Aries

Aries POV: ripped apart

I opened my eyes to see Varian staring at me through the rear-view mirror and Miguel blatantly staring at me. Though there was a hint of a smile on their lips, their eyes told me a very different story. Inferno raged behind one and electricity crackled behind another.

Out of respect that they were Lyra's pack members, I did not read their minds, but I did not have to read their minds to know what was going on there. As much as these two idiots were my friends, and knew that if they fought me, it would end in a one-sided victory, they would nonetheless challenge me if I was just playing with their Alpha.

They were like mother elephants who would allow their calf to roam wherever it wanted, but if it was in danger, the mother would rush there to save its kid.

I blinked. There had been many instances where I had been threatened. Most of the time it was because they had either underestimated me or overestimated themselves. Rarely it was because they knew they had the substance to fight me and I was being a jerk.

But this... for some reason, there was an unexplainable warmth in my chest. Like knowing that these people would go to River of Souls and beyond for Lyra.

Lyra was not just their Alpha. She was someone old enough to be their daughter.

I laughed. "I love her. And if everything goes fine, I would like to be her mate. Happy?"

Miguel blinked as if I told him the most shocking news he had ever heard while Varian smiled and put away his hostility.

"You?" Miguel yelled after a minute. "You love her?"

I caressed the bracelet again. "Yes. You have a problem?"

He shook his head fast. "It's just that... of all the years I know you, you have never-"

I knew what he was going to say. "It was in the past."

"Bullshit."

"She makes my soul dance to her tune. I have seen the beginning of many worlds and I have seen the end of much more, but even in the face of origin and the last destruction, nothing was more fascinating than her smile." I smiled, remembering the way her brown eyes shone when she saw something she truly liked. Her eyes were not just the shade of the darkest honey under the sun, it had a tease of cassiterite. "She is my reason."

Miguel grinned while Varian just smirked. As much as they were not the ones with who I first gained consciousness, they were people I could call my friend. Not the ones who would be humming my tune all the time, but someone who I know that despite many threats they would pick up my call at the middle of the night.

"She may be your reason, Aries," Miguel said after he turned the music on. "But she is our Alpha. She comes first."

"I expect nothing less."

The eel-shifter nodded. "Good."

As we reached the junction between earth and space, there was a faint buzz in my head. Varian had stopped the car and was frowning at the huge crater ahead of us.

Though this was a very common thing, a normal thing, when Lyra did it for the first time, euphoria lit up in me. She worked the bond from her side. Did she even know what it meant?

A-Aries, she called out with hesitation.

Yes? I replied immediately.

I... I feel that something bad is going to happen, she said.

What?

As much as I could brush it off as anxiety, I knew better. Stars and creatures of space were very sensitive to the environment. Not just the physical environment, even the abstract. Time. For creatures like us who roamed between time, not respecting the laws or the boundaries the universe mandated for others, we got a sense of what would happen in the near future.