Your eyes look like coming home.

--Everything has changed; Taylor Swift ft. Ed Sheeran

Nate Lyons

"You're an Ace?"

My face must show how confused I am.

Ace? What's that? A card?

"A what?"

"An Ace!" This time, she doesn't have a shocked expression but a happy one. She basically squealed. I just give her a "what's that" look before heading towards the kitchen to clean up.

"You're a werewolf." This time, I feel my body stiffen; slowly I put the clean plates on the drying rack and slowly turn to face her. I put on my most anti-social expression and stare at her.

"Excuse me?" I ask.

Margo just smiles fondly at me and says, "You don't have to be defensive, Nate. I'm a werewolf too." I feel my eyes widen at that revelation. I thought I was the only one.

"You're a were too?" I whisper, wide eyed. She smiles and nods before going back to the living room to sit on my couch. She then pats the spot next to her and beckons for me to sit down as well.

"How did you know?" I ask as I stare at her. I just have a newfound respect for this girl and my protectiveness over her seems to have grown in just a few minutes after I've learned of her nature.

I'm not alone.

That fact has just started to sink in when she does something completely extraordinary.

"No, you're not alone, Nate." She smiles. What? Did I say that aloud?

"No, you didn't." She answers again and I scoot away from her on the couch. What the hell? This is freaking me out.

"Don't freak out, Nate. I'll explain it to you." There. She did it again. She read my mind. She actually answered my thoughts!

"Nate, you are an Ace." She states, and I look at her in confusion. "What's that?" I ask. She shuffles around before getting a comfortable position, as if she's about to engage in a long talk. and I bet she is.

She then proceeds to tell me about the Aces—a special kind of werewolves who are the descendants of witches. I have witch blood? Is this really true? Am I being pranked on right now? I mean, I've never known that there is someone out there like me.

Living in the middle of New York—the city that never sleeps, doesn't really help. I mean, I couldn't just print posters saying "werewolf club, members wanted". All this time, I thought I was the only one.

I thought I was a freak of nature, that there was something wrong with me. When I shifted at sixteen, it was one life-altering experience. The pain was so fucking intense I was shocked to still be alive after.

I can still remember how my bones broke. My fingers, one by one and then my arms. And then my clavicles (collar bones) broke inwards, my scapula felt like they were going to pop out of my skin as the other end dug into the flesh underneath them.

Then I fell on my knees because my legs gave way. It felt as if the cartilage in my knees where melting. My whole body was burning. When my spine snapped, yes it fucking snapped, I thought it was done. But my head—damn. I felt and heard my skull crack and then I felt it—the crack getting longer and longer, like my skull's going to break in two at any moment.

"I felt that too, Nate." I was so caught up in my thoughts that I forgot Margo was still here. I feel proud and in awe. She went through that too? That indescribable pain of feeling all 206 bones in your body breaking.

"The worst was when I felt my vertebral column break. All 26 bones cracking and then widening. It started from the very top, right under my head and then down towards my pelvis. It was torture." She says, she has that wistful look on her face but it turns into sadness.

"Anyway, the Aces are..." She tells me everything about the Aces; how special they are, how they get abilities and then she explained to me how mates work.

It's quite unbelievable how somewhere out there, there is someone who is meant for you. I haven't even gotten over the fact that I'm not the only werewolf, now she goes on and tells me about soul mates.

"I'm an Ace, too." She smiles at me and I am shocked yet again. "Wait, hold up. Let me process this." I tell her. She just grins and nods her head. So, I'm not alone, I have witch blood, there's a pack out there with people like me, and this girl is actually an Ace.

"Yes, you're not alone. Yes, you have witch blood, and yes, there is a pack of Aces out there." She says. "We're basically family now." She smiles fondly at me and I feel warmth settle on my chest.

Family.

I used to have one. Right after I shifted, I just laid there on our backyard in my wolf form. That's how my mom found me. I can still remember how she opened her mouth to scream, and I told her to calm down; that it was just me, her son. But it came out as a growl. Through instinct, I guess, I shifted back to my human form.

I told my mom to calm down, that I would never hurt her. She just stared at me in shock, and then her eyes rolled to the back of her head and she fainted. When she woke up, she no longer looked at me the way she did.

She called me an abomination, a freak, a monster. It literally broke me when my own mother couldn't look at me without flinching in disgust. She left two days later. I never knew who my dad was, I guess I got the werewolf gene from him.

All I know is that he's filthy rich. Because on my 17th birthday, a lawyer came to my house and told me that I just inherited a shit load of money and a mindblowingly vast property. Ranging from resorts, to restaurants, to hotels.

To say I was shocked was a major understatement.

So that's how I became a fucking billionaire at the age of 17. I tried giving it back to whoever it came from, saying that I couldn't accept all those money—that I didn't earn myself. The lawyer just told me that it was from my father.

Going back to the present, I look at the girl before me. She has brown hair and blue eyes. All Aces have blue eyes. It's awesome. She said that whatever race the Aces were born as, we all have blue eyes. European, American, Mexican, Asian, African, African-American, Arab, we all have blue eyes and a crown birthmark beneath our hair line.

She tells me how the previous Alpha of the Aces traveled the entire world to look for the other Aces.

"So that must be why you felt like you had to help me." Margo says and I shake my head. "Maybe, but all I knew then was that I couldn't leave an unconscious girl in the middle of New York at night." I answer.

