that my dad and Eros had once taught me. For the first time since I'd found out that werewolves and supernatural beings existed, I believed in myself again and what I was capable of.

So when I took a step towards him and touched his arm with my hand, I wasn't afraid. "Hey, are you alright?"

His eyes looked up and met mine. Although there was confusion and other emotions mixing in his silver eyes, his questions were crystal clear. "What else happened in that dream? Besides the sex and the killing?"

"At the beginning of the dream, I—well, Alana, was standing in the hallway. She was nervous, so she counted from one to twenty to calm herself down. Then your brother—"

"Walker," he provided the name.

"Yes, Walker came over and touched her shoulder. He called her 'Bubbles' or something and said that he's been looking for her, that they needed to talk."

Ryker's face turned grim. "What did he call her again?"

"I believe it was 'Bubbles'. It could be something that rhymed with that, but I misheard it — why?" I frowned, not sure why this even mattered.

He closed his eyes briefly, inhaling a deep breath. When he finally reopened his eyes, I could see hurt and pain, and realization in his eyes. "That's what he called her. That's what my brother always called her. It's a—" he took another sharp breath, his jaw tightened. "Growing up, she likes to tie her hair, pigtails — I think that's what it's called, like the blonde in some kids' cartoon show or something. And her favorite color is bright blue, so Walker always teased her about it and called her 'Bubbles', the name of the character." He shook his head. "I can't believe this." He calmed himself down and asked, "Please continue with your story. Tell me what you experience in that dream."

And so I did. I told him everything without leaving any details. I told him what Alana had said in that dream, and what Walker had said, too. I let him know that his brother had been hurting and torn because of Alana's indecisiveness, not wanting to choose between Walker and Ryker. Then I informed him that Alana had told Walker that she'd decided to choose Walker and not Ryker. I even told him about the sex scene and how Alana had used Walker's weakest moment to strike, taking him out when he'd still been in ecstasy from orgasm. I didn't hold back on anything. I laid everything out in the open and let him be the judge of it instead of doing it for him. His face grew hard, and his jaw and fist tightened as the story progressed. I knew it was hard for him to hear all of this, but I refused to omit any scene or any word just to save his feelings. He needed to know everything, the whole truth.

"I felt a single tear slipping out of the corner of her eye when she knew that he's—" I swallowed, "that he's gone. Her heart nearly stopped when she noticed the look on Walker's face. He had that sad smile on his face. It seemed that he knew what she was going to do to him." My own tears slid down my cheeks and I looked up when I felt Ryker's knuckles wiping my tears away. "He knew that her choosing him was too good to be true, Ry," I sobbed, shaking my head. It almost felt like I was Alana once again and had to relive that horrible dream. "At last, she shifted but only her head, and she, um, tore his heart out using her teeth and spat it out on the floor by the bed."

I cried even though I didn't know Walker, and I felt Ryker's tears on top of my head as he held me. It was so painful, the betrayal was too painful to bear. I couldn't even imagine doing that to another person, let alone someone who was supposed to be your soulmate. Even though I didn't believe in soulmates, Alana did and Walker was hers. Seeing how well he had understood her, I couldn't deny that there truly was a bond between them, a bond between soulmates. It made me wonder if there was one between Ryker and me.

We remained quiet for a full ten minutes. I let all the information I'd laid on him sink in. After a moment, out of curiosity, I looked up, meeting his eyes, and asked, "Do you believe me?"

"Of course I do," he answered almost immediately. There was a defensive note in his voice, almost as if he couldn't believe that I'd had the need to even ask.

"Because I'm supposedly your mate?" I asked again. "Or because I told you about the 'Bubbles' thing?"

"That 'Bubbles' thing is not a secret. And yes, I trust you, partly but not mainly, because you're my mate." He shook his head, his eyes holding me steady. "But I believe you mostly because I know who you are — because you're you and call me crazy, but my heart tells me that you are someone I could trust."

"So you don't think I'm making this up?"

Ryker gave me a small smile, but his eyes were still sad. "That's what trusting you mean."

"I am really sorry, though. And like I said, it's just a dream. A nightmare. I don't even know why I dreamt of being Alana."

He was quiet for some time. "What happened that day? The day you had that dream?"

I winced. "I punched Alana because she slapped me."

"I had mine after we met that sorceress," he said, more to himself.

"Do you think our dreams are related?"

"I don't know, but it could be. Besides some of the words that—" his jaw tightened, and it took a second for him to bring himself to carry on with his sentence, "what my brother said in your dream was more or less what I said to you in my dream. Maybe the message is the same, but just the way of informing us is different."

"Maybe," I agreed. It was a mystery why we'd dreamt more or less the same thing, but the people in his dream and mine were different. Then something clicked in my mind. I knew I had the superpower and perhaps somehow when I had punched Alana, my power had allowed me to get a grasp of her most memorable memory, thus why I'd dreamt about her killing Walker. That would explain my dream, but it still didn't explain Ryker's. The key to figuring out what his dream meant would be that sorceress. He'd said to himself that he had the dream after we'd met the sorceress. "I think I know what happened."

