Hi stranger

ARIA'S POV;

"Don't cry for him. He's not worth it!" Doona yelled over the music, throwing her hands in the air as if to buttress her point.

Sitting in front of the bartender, with my eyes on the empty shots in front of me, I bit my lip, holding back my tears.

"Three years, Doona! He left me because he found his mate," I choked out, trying my best not to cry as loudly as I'd love to. It was hard trying to maintain my composure when my ex-boyfriend, who I'd been with for three years, left me or more like cheated on me after finding his mate.

It was hard to believe, knowing we'd both sworn to each other not to break up even after finding our mates.

It had all been going well not until this afternoon, when I had caught him with the lady who he called his mate, having a go at it.

Being twenty years old, I was still yet to find my mate whom I should have gotten at the age of eighteen. It was one of the reasons I had been in a relationship that long with my ex-boyfriend because we both didn't have it easy getting our mates early.

Thinking back to the plans I had made with him when we finally had to resume college in less than a week, the tears threatened to fall harder.

The loud music of the clubhouse drew me out of my thoughts and I focused my attention back to the present.

"Aria! Are you even listening to me? You need to go out there and dance away your sorrows!" Doona has been the supportive friend she's always been, she cheered, dragging my hand and pulling me to my feet.

The strong smell of booze, sweat and sex teased my senses, as I pushed my way to the crowd, up to the dance floor.

"Sorry!" I yelled loudly over the music, shaking my head from side to side in hopes of clearing the effect of the induced alcohol I had taken.

Soon, I was quick to lose myself, enjoying the loud music that blasted off the speakers, gyrating my hips to the beat, with my fingers trailing my exposed thigh.

I was far too gone to care about anything even the body that was starting to rock against my behind.

"Well, seems like you've found a partner for tonight! Go ahead and enjoy yourself!" Doona merrily laughed in my ear before walking away from me.

At this point, I was too disoriented to care about morals, turning around to look at the man who had one of his hands lazily hanging on my waist.

Turning to face him, my breath ceased in my throat, my senses coming together for a bit as I stared into those oddly colored orbs.

“Calm down, princess. You look like you've seen a ghost.”

I watched his red and full lips move in tandem as those words came out of him.

To me, they weren't just words but seduction that seemed to call me from the depths of my soul.

Even Cole, my ex-boyfriend, had never made me feel like this.

This stranger right here made me do things I never thought I'd be interested in.

His words made me want to get on my knees and lick the ground he was walking on.

Even with my sharp eyesight as a werewolf, I was finding it hard to properly deduce his features.

“So handsome!”

A throaty chuckle from him amidst the noise made me realize how I had said that aloud.

“Care for a drink?” Laughing softly, he asked again, while my eyes trailed every form of him.

“Take me to your bed,” I blurted out and almost immediately, mentally slapped myself for bringing out myself like a slut.

With my eyes still on him, his smile died down, only keeping his eyes on me which seemed to be pulling off every piece of clothing on my body.

For the first time since I stepped into the club, I was only realising how little I was wearing but rather than feeling uncomfortable from his stare, I was enjoying it.

The more we stared, the hotter it became until finally, he wrapped his hand around my wrist before pulling me behind him, taking me away from the main club, to one of the private rooms.

I was too disoriented to care much about anything and it wasn't until the noise around us reduced, and the nauseating smell of sex, sweat and booze vanished, did I realize we were now in one of the rooms.

With my back against the door and with the hot stranger standing in front of me, I had very little to think of.

He bent his head slightly, his fingers coming to rest on my chin before lifting it a bit.

“This is your last chance to take back those words. I won't stop if you ask me to. Now, decide,” he said with his breath fanning me.

Taking his scent into my nose only made me sure of my impulsive words.

Even if it was just for tonight, I wanted to let go of my sorrows and enjoy the company of this stranger!

“I'm not taking it back!” I resolutely said before standing on my toes and sealing my lips with his.

First, it was the tiny whispers, the tearing of clothes and then, the moans, screams of pleasure and groans with the night accompanying us.

I didn't know how much time had passed but the sound of my phone ringing had me scrambling up.

My head buzzed, immediately I used my hand to support it while I tried to remember what I might have involved myself in.

Turning to my side to see the unique man beside me, my memory was immediately juggled.

“Hello?” I whispered, answering the call from my mother.

The next second, from feeling giddy to feeling like my whole world had come crashing down felt like hell.

“I'll be there now,” I said, as the tears fell from my face, blurring my vision.

I scrambled down, putting on any clothes I could lay my hands on before sprinting out of the room, straight to the morgue, where I was told my father's corpse now laid.

Upon arriving there, the only ones who remained standing in front of the door were my mother and a neighbor, both with tears in their eyes.

“Aria! Your father is dead! He is dead! He left us,” my mother sobbed pitifully, her hair in disarray while our neighbor tried to comfort her.

I could feel the energy getting zapped out of me while I continued to force myself to process this information.

For so long, my father had been in the ICU, fighting for his life and just when I thought there was finally hope, I ended up getting a call that he had given up on fighting.

“Mom,” I sobbed, my bottom lip wobbling while I forced my feet to move towards her.

As soon as she was within arm's length, I crashed into her, crying my heart out while screaming;

“He shouldn't have! What are we going to do?” I cried and even still, I couldn't deny the fact that I had always thought of this. The what if that followed behind the intensive care of my late father.

“I phoned his only relative, his younger brother already, and he said he was going to be here,” our neighbor, Mrs. Laura, a middle-aged woman who had been giving emotional support said with a small sad smile.

Hearing this from her, my tears suddenly stopped.

I blinked my eyes repeatedly, trying to properly grasp what she had just said.

My dad's brother who is undeniably my uncle is going to be coming here? As far as I remember, there were never any relative for a long time, even before I was born.

My parents never talked about any of theirs and even when I and my mother needed support for my father's medical bills, given the fact that he was a human who ended up being mated to a werewolf, no one claiming to be related had stretched out a hand in support.

And, now that he was dead, a relative finally decided to show his face?

The thought of this made my anger rise from the depths of my soul, already plotting ways to have it out with my father's said younger brother.

The repeated buzzing of Mrs.Laura’s phone drew me out of my thoughts.

“He is outside the hospital already. Stay with your mother, I will go bring him in,” with a reassuring smile that said she knew exactly what I was going through, she said.

I nodded my head, holding my mother's hands together as we sobbed, mostly with me trying to console her even as tears fell from my face.

“Everything will be fine,” I assured, keeping a false smile on my face.

Finally, approaching footsteps reached my ears and I raised my head, my eyes first landing on Mrs. Laura before moving on to the person beside her.

The moment my eyes met purple ones, we both knew and had a mutual understanding about how we had messed up.

“Aria, this is your father's brother, your older uncle, you can call him Uncle Ronald.”

Oblivious to the tension between us, Mrs.Laura said.