Unedited

The aroma of sweet and savoury delights wafted through the air as Samaira Patel bustled about in the kitchen. The self-proclaimed queen of kitchen multitasking was busy with the finishing touches to a three-tier serving stand which was stuffed full of bite sized delicacies. Carefully lifting the overloaded stacks, she sashayed to the round dining table and placed it at its centre. Satisfied after checking that the cutlery was in order and the tea in the large teapot was perfectly steeped, she clapped her hands together and yelled, "Teatime, lovebirds!"

Emilia's muffled yell in reply could be heard through the closed door of the guest bedroom. Within, Aidan and Emilia finally separated from their hours-long embrace and reluctantly got off the bed. Aidan stretched, glanced around the room and then said, "It's a bit late to ask, but where are we?"

Emilia was busy smoothening the wrinkles on her blouse, "A close friend's place. Don't worry, Samaira is perfectly trustworthy."

"Does she know about me?"

"Not yet, but I'm going to tell her. She's a great ally to have on our side and I'm sure she won't need much convincing to join us." Emilia paused at the door, "By the way, should I introduce you as Aidan, or Mathias?"

Just a year ago, Aidan's life was, although relatively comfortable, quite unexceptional. He buried himself in work, paid his bills and socialized with his small group of friends. Accepting a new job with his new boss Robert Wallace at the Unified Research Centre was supposed to be a step up from his old one but it turned out to be his Pandora's box instead, releasing a slew of secrets that revealed the hidden world of supernatural creatures and the dangers that came with knowing of their existence.

Not only had Aidan found out that his mother was a werewolf and that his brother Gavin had transitioned into one, an even bigger secret was revealed by none other than his witch lover Emilia Feronia; he was the reincarnation of Matthias Bloodreign, vampire prince and heir to the throne of the vampire world of Tilrigen.

His death was entwined with the disappearance of the three portals that linked Earth with the three worlds of the werewolves, vampires and witches, leaving many supernaturals stranded in the human world. With the unique power of his vampire sister Lannetta, the soul of Matthias was now recast as the human Aidan.

A year ago, Aidan had many doubts, but none of them were regarding his own existence. But now the love of his life was asking him a question, so simple and yet endlessly complicated. It left him stumped because the question held an underlying dilemma. Who was he? Was he Aidan Summers or was he Mathias Bloodreign? He couldn't be both at the same time, although he would likely be one or the other to many different people. He thought for a long while in silence, while Emilia waited patiently.

There were certain things that couldn't remain in the past, but his name wasn't one of them. "I want to be Aidan from now on."

Emilia smiled gently and held out her hand, never questioning his choice. "Alright, Aidan. Let's go meet Samaira."

When they reached the formal dining area, Samaira peeked her head through from the adjacent kitchen doorway before walking towards Aidan with long strides.

"My, my. He's quite the looker when he's not hovering at death's door, isn't he? Lucky you," she said with a wink to the golden-haired witch, who couldn't hide a small smile while Aidan blushed in embarrassment. "Emilia darling, don't keep the poor lad in suspense and introduce me, will you?"

"This is Aidan Summers, my soulmate," Emilia calmly replied, used to her friend's teasing. "Aidan, meet Samaira Patel, my friend—"

Samaira butted in, "Only friend, might I add—"

"—Although I ask myself why we're friends, sometimes," Emilia finished with pursed lips, earning a snort of ridicule from her friend.

"Aww, don't pretend like you disapprove of my personality." Samaira tossed her soft, lustrous waves over a shoulder and struck a dramatic pose. "You know I'm fabulous."

Their host ushered her guests to the table, and fussed over them, pouring tea and placing beautifully crafted snacks onto their serving plates. Once done, she took a seat before carefully asking, "I'm a little curious as to how the two of you met, seeing as to how Emilia doesn't have much of a life besides working for her equally workaholic father."

Emilia and Aidan exchanged looks of understanding before Emilia answered, "About that, it's quite a story I have in store for you." As Emilia dove into the details of how they met, Aidan gazed at the delicate lemon meringue tart, pistachio éclair and mini salmon sandwich on his plate and sighed, wishing he had his phone with him so that he could take a photo of the food since it was pretty much a work of art.

At the thought of his phone, Aidan suddenly realised, 'Deflated macarons! I need to call Gavin! He must be losing his mind, worrying about me.' Aidan looked to Emilia, who was busy telling their story to a wide-eyed Samaira, and decided not to interrupt. 'I'll call him the moment Emilia finishes,' he decided, and then began munching on the food. After having nothing to eat for an entire day, his tummy was aching for a good meal, and Aidan continued to help himself from the serving stand, a smile of contentment lazily etching itself on his face.

