Long fingers combed through the dark, messy locks of my bedhead hair, and recently sharpened coffin shaped nails skimmed along my hard skull and scraped against the thick skin gently.

Her soft murmuring was the only thing I could hear besides the ending credits of The Lion King one and a half, "Yes, she's sleeping right now. She passed out halfway through the movie, and I didn't exactly have the heart to wake her. I have this feeling that something happened before I came over."

I listened in on her conversation as my ears burned with curiosity, hearing Max's low rumble of a voice coming through the phone, but not being able to make out his exact words. However, Viviana's response was enough for me to connect the dots, "What do you mean by 'he kept trying to leave shifting territory'? There are laws now about that, to keep humans safe and not afraid, did nobody think to tell him?"

Her scratching stopped as she rested the palm of her soft hand against my forehead, tenderly sweeping away my many baby hairs. "I'm sure he'll get used to it soon, hopefully, but do you really think that's the only reason why he was heading towards that part of the non-shifting area of the woods?"

Silence was even louder than his questioning mumbles of something that sounded a lot like 'it's five in the morning, I can't think right this early'. Viviana let out a long, and clearly disappointed, sigh, "Max, there's a certain trail that connects from a place in the shifting area to a certain path that a certain someone has to walk on every day to get home, are you catching my drift or no?"

"Well, I'm thinking that he wanted to see her, and he just couldn't stop himself, or his wolf, from trying to get at her again, " Viviana concluded with a knowing hint in her voice, and then started her explanation with something that seemed so clear, yet wasn't at the same time, "I mean, come on, full moon, first shift since like forever, and now, a gorgeous mate. I don't know how the whole 'werewolf and god' thing works, but I know that when we first met you couldn't keep your paws off me and I highly doubt that he won't be even worse."

The way the word mate rolled off her tongue so easily sent shivers up my spine, and my body wasted no time in squirming as I opened my tired eyes to see a fluffy red fabric that had its own black and white googly eyes staring right back at me.

"She's awake," Viviana whispered into the phone and before hanging up, she ended it with a quick, "I love you."

I rolled over to be looking up at her while I wiped at my mouth and eyes, watching her chin squish itself down as she gave me a small smile, and greeted, "Good morning, sleepy head."

Groaning, I moved my head up from off of her lap, throwing my legs over the side of couch, and thought aloud, "Elmo isn't a very pretty thing to wake up to."

"Judgmental this morning, are we?" Viviana joked, "I'll have you know that he was my first cartoon crush."

My eyes then landed on an even more traumatizing sight as I locked eyes with the multiple cross-eyed blue Cookie Monster's on my matching set of pyjama pants, and next to me Viviana let out a small laugh after seeing the haunted look plaster itself over the features of my face. I frowned, and said, "I think Elmo and Cookie Monster is what appeared in the nightmare that I had last night."

"Oh really?" Viviana questioned, and leaned in closer before asking, "Did you, by any chance, dream of anyone else?"

"Nope," I shook my head, "not at all."

"Say, does 'tall, dark, and handsome' ring a bell, or?" She observed me with this look on her face, with puckered lips and interested, piercing blue eyes as they practically begged me to tell her something, anything.

As I looked at her, I thought, meh, I might as well throw the girl a bone.

Deciding against telling her before I was ready, especially since it was just a useless dream. I shook my head again, casting my gaze towards the TV, and responded with a simple, "No, but I am craving pancakes, so maybe I should make us both breakfast."

I stood up from the old couch, ignoring her grumbles behind me as I walked into the kitchen. Pulling open the fridge door to grab the milk, and eggs, I then continued onto the pantry where I took out the cooking oil, and flour.

Preparing my ingredients properly, and adding a dash of salt, I got ready to start pouring them in the large pan. Viviana's footsteps entered the room, hearing the sound of the pantry door opening and closing followed closely before she came up beside me. Looking over my shoulder at her, I watched as she easily ripped open the plastic bag of milk chocolate with her teeth and began dropping the tiny chips onto the perfectly round pancakes.

"So, nothing worth telling your best friend about?" She mused, humming approval at her work that she did with the smiley face pancake designs made out of chocolate chips. "I mean, you did wake up droolin-"

"I do not drool," I defended lazily, cutting her off, before shooting her a playful glare that landed somewhere around her cheek, "and I most certainly did not dream about him."

"You sure?" Viviana asked, and I nodded along while she just sighed. She leaned against the side of the counter before starting off with, "Emery, you know that you can tell me anything, right?"

"I know, but I have absolutely nothing to tell you," I drawled the words out while not meeting her heated gaze, staring down at the pancakes while they cooked. Mentally telling myself off for not telling my best friend what I had really dreamed about, you're lying, you're a liar, you are nothing but a big, fat, liar.

"I love you-" she turned to be able to see the front of my face, grabbing my chin and squishing my cheeks together with her long fingers, "-but you're a terrible liar, like the worst."

"How are you so good at this," I groaned, pulling away from her and throwing my hands over my face.

She pushed at my hands, tugging them off my face and holding them between her own. "Because I know you, and I know when you're lying because you never look at me when you have juicy secrets," she told me. "Now, spill the tea."

"It was so weird," I confessed, and in seconds my walls broke down with one single hit. Focusing my attention back on the pancakes, I continued, "It felt almost real, like it actually happened."

"I'm listening," she hummed again.

"First, it was the moon, you know? Like how can something so beautiful be so scary? It was just there, like usual, and it was comforting, so I fell asleep, but my dream was so strange-" my eyebrows furrowed as I stepped back from the stove, letting Viviana take over before I kept rambling, "-I was there, in this field, like really there. There was this castle and I-I kept walking until I was in it, until I seen them."

"Who's them?" Viviana asked.

"Morpheus," I whispered and closed my eyes, trying to remember exactly what happened, "and this woman, he called her his mother, and they were talking, but she was upset, and he was fine, perfectly fine. Then there was this drink that looked really good, but it wasn't good at all because after he finished it he fell down and everything changed, the whole thing felt too real, and then-then he looked at me, at me."

My heart pounded against my rib cage, thumping and thumping, as I took in a big gulp of air. Viviana was in front of me instantly, the stove was turned off and two pancake filled plates were off to the side, she hit at my cheeks gently. "Hey, hey, hey," she cooed quietly, "it's okay, just breathe."

"He looked at me as if I was really there," my eyes snapped up to hers, "as if he wanted me there."

"Honey, you know he's not like regular werewolves," she told me in her low, soothing voice, "he's able to do things that werewolves can't, but gods can."

I swallowed the lump that had formed in the back of my throat, "What-What does that mean, then?"

"That wasn't a dream, babe, that was a memory, and he planted it there."