Cassiel's POV

*He walked through the rough forest path, keeping his pace slow. Fear crept through his veins as he walked deeper and deeper into the forest.

The rustling of leaves and the hooting of owls made it worse.

He went all the way deep into the woods to reach his destination. He paused briefly to think about whether he was going in the right direction, and then continued on once his thoughts had calmed down.

"Reach the embers and you will find your answer, do not turn back when you enter the forest or it will cost you your life," someone had said to him, and he felt obligated to follow those words.

Before he could ask any more questions, he was standing in between nowhere, covered in dust and surrounded by huge trees. From the looks of it, he was nowhere near the glowing object he had been searching for, and the night seemed to take over, making the forest even more eerie than it already was.

He took the path and followed it without looking back since he had entered this maze. He knew that if he made one wrong move it would cost him his life, but what he did not understand was why he was following orders from someone whose face he had not even seen. His train of thought was interrupted by a loud howl.

Instinctively, his legs began to move faster, and by the time he could process anything, he knew that he had already run deep into the forest, and he was sure that he had long forgotten the way out of this place.

Along with his footsteps sounding in the silent night, there were loud thuds coming from the darkness. He ran and ran for what felt like an eternity as the pounding grew louder and louder until he came to an abrupt stop and fell to the ground with a scream as a tall figure stepped in front of him.

Just as he was about to stand up, the figure came into the light, and standing before him in all his strength was a huge wolf. He would be lying if he said he was not afraid. The wolf had glowing red eyes that screamed danger, and its fur was as dark as the night sky above.

It shone so brightly in the moonlight that nothing seemed as beautiful as the creature before him.

"Please ... no, please do not kill me," he whispered to himself, to which the wolf let out a loud growl. It almost looked as if the wolf had heard his prayers.

The wolf took slow steps forward to where he had fallen butt first on the ground, causing the small male to claw further away, which earned him another growl from the animal in front of him. He paused and cautiously looked at the creature standing upright.

Why was it not killing him already?

He was really in quite a vulnerable state, and yet the wolf had not attacked him, but had come closer and closer, apparently for protection. He held back from his fall and faced the big guy, looking into his glowing eyes that seemed angry at what, he did not know.

He stood there staring at his beauty until his gaze landed on those red eyes again. He tried to look in the same direction they were staring, which caused him to spin on the spot, and before he knew it, something as big as the wolf had rushed at him with sharp teeth and mouth wide open, ready to kill. *

I wrenched my eyes open and sweat dripped from my forehead.

Did I just see myself protected by a wolf and killed the next moment?

This was by far the strangest of my dreams.

There was still an hour before my alarm clock went off, so I decided to use that time to make myself some breakfast and take a long shower. I really needed that in my dream. I smiled to myself as I went to the kitchen to prepare myself a sumptuous meal.

After almost 20 minutes in the kitchen, I made myself pancakes, toast, and a strawberry milkshake.

Well, you can't blame a growing man, right?

I chuckled at my self-explanatory comment and headed to the washroom after finishing everything that was on the table. After another 20 minutes in the shower, I finally got dressed for college and left my house.

The neighbourhood I lived in was pretty nice. No one really interfered with each other's personal affairs, and that seemed just fine with me. I mean, I'd rather be alone any day than be part of a big crowd. Attention was never for me, and by attention, I mean the good kind.

I made my way to the bus stop, it was still 10 minutes until the bus arrived, so I pulled out my phone, plugged in my headphones and waited. While humming my playlist to myself, I started to feel uncomfortable. I looked around to see if anyone was looking in my direction, but everyone seemed engrossed in their own morning routine.

Strange.

I thought to myself, shook off the uneasy feeling and made my way to the bus that stopped in front of us at the bus stop. I took a seat in the back, as usual, and turned up the volume on my headphones to block out any outside voices.

My routes were the same almost every day. Home to college, then to work and home again without missing a single day. Except on the weekends, when all I had to do was drive to work. It may seem like a fairy tale to study at one of the well-known colleges and be a part-time student.

But when your life is a mess, everything seems like a constant ride through hell. When everyone else at the college looks down on you and talks bad about you, it becomes difficult to attend classes.

When your boss keeps your money for himself and claims it was cut because of some bullshit excuse, you find yourself in a dark hole with no way out. No matter where I always felt out of place. The people at our college were definitely rich kids who had the money to attend classes without worrying about missing a day.

I, on the other hand, would not dare miss even one day, because first of all, college was something I had struggled to get in, and secondly, my fees were based on a scholarship. So I could not take it for granted.

On the other hand, my job was the worst thing that ever happened to me. As much as I needed the money, I hated my job. Not because it was something unreasonable, but because no matter how much I worked, I could not impress my boss or get my payments on time.

The salary I was getting was barely enough to pay the rent on my flat, and that too in instalments. My train of thought came to a halt when the bus stopped at my destination. I exited the bus and made my way to Laguna Creek College.

