Chapter 2 CHAPTER TWO.

Clara’s POV.

“Are you okay?” The stranger asked.

I tried to speak but I only managed a nod. Then, finally, the tears came. I didn't even realize I was crying until he gently wiped a tear off my cheek with the back of his thumb.

“It’s pretty dark out here,” he said softly. “You need to get somewhere safe.”

“I was… I was at a party and my mate rejected me for my bestfriend.” I don't know why I told him the truth but I felt like telling him.

His eyes softened. “Come on. Let's get you safe.”

I nodded again, too exhausted to argue. I didn't know his name. I didn't even know where he came from or why he saved me. But at that moment, I didn't care.

I was glad to be safe. Even if it was in the arms of a stranger.

As we moved up the stairs, my legs wouldn't stop shaking.

The hallway outside the room where everything nearly happened spun like a carousel, and I gripped the stranger's arm as if they were the only thing echoing me to reality. My skin felt too tight. My dress clung uncomfortably to my damp body. My heart was racing, my chest heaving in shallow, panicked breaths I couldn't seem to control.

The world tilted. My limbs felt like jelly and my vision was hazy but through the blur, his face came into focus.

At first, I thought I was hallucinating. No man had the right to look that good. Towering over me like some kind of avenging god, he radiated power with every breath. His jaw was sharp enough to cut glass and dusted with the right amount of stubble.

And those eyes, those stormy-grey eyes, locked onto mine with a focus that was out of this world. His eyes weren't just looking at me. They were reading to me. Like I was a book he'd already memorized but still wanted to keep flipping through, page by page.

His broad shoulders stretched the fabric of his black shirt. And he smelled like leather and something deeper like the woods after a rainfall. There was something about him. Something Alpha.

I couldn't speak. I didn't need to. He crouched beside me, his voice a low growl laced with barely concealed fury.

“They won't hurt you again.”

And just like that, I knew I was looking at the kind of man people warned you about. The kind of man who didn't ask for permission. The kind who didn't play by the rules.

The kind who would burn the world to protect what was his and right now, that person was me.

His warm hands wrapped around me. “You look exhausted. You need rest.”

His jaw tensed like he'd been fighting a battle.

“P - Please,” I whispered, hating how weak I sounded. “I don't feel right. I can't think.”

It was like chaos was inside of me. It was everything. Pain, betrayal, Dylan and Anna and now, this heat beneath my skin that wouldn't just go away. I couldn't tell where the fear ended and the yearning began.

“I don't want to be alone,” I confessed, tears burning at the corners of my eyes. “Please. Just for a little while. I need…”

I couldn't finish the sentence. I didn't even know what I was asking for.

He stared at me, unmoving. And then, with a reluctant sigh, he reached for my hand.

“Come with me.”

His room was in the penthouse. Top floor, sleek, too expensive. I wasn't surprised. He looked like someone who bled power. I didn't ask questions. I didn't need to.

He led me inside and handed me a glass of water, watching me drink like he wasn't sure if I'd collapse again or throw up. I curled up on the edge of his bed, my knees drawn to my chest.

“I don't even know your name,” I mumbled.

He didn't answer. Instead, he turned away and began to pace the room like he was trying to avoid looking at me too long. Like I was dangerous.

Or maybe he was.

“I should leave,” I whispered but my legs refused to move. My entire body felt like it was being pulled in a dozen directions. I was torn between what I knew was right and what I desperately craved in that moment.

My eyes found him again. The stranger who'd stepped up to help me. And maybe it was the heat or the haze or even the heartbreak of a man I thought would show up but something inside me snapped.

“Please, make me forget.” I said in a whisper.

His eyes darkened. “Don't ask me for things you don't understand.”

“Maybe I don't want to understand.” I said, standing slowly and swaying a little.

He closed the distance between us in two steps, his arms catching my arms again. This time his touch was firm.

“You don't know me.” He said in a growl.

“I don't need to,” I whispered.

Silence stretched between us before he leaned in and kissed me.

There was nothing soft about his kiss. It was like being caught in a storm. It was wild and consuming. His mouth moved over mine with heat and hunger and I didn't resist. I didn't want to.

My clothes fell away, time disappeared, and I lost myself in the warmth of his touch, in the press of his skin, and in the weight of his body anchoring me to something that felt like both a mistake and salvation.

For one night, I forgot.

I forgot about Dylan and Anna. Forgot about the shame. Forgot the ache that had hollowed in my chest in weeks.

All that existed was him. The way he looked at me as if I wasn't broken and the way he touched me like I mattered.

And when it was over, I laid there in the dark, tangled sheets that smelled like him, listening to the steady beat of his heart under my cheek.

DING! DING! DING!

My alarm rang abruptly, startling me awake from whatever dream I was having.

I flicked my eyelids open to find myself on my bed in my dorm room, dressed in my nightie.

As I glanced around in confusion, trying to sit up, my head began to throb heavily like a hammer was being hit on it.

On my desk sat a bottle of water and two pills of aspirin.

I hadn't put them there.

Besides, when did I get here? Wasn't I kissing some stranger in a penthouse?

'Did I hallucinate everything, did nothing ever happen including the betrayal?' I pondered, feeling desperate for answers and a little bit of hope rising in me when my phone pang and I saw it was a message from Dylan.

"I know I don't need to tell you this but just to be on a safer side. We are done and Anna is now my girlfriend as she should be. Move on, sidepiece." I read out aloud and scoffed in disbelief.

His audacity was alarming but then, that meant everything truly did happen last night. Just that thought made my heart clench in pain.

"Oh moon goddess! Guide me." I prayed, feeling the heavy sting of tears again but then blinking them back.

'I had cried enough for this bastard, it was time to really move on and good riddance to rubbish.' I thought as I got out of bed and almost tripped on something.

I looked down to see it was the cloth and shoes I wore yesterday laying on the floor, discarded but why do I have no memory of pulling them off and getting dressed in this nightgown?

Did I truly do something with that stranger? If yes, why aren't I feeling pains all over and how did I get home?

When I noticed I was having another headache, I just decided to get prepared for the day and even as I walked into school that morning, all eyes were on me.

"It's Dylan's ex-girlfriend. I heard her best friend took her place." A girl in the hallway whispered and I just rolled my eyes, trying to bury their whispers.

"Good. He deserves better anyway." Her friend agreed with her and I groaned.

Couldn't these people just get a life or something? They were always gossiping.

I entered the hall, waiting for the man of the day to come in and teach so I could get out afterwards.

My first class was literature and the girls in my row wouldn't shut up about the new professor. I’d heard Ms. Emery wouldn't be teaching us anymore.

Speaking of hot, I was reminded instantly of the stranger last night.

'Could he have been a figment of my imagination? I wasn't exactly in my right state of mind last night.' I thought and just then the whole class burst into an uproar.

The door swung open.

The class went dead silent, then erupted in excited whispers.

The scent hit me first — leather and something dangerously familiar.

My chest tightened.

You have got to be kidding me.

It couldn't be.

My heart pounded as I scanned the crowd. My eyes found him before I was even ready.

Standing in front of the class, towering in his black tailored slacks and crisp white shirt, effortlessly confident like he owned the entire city was the man from the one night stand I thought I'd left behind.

His stormy-grey eyes met my blues ones across the room and blood drained from my face.

I tried to look away. I tried to pretend. But I couldn't. My hands trembled as I clutched the side of my gown as I stared back at him in shock.

The man who'd already seen me naked. The man who had touched me and lit my skin on fire. The man I had fled from.

He put on a bright smile and then he said, “Good morning, class. I'll be your new professor, Asher Blackwood.”

Could this day not get any worse?