My lips part, mouth feeling parched as I stare at Alaricus, but he refuses to look up at me. He keeps his gaze down, looking at the floor instead of me, but his plump lower lip trembles as we sit in silence.

"After that I was- I was nothing. There was nothing left for me, I was a beast, a horrid beast, who was the reason my beautiful mother and sister had died. They'd died in the misery I'd promised to take them away from." He says, his deep voice shaky.

"The Eros you know is nothing like the Eros I knew. He was made from the darkest parts of me and in those moments I was so far gone into the dark that no light penetrated through. I was enraged, so miserable, and so very lonely. I tried hiding out, I tried killing myself but the curse was unmovable. I was stuck living, I was stuck with every dreaded breath, unable to stop them. After years I became so angry, I began hunting pythonissams." He says and I blink away the tears that trail silently down my pale cheeks.

"She was right, I was stronger than her, but not her curse. I hunted pythonissams into extinction. Every creature on earth that was even rumoured to be related to witchcraft I ended. I hunted down the lines of the families, killing even their young that hadn't shown any signs of magic. There was a very low chance that an offspring may develop it later on. I wanted to ruin them for ruining me. And I did, they no longer exist, they haven't for centuries. But I saved her for last." His voice grows deeper as he speaks, something fractionally more primal.

"It was nearly a century later that I found her. She was the last one, I'd even removed the very evidence pythonissams existed from the face of the earth. I knew she was far too grieved by the death of her husband and only son to even consider reaching out to another, let alone recreating. By then my reputation had grown, I was the feared beast, the monster some thought could only be a horrific legend. I killed her." His eyes seem nearly void as he speaks, as if he didn't feel anything for what he'd done. As if he'd tried to push it down for years, and finally came up with the rewarding emptiness.

"She didn't beg me to stop like the others, in her eyes wasn't fear, it was relief. For in her eyes too was the loneliness that coursed through me with every passing moment. You don't know how it angered me to know I'd never get that relief. We had one thing in common we were both miserable beings, tired of our existence and with her last breath she said the one thing that would forever torment me. She thanked me. For pythonissams, royals, they could too choose immortal life only to end with the death of the one who loved them, and they too loved. But the king didn't love her. She'd purposely made my curse this way, so I could kill her, but forever have to live in agony." I crave to beg him to stop, but I had asked. I would get through listening to his story, I wished to know.

"Every being on earth quaked at my mere name, and it was how we liked it. We were the infamous Alpha King. Centuries had passed and I had grown so lonely that I just wanted people to recognize me, to feel something for me. Even if it was fear. By then I'd gone insane. I craved chaos and the misery of others. I was despicable. I can't even remember some of it, it's all a blur to me now. There was nothing left for me, but it was one night, I was an insomniac, still was until very recently." His eyes threaten to flicker up to me, but instead they go back to their position gazing at his feet on the floor.

"I saw a young girl, she couldn't see, she was begging for change. When she removed her glasses, she had big green eyes, like Lilium's. She smiled at me when I pressed a coin into her thin palm. Then she began to unbutton her dress, and upon being asked to stop she told me this was the way the new world was. Nobody just did good anymore. For the first time in centuries I felt sick. I realized that for all the people out there innocent like my sister and mother, I was creating a world crafted to defeat the good within them. Giving them a fate similar to one I'd given to my family and I couldn't do it anymore." He pauses, a slight shiver passing through him.

"Eros too didn't like that, love is too powerful to be stopped by darkness. It forces its way into every part of you. He was a part of me, and every part of me loved my sister and mother. He hated the fact that we were hurting people like them." Alaricus explains.

"Eventually people began to forget, and to ensure that they forgot I had all records of me burnt. All books mentioning me destroyed. Eventually Wolves became more assimilated into human culture, less primal with the addition of human mates. Soon, I became just a horrific legend, many Wolves though passed down stories to their children, and many still believe them, they still know them. The Alphas especially they all know them, because Alphas are made only by their power, and I'm the biggest threat to it. That book you found, I didn't have the heart to destroy it, it was written during the time I was Alpha King, I'd had it written myself. An accurate recount of what the world used to be like. But even then I couldn't bare to see my part in the story, and I'd ripped it out." Alaricus finishes off softly.

