Hot is a good way to describe a lot of things. That includes a stove top when it's on fire, Matteo, the middle of July in Arizona, and how my body felt when I woke up this morning.

I wasn't even entirely awake when I realized I was far too hot to just be sleeping alone. I'd woken up on various occasions next to someone. Obviously, I knew what it felt like to sleep next to another person. What was so extremely foreign about this feeling, though, were the shocks that seemed to stretch across my skin and seep into my veins leading to my heart where it created a certain warmth.

My eyes flew open knowing exactly why I was feeling this way. My body went stiff, and I found myself being slightly disgusted by how much I was enjoying Matteo and I's position.

I was pretty much curled into a ball around Matteo's arm which was thrown lazily over the side of my stomach. His torso was pressed directly against my back, and from the amount of heat I was feeling, I suspected he was without a shirt. I wasn't sure if a should fist bump the air or fake a seizure in order to get out of the cuddly situation.

I'd never been much of a cuddler, but, for some God-forsaken reason, I was really enjoying being wrapped up in Matteo's arms. And, I do mean really.

Deciding to go against practically every single bone in my body, I gritted my teeth and slowly unraveled myself from Matteo. Trust me when I say I went against every bone. I'm pretty sure I was not only going against my spine, tibia, femur, rib cage, and whatever other types of bones there are within myself, but I was also going against all seven trillion nerves in me, as well. I don't even know if there are seven trillion nerves in my body, but I know that I was going against them.

I effectively removed myself from Matteo's grasp. I had to seriously hold myself back from crawling back into the bed with him. With a final huff after staring at his godly-self from the edge of the bed for like five minutes, I turned around and headed toward the door.

"It's kind of amusing seeing such a little thing like yourself trying to fight against something so big as a mate bond," Matteo's voice cut through the air making me freeze just as I was reaching for the door knob.

"Who said I was denying it?" I asked aloud causing him to chuckle.

"It's not that hard to see, Kaia. You're just as blunt with your motives as you are with your words." The bedside lamp turned on suddenly and I took that as a signal that Matteo wanted this conversation to be face to face. With a quiet sigh, I forced myself to slowly turn around. I did exactly what I thought I would do if I looked into Matteo's deep blue eyes. I melted and completely shut down.

"You must be blind then," I stated trying to focus my eyes on anything other than his eyes that seemed to make my fingers go numb. Even though he was just laying there in his shirtless glory showing off his absolutely god-like body, my eyes seemed to want to travel up the his eyes. That never happened to me. I admit, I'm a sucker for a hot body. "If I wanted to deny our bond, I would have just left already."

"And you just weren't?"

"No," I said a bit too quickly. I paused trying to put the right words together. "I'm just not good in cuddly situations." I expected Matteo to understand or ask why, but instead he laughed at me. He just blatantly chuckled at my honesty. "What?" I snapped slightly annoyed.

"It's just a bit funny that you say you aren't a cuddler."

"Well, I'm not," I said, crossing my arms over my chest.

"Yeah, because you definitely didn't have my entire arm in a death grip all night," he retorted making my eyes widen.

"You're lying," I accused making the sexy, little smirk on his beautifully handsome face deepen.

"You know for a fact that you did because that's how you woke up this morning." Well, shit.

"I'm hungry," I stated quickly, trying to get away from the topic of my suddenly snuggly-ass.

"When aren't you?" Matteo scoffed.

"Hey!" I snapped as I narrowed my eyes at him. He put his hands up in mock surrender as he sat up in the bed giving me a perfect view of his chest.

Holy hell. His body is bangin'.

"I'm just saying, it's very intriguing how someone as tiny as you can eat so much and be so small." I furrowed my brows together thinking of what exactly to say.

'Oh, yeah! I was locked in a prison for the past four years because I'm a murderer!' I really don't see that going well even if Matteo is my mate.

"Fast metabolism, you know? The fastest like fast," I babbled trying to play it off, but I think I just made him more curious. His left eyebrow quirked upward as if knowing exactly what I was doing. With an annoyed huff, I made my way back over to Matteo's bed and crawled in as a petty attempt of escaping whatever awkward conversation was about to occur.

"I—" Matteo began to say something, but I quickly interrupted him, throwing the covers over my head.

"Shut up, and go to bed."

When I woke up, Matteo wasn't next to me which I was actually pretty upset about. I was also a tad bit thankful that he wasn't, though, because I really didn't want him questioning me about whatever weird babble flew out of my mouth last night. I don't think I wanted him knowing about where I'd been for the past four years or how I ended up there.

