After that horrid experience with that Test, she talked to Rhys and went back to the house.

And she sat on her couch and continued to think.

Cynthia had thought of time where she had her person, her beloved, her first heartbreak.

It's a bit sad that you ask for love but you experience heartbreak instead.

Memories rummaged through her mind, as she felt like she was being smothered, that she couldn't breathe.

You know what, she wondered how she still remembers her heart break. That bitter memory, stuck inside her mind. Heartbreak for her was... Painful, infuriating with the constant afflictions.

Heartbreak was a terrific experience. It was tiresome. First, At daybreak, she wished she could sleep all eternity and never try to get up. At, 10 in the morning, she felt unstoppable and like maybe today is the day that heartbreak will ease. At noon, she cries silently on the bed, hoping no one will notice she skipped her shift, on guarding the borders of the pack. An hour later she walks to the bathroom because she felt nauseous. A few minutes later, it felt like she could manage. In the evening, she feels exhausted from her treacherous heart leading her into an emotional rollercoaster and her brain trying to unsuccessfully gain back all control. At night, she's crying again, squeezing her pillow, howling out to the moon, wishing to feel anything else, anything else but this.

“Gods, I am tired,” she mutters, “And it's so awfully difficult to feel sad and tired again when you just want to feel alive.”

She remembers Rhys asking her why she was so bitter about love. How she can't fall in love.

“How could you not fall in love? ”

“Easy. I don't want my happiness to depend on whether a person gives me their attention or not. I don't want to stay up to late wondering whether he is thinking about me. I don't want to cry over someone who may not care. I don't want to stare at my phone all day and night expecting something. A text or a call. Most importantly, I don't want to give someone the power to destroy me.”

Surprisingly, before the fall of the Otherworld, when the king still had his queen. She still had his imperfect prince.

“I can't remember her,”  he breathes.

“I mean, I remember her name and what we had and everything, but I can't remember her. I know, I loved her laugh, her smile, her voice, but I can't seem to remember what it looked like or how it sounded like.”

Her breath hitched at she hears him.

“I don't recall the scent of her hair that drove me insane when I would kiss the top of her head. It could've been vanilla, but I'm not sure”

He pauses, then closes his eyes and rubs his temples like he tries to arrange his thoughts for a moment before continuing.

“I wish I remembered all the things about her, but the only thing that comes to me when I think is how utterly destroyed she looked when I said goodbye.”

She sadly smiled but her lips quirked up a bit when she remembered he said he loved her. Lanse, like Rhys asked why she was afraid to love anyone.

“Why are you so afraid to love someone?” he asks her one day out of the blue.

“I mean, obviously there's pain and heartbreak involved. Love and heartbreak kind of go hand in hand. There's also the fact that I don't want to depend on anyone, because I think the only person you can rely on the most is yourself.”

“That still doesn't explain it,” Lanse says sighing.

“Well,” Cynthia starts, “Maybe I'm afraid to love people because I don't have the faith someone could ever really love me.”

“I do, ” he said. “I really do.”

Cynthia was stuck on her thoughts— her memories. She remembers how he touches her and she lights on fire, her skin felt blazing from where his fingertips meet her skin. The burns don't show,  but it's so hard to breathe, as if there's ash in her lungs and It feels suffocatingly ethereal. It hurts to watch, he shines so bright, almost forgetting that he was something unattainable. He's like the sun, he's too beautiful for her eyes, it's hard to look at him, but it's harder to look away. The depths of his eyes are deep enough for her to drown in. She's drowning, sinking down in dreadful bliss. She loved him—she loves him, through the endless eternity. Across millions of stars she yearns to be wrapped around his arms. And the thing that wasn't said was he loved her too.

She longed for his touch. He was just another beta, the same as her status. But in their world, betas of the same status in a relationship is taboo. She always forgets that he was stronger, you can use a spear as a walking stick, but it will never change its nature. She forgets just like how he forgets that she was not a damsel in distress, she was a Beta of Otherworld, she fought for her side, she helps him keep out rouges. Bringing rouges into the Elysian prison, a place reserved for punishment of the wicked. She could stand her ground with no sign of the need of saving. He can be a weapon, he can be an alpha, he can even be a gallant prince but he can get the saving her part off his head. She was not a trapped girl. If she could be anything at all,  she was a dragon. And if you it get to close, she could burn everything to ashes with a single breath.

At the first lifetime with him,  was full of pain, love and heartbreak. She stayed by his side with all her might that she had those invisible scars on her heart that he once caused. Cynthia told Rhys their story. She felt moved at her faithfulness.

Why do you speak so highly of him?” Cynthia said to her once.

“Why do you do that? Why do you speak of him as if he put the stars in the sky when he let you get hurt, break you so God damn much that I can practically see the heartbreak through your eyes when you first mentioned him.”

She just laughed, “That's the thing about love, isn't it? You'll them get away with murder, even if it's your own.”

“And he didn't always put misery into my life, he also gave me a reason, he became my light. He brought felicity and bliss into me, I chose to love him and he chose to love me back.”

She remembers it all, then she told Rhys the second time he left. He sympathized with her as if he was left the same way. Now, let her tell you again what happened then.

She remembers how she was enclosed in his embrace, kissing her forehead when he finally the words she dreaded escaped his lips.

“I must leave you,”

His eyes were sad, his gaze wistful. And she couldn't believe how those words so painful and heartbreaking can be uttered almost lovingly, as if, in a trance she wondered if she misheard it and he instead said I love you.

But then, she had always believed that her love will leave her again, so this is all to familiar. So she just nuzzled on his neck for one last time and breathed him in, memorizing his almost intoxicating scent.

“Okay,” she said back,  as she took a step back and steeled herself for a smile, “I have always thought you will get tired of me to leave, I prepared myself for the worse so you wouldn't hurt me as much for the difference from the first time you left.”

Then he suddenly appeared again, she wanted to know what he was going through, she wanted to help and when he talked and said to not give up on him, everything changed. She understood that it wasn't about how sad or hurt she was. It was all about making the light shine in his eyes again. It wasn't what he did or didn't do. It was about who he was and how much she loved the man who stood before her all these lifetimes. It was suddenly about the beauty of the love he gave her. It maybe hurtful,  but it wasn't unfaithful. Sure, it took time for him to give her back his love. But the love he gave her was pure and absolute. It was like the love you see or hear in the movies and books. It was all consuming igniting the passion that made her yearn for more. It was a brilliant dream brought into her dark reality.  It was her forever. Her forever in the form of her imperfect prince.

She was no longer a distant memory.