I was running before I understood why.

That's the part no one tells you about fear, it moves faster than thought.

I don't know where i was..?

The last thing I remember was being with my fellow mates in the forest, laughing, walking. 

Then I saw them,

The Royal Blue Roses. 

Glowing, unnatural, like they didn't belong to this world.

I walked closer without even deciding to. They led me to a cave hidden behind those thicket blue roses. 

One second I was with my friends and another, I was standing at the edge of a cave, And at the very back of that cave was a mirror or maybe something else, I don't know. 

"Yeh kya hai...?" I whispered, barely able to hear myself.

Standing there like it had been waiting for someone. 

For me. 

Staring at my own reflection in a mirror type portal that has no business existing in a place like that. I don't know why, but I stepped closer to it. Something on the other side was calling me.

Not with words, with a feeling. A pull I couldn't fight.

And then I stepped in.

The moment I crossed through, the world changed completely. I was stumbling through snow that hadn't been falling seconds ago, in a forest that wasn't the one I'd walked into. Snow fell from a black sky. The air was freezing, sharp enough to cut through my skin. 

I was somewhere else now. 

Somewhere old, and somewhere dangerous.

I kept walking because standing still felt worse.

"Mujhe yahan se nikalna hoga..." I whispered to myself. "Bas... kisi tarah wapas jaana hoga."

My heart was pounding so hard I could hear it in my ears.

Then I heard it. A sound behind me, slow, careful footsteps in the snow.

I turned around.

A wolf. Its eyes glowed faintly in the dark, watching me like it already knew how this would end.

"Stay back," I whispered, my voice shaking. It didn't listen.

"Oh God..." It took a step closer.

I ran.

More wolves appeared from the shadows, one after another, until I lost count. I ran as fast as I could, but the rocks and trees closed in around me. 

There was nowhere left to go. I was trapped.

One of the wolves jumped at me.

"Nahi... nahi, please."

I closed my eyes and waited for the pain. 

It never came.

Instead, I heard a roar, loud enough to shake the ground beneath me. When I opened my eyes, something massive stood between me and the wolves. 

Black as midnight, bigger than anything I had ever seen. Not quite anything I had a name for.

The wolves that had cornered me scattered like they'd remembered somewhere else to be.

And then the thing that had saved me turned its head toward me instead.

Its eyes were the exact, unnatural blue of the roses that had ruined my night.

"W-what are you?" I stammered, stepping back until my spine hit cold stone. There was nowhere left to run.

It didn't answer.

It just kept coming closer, slow and deliberate, until there was no more room between us at all,  just heat, and breath, and the terrible patience of something deciding what to do with me.

"Please.. don't." I started, but the word died in my throat

And then it changed.

I watched a beast massive body fold itself into a.. a man. 

Watched black fur give way to bare skin.. the bones shifting with a sound I felt more than heard, 

Watched something ancient settle into a face I would remember for the rest of my life, however long that turned out to be.

The moonlight fell across his face, and for one heartbeat, I saw him clearly.

It's him... 

Xavier Valemont.

"You should not be here," he said quietly, his voice low and rough, like it hadn't been used in years.

"And yet, you are here. Which means fate has made its choice, that.."

He reached out, not fast, not cruel, simply certain, and tilted my chin up with one finger, forcing me to meet the eyes I had run from moments before.

My heart was slamming against my ribs so hard it hurt, fear and something else tangled together until I couldn't tell them apart anymore. 

And then there was his scent, dark, smoky, something ancient wrapped around something dangerous, filling my lungs until my head felt light, until the cold around me seemed to blur at the edges.

"You, My Love..." His voice dropped lower still, quiet as a vow."...you will become mine."

My vision spun. I opened my mouth to answer, to say something, anything, 

But the words never made it out.

The darkness took me before I could answer.