CHAPTER FOUR

Jake 

The knock came quietly first and then there was silence. He quickly rushed downstairs as he knew who it was. The knock was louder and faster this time, but still he could not open because of fear. His hands suddenly start to tremble and his eyes water as he reached his hand towards the door knob. The man on the other side was furious now since he took so long in opening the door and hit the wall with all his strength making Jake flinch.

His body suddenly felt hot and sweat started trickling down his neck. He gripped the door knocked tightly and twist it. With every move he made, he got more and more terrified.

Why? He didn't know.

 His breath quickens as he heard the creaking of the door. Suddenly everything is silent and behind the door is whom he had expected. 

The man he had feared since his mother's demise.

His father.

He let out a sign of relief as he saw his father was drunk. At least it could be easier this night. All he had to do was to put his father to bed.

"You fool! What took you long huh?" His father asked as he pushed Jake, making him stumble.

"I am sorry papa, i was just doing something and did not know you were knocking" He lied as he bit his lips.

He looked up at his father again and found he was fainting. He quickly caught him before he fell. He helped him to his room and tucked him to bed. "At least the devil himself is asleep" He thought as he covered him with a blanket.

He then made his way back to the room and that was when he found the girl he brought home sitting down on the bed looking around.

And then their eyes met.

He could see wind-stirred waves in her eyes. If one were brave enough to enter their depths, all else would blur and you'd fall so deep in love that you'd choose to stay there, no matter what. Of that, he was completely sure.

He did not know what was happening to him but suddenly he felt the need to touch her.

To hold her.

To feel her.

To claim her.

To say that she was his.

He saw the girl step back. Why? He did not know. Seeing her step further and further away from him made him feel hurt?

Why?

But then she stood as if she was curious. And then she walked closer. Each step she took made his heart race faster. She stopped when she was in front of him and for some reason, the world seem to come to a standstill. He heard her whisper in either fear or excitement, she could not comprehend but what she said in utter whisper made him more confused than he ever was.

"Mate"

She said in her beautiful dulcet voice. For some reason it sounded so magical to Jake, so much that he knew he could stare at her all day just to hear her musically harmonious melodic voice.

"Mate?" She smiled as she called again, taking a step closer, so close that he could feel her breath on him. He could not take his eyes off her. She was just too beautiful.

So beautiful to be ignored.

The moons delicate light had just turned the world a-flame with silver when took another step further. Her Amazonian figure sat well on her wafer-thin body. She had a decanter shaped waist and her complexion had an impeccable, ochrous hue. Her pencil-thin eyebrows eased down gently to her black, beetle’s-leg eyelashes. A sculptor could not have fashioned her seraph’s ears and pixie’s nose any better.

When she broke into a smile, her beguiling, oyster-white teeth lit up the room. It could jolt a sans person like an electric current when that megawatt smile gave the person her full attention. Filed to perfection, her Venus-red fingernails ran through her purely golden hair. Spools of it plunged around her photogenic face and hid a swan’s neck, elegant and smooth. He loved her nebulous, Eden-green eyes which were a-sparkle with the ‘joie de vivre’. They were like two beryl-green jewels melted onto snow.

Her calamine-pink lips would taste like rose petals. It surprised him that they were plump and botox-boosted as she had a demure, timorous personality. She whispered to him in a dulcet voice as sweet as any songbird. Her voguish clothes still kept captive an aroma redolent of cinnamon and meadow-fresh mint. 

"Mate?" She called again, jilting him out of his thoughts. 

"N..no I am Jake not Mate" He said as he smiled at her, trying hard not to look at her body again.

"I like your name Mate, i am Amelia" She said as she smiled.

"Nice name Amelia. You smell nice" He said as he inhaled her scent once again, driving him crazy internally.

"And you too, you smell of strawberries and vanilla and it smells nice" She said as she in turn sniffed the air, trying to get enough of his scent.

"I do not smell like that" He said as he chuckled.

"You still smell nice"

"Where are you from? I saw you lying unconscious close to a tree and i carried you home. Hope you are ok now?" He asked as he stepped closer, his face portraying sorry and concern. He felt the dire urge to touch her, feel her.....

What the hell was wrong with him? He thought as he bit his lips trying not to touch her.