We sit in complete silence for a few moments, my ragged breathing all that is heard throughout the vast library. Tears trail freely down my cheeks. Alaricus sits completely still, as if afraid one move would send me running. His complete statue like stature nearly alarming if it weren't for the shallow rise and fall of his broad chest, and the slight trembles of his lower lip. But they're nearly indecipherable through my blurry vision.

I take in a gasping breath, leaning forward, I cup his jaw in my hands, I raise his face to mine. His bloodshot honey eyes meet mine, and he looks so broken so vulnerable that I can't breathe. My heart seems to stop in my very chest as my eyes meet the ones of the man that the foolish organ seems to beat for.

I lean closer to him, resting my forehead on his, I let my eyes fall shut, the tears falling freely. A choked sob escapes him and my eyes open to look at him on their own accord. The deep ancient sorrow that fills them, the raw pain, makes my throat go dry. I let my body control my actions as my lips touch his plump parted trembling ones. The heat of them against my own, breathing warmth into me.

"I'm not leaving you." I say quietly and he bites his lip, pulling away from my lips, tears running freely down his face and he reaches for me. My body tenses as his arms wrap around my waist, despite how much I crave his heat, crave for him to hold me close. To get lost in his large safe arms. I can't. My body completely tenses in his hold against its will. Every muscle begs to relax, to uncoil, unravel beneath the warmth of his touch. Every part of me recognizing him as ours, but I can't. Not for the sake of my sanity.

"I'm so sorry about your family." I say quietly my hand pressed against his chest to keep him from coming closer. His hands form clenched fists on the sides of my waist, as he fights down the urge to grab me and pull me to him. He looks so very broken, so in need of comforting, for someone to just hold him. To tell him it was all over, and that he was safe now. Safe from the ghost of his past, safe from the fear that had been left behind by time. Time could heal only flesh wounds, it was love that filled the cracks and rips of internal pain.

His whole body trembles with the effort to keep from pulling me to him, and I can't take it anymore. My chest aches as I see the raw pain that's displayed so clearly within his eyes, he's been suppressing it for years and only now allowed it to surface. I can feel him nearly quake with fear, a man afraid of his own past. A man afraid of himself, afraid that his own identity would send the woman he loves running.

Pushing his outstretched arms away I sink into his lap. My body moulding into him and a sigh of relief leaves him, as he inhales deeply. As if only now able to breathe. I couldn't allow him to be in pain any longer, it hurt me too.

I press my eyelids close, tears falling freely as I nuzzle my head into his chest, wishing for nothing more than to just feel him.

"I'm so sorry." I sob into his chest, my knuckles turning white with how forcefully I grip at his shirt. My fingers aching with the effort, but it seems harder to let go than to hold on.

"I wished it had never happened, I wish they are still alive, I wish you weren't in so much pain, I wish you hadn't been so alone all those years." I whisper to him, my chest rising as I nearly gasp for breath. Wrapping his arms tightly around me, Alaricus lowers his head into the crook of my neck, holding me so close as if I was the only thing keeping him grounded. He holds me tighter than he ever has before, and yet there's no pain. Perhaps it wasn't possible for the one to love you, to hurt you.

My lips part as I feel the deep breath that he releases onto the bare skin of my throat, my eyes threatening to fall shut as he nuzzles his head into me. My body struggling to keep up with my mind, every fibre of me ached to love him so much he'd forget his sorrows but my mind plagued me with the horrors of his past.

"What you did to those pythonissams was wrong Alaricus." I tell him, and he stays silent, simply holding me to him.

"You couldn't possibly disagree." I say after a moment of waiting for him to speak. The man I knew couldn't possibly have hunted a whole species into extinction and not regret it. Not be drowned by guilt. I didn't wish for him to hurt, but I wished for him to prove to me that he really was the man I thought he was, a good man.