"So, we're pack mates now?" I ask and she nods her head. "When are we going to meet the others?" I ask, already excited.

But then her facial expression morphs into sadness. Her eyes literally glazes over with unshed tears. I don't know what happened but I chastise myself for making her sad. She looks away from me and blinks her eyes rapidly, while breathing in and out, as if she's trying to calm herself down.

"Margo?" I ask, concern dripping from my voice. She gulps and looks back at me and I'm almost knocked off my ass from the couch. Her eyes are filled with so much sadness, it's staggering.

"What happened to you, Margo?" I ask her and as if my body is acting on it's own without my consciousness, I wrap arms around her and pull her to me. She sat absolutely still for a while before she wraps her arms around my waist.

Then, I feel her body shake and feel wetness seeping through my shirt on the spot where her face is pressed against. I feel protectiveness and anger wash over me. Protectiveness for this girl who is clearly doing all she can to keep herself together; and anger, anger at the one who caused her this much pain.

After a while, she pulls away and stares at her hands. "I'm actually the Luna of the Aces." She whispers, her voice trembling. "Well, I was."

"Was?" As in past tense?

"What happened?"

She then tells me about everything that happened. Starting from her childhood, how her previous pack treated her like shit, how her brother neglected her and how she was rejected by her mate. When she said that, the anger that I felt had me clenching my fists and seeing red.

Then, she tells me how she ran away and met the Aces. While she was talking, I could see things, like scenes from a movie. It's like I'm seeing what she's narrating. She then tells me about her abilities and that I'm currently seeing what happened to her.

She tells me how happy she was when she mated with the Alpha of the Aces, how she found good friends and the beta of the Aces who was like a brother to her. Then she gets to the part about her mother and how she raised Jemcer's dead mate.

With horror, I see how she was neglected by literally everyone. As if she was a toy that was just tossed aside because there's a new one. I see the scene of how her mate, Jemcerson turned her back on her and went to hug the Carla girl.

I see the disappointed expressions of the Aces and of her friends. I am literally looking and feeling everything she felt.

"You ran away?" I whisper and she nods. Her lips tremble as tears pool in her eyes. She has gone through so much that I couldn't describe the feeling that washes over me. It's like adoration, sympathy and a fierce protectiveness.

"I just wanted to be happy." She whispers, looking away from me. Standing up, she walks over to the huge bay window overlooking the city. I follow and stand beside her, folding my arms across my chest and gaze at the beautiful skyline.

"I don't know what I did to deserve all this." She says, I grip her shoulders and look at her straight in the eyes.

"Listen to me." I tell her firmly. I make sure that she can hear the sincerity in my voice. "You do not deserve to be treated like that. NO ONE deserves to be treated that way. But I'll tell you," I tighten my grip on her shoulders a bit to get my point across.

"You experienced all of that because you're strong. You experienced all that because you're a fighter. After everything, you're still here. Sad, maybe, but still alive." I tell her and the tears start to fall from her eyes as my words sink in. But I'm not done.

"Do you have any idea how much courage it takes to continue living after all that? It takes a lot, Margo. A lot. So now, whenever you think about it, I want you to be proud. Proud of yourself for being so incredibly strong."

Silence.

We are enveloped by silence as my words hang in the air. Margo just stares at me before a sob breaks out of her mouth. "I'm strong." She whispers shakily and I feel tears burn my eyes as well as I feel for this beautiful, broken girl. "Yes, you are." I whisper firmly.

She steps towards me and hugs me very tightly. "Thank you, Nate. I needed that. I thought I was a coward for running away, but now I know that I did the right thing." She steps back and looks the view again.

"All my life, I put other people first, and now I just want to be happy. I want to focus on myself and forget about everything."

Just then, a thought occurs to me and with determination, I grab her hand to make her look at me. "You want to be happy?" I ask and she nods her head, a serious look on her face.

"Do you trust me?" I ask her, and I know that it's an extremely bizarre question since I literally just met her last night. But after everything we shared in just a small amount of time, I feel as if she's my family.

"I practically read your mind, Nate. I know you're a good person. Plus, you're an Ace." She says and I feel the breath I didn't know I was holding be released from my lungs. "It's crazy since I just met you, but yeah. I trust you. Why?" She asks.

I then run to my room, grab my suitcase and start packing. I hear her footsteps follow me. "What are you doing?" She asks. "I thought you could read my mind" I muse as I stuff clothes in the suitcase.

I look back at her and see that she's got her arms folded across her chest. "I respect your privacy." She says, as if it's no big deal. My respect for her just grows ten fold. Zipping up my suitcase, I grab my credit cards and a huge wad of cash from my vault.

"Nate?" She asks again, concern in her voice.

"You have clothes and passport back at the hotel you're staying at, right?" I ask as I grab her hand gently and pull her towards the door. She's just wearing my shirt that doesn't even reach her knees but I'm taking her back to her hotel to go grab her things.

"Where are we going?" She asks again as we stop in front of my door. "We're going to go grab your things from the hotel." I tell her.

"Yeah, I get that but what I meant was after we get my things, where are we going?" She asks me and I just smile at her. "You said you wanted to be happy, and I will help you with that." I tell her.

"I know you don't need anyone, especially a guy, to be happy. But no man's an island, and you'll feel happier when you have someone, a friend, to share that happiness with."

She smiles at me and then asks once more, "Where are we going, Nate?"

Giving her a gentle yet excited smile, I answer her question.

"We're going to see the world."