Ryker looked at me expectantly, waiting for me to further elaborate what I meant.

"I can't tell you right now because then there won't be any evidence. So first, I need you to trust me. We need to find that sorceress again, Ry. That's how I will know for sure." We would be able to tell what the sorceress actually had done to Ryker, what vision she'd conjured up to him — whether it was real or it was something that she'd tampered with.

"Okay," he said after a short while. "We can try talking to Adelina in the morning."

I nodded in agreement, but then he added, "We need to bring Dmitry with us. After what happened last time, I'm not taking any chances. I'm not going to let her hurt you."

"Well, we might not need to bring Dmitry," I drawled. Ryker frowned. His eyes were looking at me, confused. "This might put your mind at ease." I braced myself as I was about to reveal one thing that I had not told anyone before, the thing that Miles had found out, and I'd to use compulsion on him. Ryker had said, that if we wanted whatever this was to work, we needed to be honest with each other so I lifted my hand and twirled my wrist, summoning enough power that I had a ball of red smoke floating in the air above my palm. "Ryker, I don't think I'm just a human."

His silver eyes widened to the point where I'd once thought was not possible. He stared at the ball of red smoke while his mouth kept opening and closing as if he wanted to say something but at the same time couldn't while his mouth kept opening and closing as if he wanted to say something but at the same time couldn't. I seriously thought I'd never be able to stun a werewolf, but it seemed that I could. He closed his eyes and rubbed them with his knuckles.

"It's real, Ry," I assured him. "And it's not going to disappear anytime soon. Well," I shrugged, "until I made it disappear."

"What is that?" he asked, then turning his gaze from the ball of red smoke to me. His eyes locked with mine and I was worried I might see fear in there, that he might be scared of me, but instead, all I saw was confusion and surprise.

"I have some kind of power," I started. It was quite difficult, especially when my knowledge of it was quite limited. "It allows me to pick up things, so I'm guessing it's telekinetic and sometimes it can explode light bulbs too. I still don't know how it works because it just happened when I was upset. Anyway, it brought me to the next thing it could do, which is to convince people of something — kinda like a compulsion." I tried to recall what it could do again, but then I quickly added, "I've never used it on you or anyone but I, um, once used it on Miles. Not on purpose. I was just telling him that I'm not a witch and all of a sudden this red smoke appeared and he believed me and forgot about what had happened. That's how I found out about that power."

"Okay," he answered with a slow nod.

A few lines of doubt appeared on my forehead as I was trying to grasp his reaction. One part of me felt that I would not be able to take it if he truly was scared of what I'd become — of what I was now. "Are you afraid?"

"No." His voice was stern and filled with absolute certainty. Ryker shook his head. "It's just that this is a lot to take in." He reached out and took my hand. "But to answer your question, no, I'm not afraid of you."

"Really?" I tilted my head to one side, then with a flick of my hand, I made the ball of red smoke disappear. "Even when I have the kind of power that could be bad if it's in the hands of an evil person?"

Ryker's thumb caressed my cheek softly as his unwavering silver gaze was continuously holding mine. "Yes. How could I be afraid of you when I like you so damn much?"

I lifted my shoulders. "Well, I am still not convinced that you like me, especially since you kissed Alana a few hours ago." Being this close to him, my body wanted to sway closer until we touched, but I fought hard against that urge. Instead, I stood where I was and curled my fingers into a fist so they wouldn't be tempted to touch him. "I'm sorry. I know you explained yourself, but it's just me. Like I said, I don't trust people easily but I'm trying."

Electric chemistry crackled around us, and I could feel him inching his way toward me. "I admit that I did kiss her. But even when I kissed her, all I could think about was kissing you. All I ever wanted was to kiss you." His warm hand cupped the side of my face and his hot gaze dropped to my mouth. His desire to kiss me was apparent and matched my own. Then he dragged his gaze back to my eyes. His darkening silver eyes held me for what felt like a long period before he asked gently, "May I?"

If he kissed me right away just to claim my lips and sate his desire, I would probably shove him off me again but when he'd actually hold his urges back, asked me first, and looked at me with those pleading eyes, almost as if he desperately needed that kiss — as if he needed it as much as he needed air to breathe, I couldn't say no. I couldn't keep lying to myself and telling myself that I didn't want to kiss him. In the end, I convinced myself by saying that it could be just a simple kiss for me, but it could mean a lot to him.

So I nodded, then breathed out a soft "Yes". Right after I'd said that, I wasn't sure that it would be 'just a simple kiss' for me either. But before I could fully change my mind, his mouth descended on mine and the rest was history.

88888888

Dear Readers, does your excitement mirror mine? ;)