"Alaricus say something please." I beg, lifting my chin to look into his eyes, that are clenched shut, but they shoot open as I gently touch the skin of his sharp jaw. His eyes seem conflicted but they melt at the uncertainty in my own.

"I've spent years hating myself for what I did. I don't regret the deaths of that father or son, and a part of me doesn't regret the queen's either. A part of me wished to blame it all on her. But it's not her fault, you see Eros, is me. He's made of the darkest parts of me, thoughts and feelings that I don't dare dwell on. His bloodlust truthfully is mine. My monster is me. I'm the man who became the monster, I'm the man who killed hundreds of thousands. I killed children Amara. I hate myself to an extent that is incomprehensible to someone as pure as you. But I've learnt to push it down, I have no means to release this hatred, every time I've tried, only others have gotten hurt." Alaricus says, my hand falling from where it touches him, his eyes following it but he continues to speak.

"I was wrong Amara, and my misdoings have affected many lives. There's a reason that I am feared, hated even, and rightfully so. A beast is meant only for hatred. I earned your love, only to loose it. For nobody could learn to love the beast." He says, his velvety voice dripping with venom, but his eyes displaying a raw hurt, a pain so deep delving that it robs the breath from my chest with just a glance.

"You haven't lost my love, I fell in love with you for the man you are now, for the man I've known you to be." I say but he shakes his head.

"It's not possible angel, if I hate myself so, someone as pure as you is sure to shudder at my very existence." Alaricus says quietly.

"Don't say that." I retort.

"Love can't be changed, your past, it's horrific, what happened to you was horrible. But I've never gone through it, I don't know what I would have done. I'm not familiar with the darkness that lurks underneath the miseries of being so unbearably lonely. Darkness stems from horrors, and innocence from shelter. Compared to you, I've been sheltered all my life, I have no right to judge you. I've never faced your pain. But despite not having an inkling of an idea as to how much you've hurt, I love you Alaricus, and regardless of what happens I always will." I tell him softly.

Pulling away from my throat Alaricus looks deeply into my eyes as I speak. His beautiful honey eyes darkening and glistening with gold, but somehow looking softer, as they fill with tears. He bites into his bottom lip harshly, a pained whimper escaping his lips. The sound causing my heart to lurch painfully within my chest, so vulnerable, so pain filled, so in need of comfort and reassurance. His arms tighten around my waist and he tugs me closer into his firm broad chest.

"I love you so much. So much that it makes me forget my own pains, the way I've felt for you, makes me forget the hatred I harbour for myself. The love for you overcomes it. For if I'm capable of loving, of loving someone like you, then maybe there's something within me, that's not completely evil. That love I have for you is pure. Something pure within my deranged twisted form. You're more than just the woman I love, you're the woman that saved me. Gave me something to hold on to, to hold on for. I can't repay that, but I'll spend eternity trying." He promises solemnly, making my heart tighten, the tears beginning to flow rapidly.

Closing my eyes I rest quietly against his chest, and he pats down my hair softly with one large hand, the other arm wrapped tightly around me. Holding me tenderly close to his chest, and I don't have to look at him to know that a few tears trail down his face every once in a while.

I press a soft kiss to the warm smooth tan skin of his chest exposed atop his shirt.

"I have a few questions." I say, and Alaricus looks down into my eyes nodding his head immediately.

"Anything." He promises.

"You said that the queen cursed you to live a life without love, to a mateless wolf. Then how am I-" I ask trailing off.

"There's no definite answer to that question, I had destroyed all records of witchcraft, although I don't believe such an occurrence has happened before. Though after meeting you, I looked into it. It would seem that not even magic can defy the absolutes of nature. We're complete opposites my love, but that is what brought us together, two people so different could only balance each other. Two people so different had to be together, they belonged with each other, balancing each other out. Although unfortunately for you, you were meant to put up with everything bad, while I was sent an angel." Alaricus says, his honey eyes glistening with tears, but filling with a soft adoration that brightens them.

"How can Eros do all those things, when he's just-just so different with me?" I ask struggling for words, I didn't want him to feel worse, but I did want to know. I needed to understand him.