I took a deep breath and headed straight for the main gate of the building, ready for the stares and indignant looks I would receive when I entered.

"You can do this, just like every other day!"

I told myself and walked inside, keeping my eyes on the ground.

As I entered, all the attention was on me. Heads turned to me for reasons that were not entirely clear to me. It was not as if my clothes or anything else could be considered bad. It was that the whisper and staring always screamed disgust. I kept walking and stopped when I reached my locker.

I opened it and took out the books that I needed and put my bag inside. Just as I was about to close the door, it was violently shut with a loud bang. I froze and turned around to face my greatest fear. Silas Bynes

"Cassiel... How are you?", Silas stepped closer and leaned over to make eye contact with me.

"Are you ignoring me? I'd feel really bad if you were, you know!" he said, feigning a sad expression.

I knew very well that he was anything but sad at the moment. I made an effort to look at him but looked back down when I noticed how close he was to my face.

"Do you not like it when I stand so close to you, Cassiel? You make me look like the bad guy," he said, moving even closer to me.

I tried to move my head but was blocked between the closet and Silas' face. I turned my face to the left but was pushed back rudely by rough hands.

"Do not try to get away from me," Silas almost growled at me.

I closed my eyes because I was very afraid of what would happen next. As expected, I got to feel the pain of the hard blow that was delivered to me. This was followed by a few more blows to my stomach.

Before I knew it, I was on the floor bleeding from the hard punches.

"Sissy," he said loud enough for anyone standing nearby to hear and disappeared with his gang members.

I was aware that by now I had big cuts and bruises all over.

"Ah, he's ruined my face again," I sighed as I got up and tried to clean myself up a bit to go to my first class that was about to start.

Just as I sat down in my seat in the far corner of the class, the bell rang and Mr. Ryan, our English teacher, walked in. He was a great teacher, but he was easily distracted, and he spent most of the class telling us about his childhood, and at the end of almost every lesson, he gave us assignments on boring topics.

So it was today, but before he could start the lesson, he had a little announcement to make.

"Class, let us all welcome the new exchange students, I hope you will be as supportive of them as you are of each other," Mr Ryan said as he finished and three students walked in, the exchange students he was just talking about.

An eerie aura emanated from them, and I shivered slightly in my seat as the atmosphere seemed to have turned cold. I looked around to see if it was just me or if it affected the others, but it seemed that everyone had their eyes on the three handsome boys who had entered the class.

"Please introduce yourselves, boys," Mr Ryan called out cheerfully, who was probably the only one happy to see them here.

"Hey, I am Keanu Sullivan. Good to see you all," the first boy said, smiling at us with a bunny smile. His black hair curled on his forehead, hiding his doe eyes. As scary as he looked when he entered the class, the smile made him seem like a cute bunny.

"My name is Marcel Benz, we should all support each other," the second one said with a big grin on his face that almost looked like a box, waving at us. He was very handsome, almost like a model because of his sharp features and his red hair that stood out.

"Dáinn Barlow," the last one spoke without bothering to say anything else, looking toward the far wall of our classroom. He looked so fragile, the way his dull skin shimmered in the light of the class. His silver hair made him look even paler than he already was, but I have never seen anyone look so stunning with hair like that.

For a second our eyes met and his light brown eyes almost bored into my soul, but I was quicker than lightning and looked out the window next to me to get rid of the giddy feeling that was building up in my stomach.

From the looks of it, the other two, Marcel and Keanu, looked younger than the one named Dáinn. He looked almost my age, maybe a year younger, but that did not stop him from looking extremely intimidating.

All three of them were quite good-looking and had very strong charisma.

"Please take a seat next to Peter, Keanu and you next to Lily, Marcel and Dáinn please sit next to Cassiel. Thank you. Until they are seated, the rest of you turn to page 34 of your textbooks and start analyzing the summaries." said Mr Ryan, turning to write something on the board.

"Great," I muttered to myself, a little annoyed, and started on the summary the teacher had asked for.

"Move," I said and saw Dáinn standing next to my desk, his book in one hand, and a bottle in the other.

I looked at him in confusion and involuntarily raised an eyebrow questioningly.

"I am sorry, what?" He looked annoyed and snapped at me, "Put your stuff away, I need to sit down," and that's when I noticed that my bag and books were on the other desk.

I usually kept my books that way because no one was really sitting next to me, so I made it a habit to use the two seats for myself. I quickly took my things from his desk and excused myself. He sat down with a sigh, took out his textbook, and worked on the assignment Mr Ryan had given us all.

"When you are all done, have your partners read your summaries and let them figure out anything they want to question," Mr Ryan said, earning a groan from half the class.

One of them was Dáinn, who was sitting next to me, looking like a time bomb that was about to go off at any moment.

"This is going to be a long day," I sighed, looking down at the sheet of paper in my hand where I was writing down the points I needed to make for my summary.