"It's the mate bond. Do not worry, you can touch me" She said as she smiled. And then she reached for his hand and touched her cheek, both of them feeling the electric sparks as the held hands.

"Mate bond?"

"You are handsome mate. I like you already" She confessed, unintentionally ignoring the question he asked as she dropped his hand and used her right hand to cupple his cheek.

"I do not know why or the reason why i feel this way but i want it to last longer. Why does being with you feel so different?" He whispered as he took her hands in his as he felt the sparks again.

"You are my mate and we are designed for each other. Right from my world the Creator pairs his creations with a mate, only i do not understand why he paired me with a human. Not that i do not want to be with you or i do not want you but i never thought i would find my mate here in the human world" She said as she lay her head on his shoulder and for some reason, he did not push her away instead, he used his right hand to push her closer, much closer.

Into his arms.

What the hell was wrong with him?

Why is he going so crazy over a girl a just met?

"Amelia" He called

"Yes?"

"What is going on? I do not understand" He said as he gently pushed her away and stared into her eyes.

"I am your mate Jake" She whispered as she snuggled into him closer, hugging him more tighter.

"You do not know how much i have waited for you. I have been locked for my whole life wishing and praying that My Prince Charming will come one day and rescue me. I never thought i would leave that prison but i am glad that i found you Jake"

"I love you" She whispered as she hugged him more tighter.

"And i do no want to lose you. I want to hold you, be in your arms and love you forever. I just want to be right here and never worry about anything, not even my cruel aunt or the people looking for me. I want to be with you" She said as a tear fell from her eyes and soon she was crying right on his shoulders.

She wept, hot tears soaked into his green top leaving damp evidence but the proof was evident on her body as she was shaking; crying was hard to hide. He gently asked, "Are you ok?"

But she did not answer as she cried in his arms. He did not know why it hurt to hear her cry, neither did he know why it hurt to see her so sad. He was angry at the fact that she was crying and he felt the urge to kill those people who had hurt her so much like this.

He had to comfort her.

He had to comfort his angel.

"Hey hey I'm here now, I'm here for you. No one is going to hurt you because i am here" He said as he bugged her tighter, trying to console her.

"Everybody hates me......"

"I will never hate you"

"I am just unfortunate......."

"You can never be"

"I feel like killing myself......"

"Then i will die with you"

"Everybody hates me.....

"But i love you" He whispered as he pulled her away from him gently and removed some stands of hair from her face and smiled at her.

"I do not know why i feel this odd but i know in my heart that i could never ever live without you, because i love you. When I see you, it's as if space and time become the finest point imaginable, as if time collapses into one tiny speck and explodes at light speed. It's as if my universe begins and ends with you. I could run forever, search forever, but in the end, every path leads right back to your heart and soul" 

Amelia's pov

Amelia smiled as she traced his lip lightly with the tip of her finger. It pouts slightly, and she suddenly have the urge to bite it, to kiss it, to wrap him and her up in a quilt and listen to their gentle breathing, watching the cotton ripple like skipping stones and sharing crooked smiles. His lip feels slightly chapped under her feather light touches but she simply cannot bring herself to give a damn. She gaze so intently at each divot of that lip, as if it could map out ancient seas and college plans and tell her everything she did not know. And she did not want to look up. Because if she looked up, she might find herself at the mercy of questioning eyes, pleading, begging to know what she was doing, and she was not at liberty to say because she simply did not know. She loved him so much. She cannot form anything with her lips because she was so focused on his.

Then the memory passes, her eyes seeing once more, hee ears hearing the here and now. She wished she had known just how painful her fixation on his lip would be, because loving the rest of him was torture, and sometimes she looked back and wondered if she could have even stopped herself, warned herself away from such elegant heartbreak. Would she have even listened?

Or would the slight tickle of your breath expelling from that goddamn lip cause her words to stick to her throat, plastering themselves to her trachea and refusing to dispel into the palpable air. And the silence would have carried on forever and ever, until they dispersed into dust and scattered ourselves between remains of atoms of an age long gone - until a time she might hear her voice echo through the nothing.

"I am tired" She said as she leaned on him yet again as if she belonged there.

She did belong there.