Normally, I'd be up and out of bed as soon as possible. I was never really someone who laid in bed for a while in the mornings, but for some reason all I wanted to do this morning was hold onto Matteo's pillow as tightly to my chest as humanly possible.

"Not sure if you're snuggling or trying to choke that pillow, but I'm gonna hope for the first one," Jack's voice suddenly broke through the silence of the room, startling me. I jumped practically two feet in the air as I threw the pillow off of the bed. I swiftly turned around to see Jack standing in the door way.

"What are you doing here?" I shouted causing Jack to flinch.

"Jesus Christ, Kai, chill. I have sensitive hearing," Jack complained pointing to his right ear.

"What are you doing here?" I repeated.

"Matteo's handling something in his office and wanted me to check up on you every hour. We always figured he'd be a bit too overprotective, but, shit, do I feel bad for you. He's hell-bent on making sure you're safe," Jack chuckled making me roll my eyes. A part of me loved the fact that Matteo was always so worried about me even though he wasn't too great at showing me that himself. Another part of me didn't like it. It felt extremely foreign and almost wrong of him to care so much.

"Yeah, I can take care of myself," I retorted cracking my neck.

"Uh huh. Looks like it," Jack muttered. I cracked my knuckles on my right hand and glared at him.

"I'm perfectly fine."

"It looks like you haven't eaten in weeks, Kaia."

"It's a rough world out there, meathead," I put simply. What was with everyone questioning my weight?

"Were you alone?" Jack asked, suddenly changing the course of the conversation.

"Was I alone?"

"Yeah, like did you have a friend or something with you when you went rogue or was it like an independent thing?" Jack pressed as he leaned his body against the doorframe.

"I never went rogue," I said while I pressed my back against the headboard of the bed. "I was born into this." Jack's eyes lit up like a kid on Christmas morning. I had obviously said something that intrigued him.

"Wait, you're like a legit rogue?"

"Yes, Jack. I was born into rogue life. Don't get too excited. It's not as glamorous as you'd probably hope for it to be," I said nonchalantly. A natural born rogue is sort of a rarity. Normally, rogues end up being murdered before they have kids, or they end up joining a pack when they meet their mates. Most often than not, wolves born rogues tend to try living the human life and go unnoticed, but other times you end up with wolves like me who really love to see people die.

Gruesome, I know.

"Are your parents both rogues?" Jack questioned. I groaned hating to think about my parents seeing as how they practically abandoned me.

"My dad is, but my mom wasn't always. The mate bond works in some mysterious ways, let me tell you." Jack was not satisfied with this answer. He just continued asking me to tell him more. With an annoyed groan, I kept feeding Jack small details from my life story. "My mom was an Alpha's daughter. Her dad refused to allow my parents to be together, so, basically, my mom was just like 'screw you, Dad' and went rogue. My parents fell in love, and here I am."

"That's it?"

"More or less," I concluded deciding to leave out the bits about my brother and the fact that we're all practically serial killers.

"So, where are your parents?" Jack asked. I think he was expecting some big speech about how they were on the hunt right now looking for their daughter with whom they love because my answer seemed to freak him out a tad.

"Probably dead."

"What?" Jack looked slightly panicked as his foresty-green eyes grew in size as if someone had just told him he was pregnant.

"What? I just said they're probably dead?" I repeated myself not entirely understanding why he was having such a conniption over it.

"Exactly! Why would you think that?"

"Um, because I haven't seen them in like five years," I drug out slowly watching his mouth drop.

"Five years? What the hell happened?" I groaned, really hating myself for getting started on this whole topic. It was a bit of a sensitive topic for me to talk or think about. I just tended to not want to be bothered by the thought of it. It's unfortunate, but it happened. There's nothing I can do to change it.

"When one leaves, so does the other," I shrugged not really knowing what else to say about it. A thought must have crossed Jack's mind because his brows furrowed together in that moment suddenly looking confused by something.

"Is that why you have something against mates?" Now, it was my turn to be confused.

"What?"

"Your parents were mates, and they left—"

"No, no," I interrupted, holding up my right hand to make him stop talking. "I know what you meant. I'm just confused by your stupidity. I don't have anything against mates, and—if I did—it wouldn't ever be because of my parents. They were perfect," I explained, suddenly becoming very defensive over my family.

"Then, what's your issue with being Matteo's mate?" Again, what was with all of the repetitive questions today? I wasn't denying the mate bond!

"I'm not denying!"

"But, you aren't accepting it."

"Okay, and? That's not that bad."

"You're practically friend-zoning him," Jack deadpanned. I paused for a second and narrowed my eyes at him.