"Like I said, love isn't stopped by darkness. Eros is the darkest part of me, but every part of my miserable being loves you. Despite what you've done or what you wish to, you can't hurt the one you love. It's incomprehensible to be able to cause them any pain. Eros can't hurt you, he's me. Neither of us could hurt you. It's why I trust him with you, I love you too deeply to ever even be able to contemplate hurting you. The thought of you in pain kills me. Although I didn't expect for Eros to act in that way with you. But I suppose he's the most primal form of me, and deep down all I ever wanted was for you to love me." He admits quietly. His gaze darting to me, eyes taking me in as if he believes he'll never see me again.

"Is that why you refuse to take an official role in the werewolves?" I ask.

"Amara I don't do well with power, misery doesn't mix well with power. After what I'd done for years, the people I killed, the lives I ruined, I can't ever allow myself to hold any more power than I already do for being what I am. My very being is a curse, one that shouldn't be bestowed on anyone but me. I'm so sorry you have to suffer the repercussions of what I did, of what I am. I just can't bare to let you go, I told you I wasn't a good man. I'm selfish but that's what's kept you with me." Alaricus says, his honey eyes darkened and stormy, his self loathing so clear in his gaze that it sent a pang of pain to my heart.

"But you deserve better angel, and I love you far more than I care for myself. What do you want, do you wish to be free of the beast that's plagued you for far too long?" Alaricus asks, his jaw clenching tightly as he gazes down at me apprehensively, trying his best to hide the pain that's so clearly visible in his eyes. The fear of my answer, as if he has anything to fear.

"I love you Alaricus, for the man you are now, for the man that knows the names of every single one of his staff. The man who looks at me and suddenly I don't feel as if I'm just ordinary anymore. The man who looks at me as if I'm the answer to every unanswered question, as if I'm a miracle. The man who cooks so diligently, and gets along so well with children. The man who is seemingly at times a child himself. The man who holds me so tenderly, and kisses me so deeply. I love you for all of that and so much more, I can't leave you. I won't leave you." I promise and a small smile grows on his face and compared to the horrid sorrow it's like a drop of rain in the desert. His red plump lips tilting upwards so simply, that deep dimple popping out on his smooth tan cheek.

It's as if my eyes have a mind of their own as tears drop from the bottoms of my eyes, dampening my lashes before travelling the lengths of my cheeks.

"I'm sorry it still hurts, I'll spend the rest of my life trying to rid you of that pain Alaricus Knight, I swear by it. We can't change the past, but we can build the future together. This tragedy stemmed from inequality, that'll have to go Alaricus. Pythonissams are no more, but there are still different species. Humans and wolves, they shouldn't be unequal. Wolves don't need to be higher, rebellion comes only from suppression. Harmony and peace can be achieved, I know it can." I tell him pleading for him to understand with my eyes.

"Amara, the wolves are stronger, I'm not saying it makes them superior, but it is the truth. The Alphas will never give up this superiority, we'll have a war on our hands. One the humans won't be able to fight. No wolves will stand beside them. You have to understand in the werewolf world, freedom isn't craved, belonging is. They are man, but they are also wolf, you can ask even an omega and they'd rather their place in the hierarchy than no place at all. Humans don't stand a chance, they are apart of the packs, the Alphas will never let them go." Alaricus says.

"There isn't an alpha that would dare deny you Alaricus, you understand this, you were once human, you understand the craving for freedom. For love without chains. For family without cold stone hierarchy. No Alpha would dare stand stand against you. If you were to command it, not a single soul would dare to say no." I argue.

"With what authority do I command it? The only way for me to stay away from the darkness is to stay away from power. You don't understand how Eros and I respond to it. I won't let you see that side of me. I won't bring back that side of me angel, it'll do more harm than good. I'd do anything for you, but nothing to loose you, to fall in your eyes. I always thought when you found out you'd leave, and now I have hope. You've accepted me, I can't loose you now." Alaricus pleads with me, cupping my face tenderly in his large hands, his calloused warm thumbs stroking gently over the delicate skin of my cheeks.