"Come on, get some sleep" He said as he left her room the bed and helped her on it. She could not hold herself from holding him because now it seemed she had gotten used to him.

"So what you say about the mate bond and everything, if it is true then i am glad you were chosen to be my mate" He said as he snuggles into her, sniffing her scent.

"Me too"

"You still have not told me where you are from" 

"I will tell you later, please get some sleep, you must be tired"

And there his smile lingered till he fell asleep and it disappeared as soon as he found out she was gone.

"Amelia"

He whispered her name as he looked around the room, but she was not there. He got up and ran out of his room, checking if she was anywhere in the house. Every nook and cranny he searched, but still no Amelia.

Thankfully, his father was away so if she was around the house then he would find her. 

"Where has she gone to?"

"Is she ok?"

"Is she fine?" His worry paved way for those questions in his head. 

He looked outside his house but still no sign of Amelia. He scratched his hair in both fear and worry as he walked inside the house. The fear thoughts looped around in his mind until there was no room for anything else.

Where was she?

Did she run away?

Did she leave him?

There was no way she could leave him, he was her mate. He could not be without her.

Why is that? Is there part of him that dislikes to see her happy when she is miserable?  Perhaps this is her way of returning to the feelings she is most comfortable with, her chance to dwell in pain and pessimism once more. Why could she not come with me to happiness without throwing another spanner in the works. There are only so many times a person can break this heart - one day it'll heal all wrong, 

Heal with her on the outside.

He could not live without her.

His slender fingers pressed into the skin of his forearms, nails biting in the layer of fine dust, drawing beads of blood. His whole body shook, bones rattling in the constant fear of the future that loomed before him. Heart pounding so hard against his ribcage as his pulse pressed outward, jerking the veins within. What loomed before the fear, was trailed behind made him sad and in no way could he stay rooted in the present when the time would just push ahead.

Did she run away?

Did she really run away from him? Why? Was he not good enough for her? She confessed she loved him and was ever willing to be with him no matter what, only to wake up early morning to see the person he had promising future with......gone.

She was gone.

His heartbreak is grief that comes in waves, gruelling, stealing appetite and sleep alike. It is a shard in his guts that never leaves, though perhaps in time the edges will dull. This heartbreak feels cold. It feels like concrete drying in my chest. This heartbreak was unexpected, as they always are - top of the world one minute and cut down the next.

It feels like death just the same as bereavement and in quiet moments it chokes the breath from his body and short circuits his mind. What was once whole is shattered; where once was peace is emptiness, echoes of a love had only just put his everything into. 

"Please come back, i can't stand an hour without you. The mate bond is so strong, so intoxicating. I would do anything you want but please come back.....Amelia" He said as he burst into tears. 

Tears of pain.

Amelia's pov.

Her heart melted as she watched him crying. She could not bear to see him cry, but what could she do? Everyone was looking for her, she could not just sit down and do nothing. He would be hurt if she stays, and that alone is much worse than leaving him.

She could feel his emotions, being that of pain and heartbreak. She could not hold it anymore as she watched him from his window.

"I'm sorry" She whispered as she turned and flew away, as fast as she could into the forest. Oh! how her heart hurts. She bit her lips as she collapsed on the ground.

She sobbed.

It was more than crying, it was the kind of desolate sobbing that comes from a person drained of all hope. She sank to her knees at the middle of nowhere, not caring for the damp mud that dirtied her dress. 

Her heart longed for him.

Her body yearned for him.

She knew she could not last without him, but she loved him too much to see him hurt. She knew of the myth, and she knew that the Creator had paired her with a King.

The Ice King.

Her tears mingled with the rain and her gasping wails echoed around the gravestones. The pain that flowed from her was as palpable was the frigid fall wind and soon the only person at her side was her husband, struggling to keep his tears silent, looking up to the watery skies and heaven beyond. There was no way she could risk his life. She had to fight this battle herself and come back after she had defeated them hopefully.

Of course she would come back for him.

He was her King and her mate.

She would do anything to protect him.

And if she fails she would have to wait for another five hundred years. Another five hundred years of hibernation and suffering. Five hundred years till she could see him again. This increased her cries the more. It was so painful to assume the worse.