"I am not," I finally responded after just staring at Jack in annoyance for two minutes.

"I was honestly expecting something more than just 'I am not' for the amount of time it took you to come up with those three words," Jack chided causing me to roll my eyes.

"It's not that I refuse to accept the bond. I do. I just don't accept him as in his title," I put simply.

"So, you just don't like that he's an Alpha?" Jack seemed completely dumbfounded by this, and that only multiplied when I nodded my head. "So what? You're just going to hold out on him until he isn't an Alpha anymore?"

"Well," I drug out pondering at the idea, "when you put it like that, it doesn't sound half bad." To this, Jack's hands were in the air in disbelief over what I had just said.

"You're joking. Tell me you aren't serious right now? You actually believe that you can just go against fate?" Jack interrogated seeming highly offended. I wanted to tell him to just chill and that the whole thing wasn't a big deal, but this seemed like a huge deal to Jack for some unknown reason. I didn't want to make him cry or something.

"It's not fate, Jack," I deadpanned. "Mates are just mates." Okay, I was even lying to myself with that one. It went against practically everything the werewolf species knows to say that mates aren't chosen by fate. Supernatural beings such as ourselves are highly dependent on the idea of fate. Going against it causes reactions like the ones coming from Jack.

"So you're telling me that fate has nothing to do with the course of your life what-so-ever?"

"Yes."

"Unbelievable," Jack said sounding exasperated as he threw his hands into the air, once again.

"Calm your hands," I commented, but he just blatantly ignored me.

"You ever read that one book-play-thing? It's called like Egglious or Edinous or some shit like that?" He asked instantly causing me to go brain dead having no idea what he was chattering about.

"Um, no?" I drug out slowly, unsure of what relevance a 'book-play-thing' had to our previous conversation. Jack scoffed lightly and flicked his wrist as if shooing away what I had said.

"Well, this dude, alright, he's like a king—wait, no—he's the son of a king and Queen, okay? So, he gets told this prophecy about himself that he's going to end up murdering his father and banging his mom. Well,—"

"What the hell are you reading?" I interrupted him at the mention of his interest in reading about incest.

"It was for school, okay? Shut up," he snapped. "Anyway, he like runs away to avoid—you know—killing his dad and hooking up with his mom. He ends up murdering some dude on his travels for something stupid. I don't even remember, and he winds up saving this place or whatever from some thing that is like terrorizing it and it's people. Then, he marries the queen of the place, they bang, he finds out that the people he ran away from that he thought were his parents actually weren't his parents, and the dude he killed was his real dad, and his new wife is his mom. Then, he like rips his eyeballs out, but that's not important." By the time Jack finished, I'm pretty sure I looked like I wanted to rip my eyeballs out. The look on my face was no doubt something of disgust and 'what the actual hell'.

"You read that for school?" I asked in total bewilderment by what school would ever allow a child to read something like that.

"You're missing the point!" He groaned in frustration. "You can make your own choices," Jack stated looking me dead in the eyes with all seriousness, "but what you do at free-will is just going to lead you to your fate. You can't outrun it. It's a force not another person, Kaia."

"Well, what if I just shoot myself right now?"

"Then, your fate was highly unfortunate for you to die as a nineteen-year old."

"You aren't going to stop with this whole fate thing, are you?" I sighed. I was growing extremely tired of this conversation.

"Nope because I'm right," Jack assured. "Honestly, what is the worst that could happen? Giving in to something that's meant to happen?"

"Um, I end up dead," I deadpanned referring back to what I had used as an example minutes ago. Jack's attitude went from passionate to looking as if he couldn't believe I was actually of adult age. He looked like he wanted to smack me over the head with a board to maybe knock some sense into me.

"How the hell would that even happen?"

"You asked for the worst possible outcome," I shrugged lazily. "I was going to say that somehow I end up mated to Daniella, but I decided to take one for the team and be nice."

"Are you going to take my advice or not?" Jack blurted out impatiently. With an annoyed flick of my tongue and an eye roll (that I do far too often), I agreed to give into fate. Jack was pleased by this and, without another word, bounded down the hall and disappeared.

"How did I manage to get myself stuck in this situation?" I muttered to myself as I got out of bed and made my way to the bathroom.
_____

Okay so I never intended for anyone to ship Kaia and Daniella together but it's happening a lot more than I thought it would.

Also shittttttt I've been gone. Not long but moderately long. Sorry bout that.

Yea I don't really have much else to say other than I'm dead from track

Stay awesome Gotham 3/1/14