He was about to take another bite of food when a memory from his past life flashed by brighter than a neon sign board in a dark alleyway. Dropping the half eaten tart back on his plate, Aidan abruptly held his head in both hands.

"Oh god, no."

"What? Why? Is something wrong with the food?" Samaira asked with unmistakable horror underlying her voice.

"It's not the food. I just remembered something from the past that's bound to make my life miserable."

Emilia held a look of resignation, already mentally preparing for the worst, as she asked Aidan, "Do I want to know?"

"Probably not, but I'll tell you anyway." His gaze quickly fell on Samaira, "Although I'm not sure if you want to stick around to hear this."

Samaira replied with an air of nonchalance that Aidan found rather shocking, "It seems I've inadvertently picked a side without realising it, so I might as well know every sweet detail of what I've gotten myself into."

Aidan rushed to assure the witch, "You don't have to get involved in this," although Emilia immediately rescinded it. "Nope, she's staying."

Samaira looked from one to the other, her wide lips pulling into a big grin at their polar replies. She nodded at Emilia while saying, "I guess that's that. I do owe you one for the time you helped me out of a pickle," not elaborating about their history any further.

Turning her focus back to Aidan, the dark-haired beauty leaned forward, resting her elbows on the table, before asking conspiratorially, "Now, what was that juicy morsel of memory that's got your boxers in a twist?"

Aidan flopped in his chair, looking like he'd lost a spine. Resting his head on the edge of the chair back and with his eyes gazing towards the ceiling, he uttered, "I think I killed Emerie Livingstone's husband."

The witches blinked at him, and then looked at each other blankly, before bursting out in unison, "WHAT!!?"

Eyes still focused on the ceiling, he answered, "I fireballed him into oblivion."

Samaira let out a laugh that sounded like a cry. "I take back what I said. You have every reason to worry, keep twisting those boxers."

Aidan groaned loudly.

Emilia shot a round of questions, a look of disbelief still plastered on her face. "How did it happen? When did you cross paths with the man? How sure are you that it was Delano Livingstone?"

"It was during the invasion of Hjem. I was jumped by a group of wolves and one of them bit me. It had grey fur. I didn't have a choice but to retaliate with my Talent. The wolf that ran to his aid had walnut brown fur."

Emilia's expression turned bleak at the mention of the brown wolf, confirming Aidan's suspicions. He remembered the fury and hatred in the eyes of the younger Emerie during the last moments of his previous life. Without realising it, he lifted a hand to his chest, rubbing at the spot that had hurt so badly during his excruciating effort to close the portal. "I'm pretty sure the man I killed was the Chieftain's husband."

Samaira's voice contained a nervous tremor as she suggested, "Let's not go telling the world about this, shall we?"

Emilia was on the same wavelength. "Agreed. This stays between the three of us."

Aidan thought of Gavin and felt a twinge of regret at having to keep such a huge secret from him, but Gavin was surrounded by wolves and all it took was a slip of the tongue for things to turn ugly. "Alright," he agreed.

A short while later, Aidan made a call to a frantic Gavin, who answered on the first ring. "I'm fine, I'm fine," he quickly placated his elder brother, "the witches saved me. I'm sending you the location right now."

After hanging up, Aidan was at a loss on how to break the news to his brother about who he truly was. He was so deep in thought that he didn't hear Emilia walk up to him.

"Still thinking on how to break it to Gavin?"

Aidan let out a startled yelp before sheepishly grinning at her. "Yeah, it's going to be awkward, considering Tyler's his good friend, and Gavin is a part of the werewolf clans, whether he likes it or not."

Emilia wrapped her arms around him. "I've seen how he is around you. Gavin loves you more than anything else in the world. Just tell him the truth. Oh, except for the part about Delano Livingstone, of course." Aidan rested his chin on the top of her head, heaving a soft sigh of worry.

By the time the doorbell rang an hour later, Aidan was a jittery mess. 'Calm yourself,' he admonished silently before heading to the front door. The moment he opened it, he was crushed in the arms of his brother, who picked him off his feet and squeezed him tight.

"I thought I'd lost you!" Gavin was on the verge of tears, too distraught to say more. Aidan hugged him back fiercely. "You ain't getting rid of me that easily," he joked, trying to lighten the mood.

"Well, that was pretty anticlimactic," a familiar voice exclaimed loudly from the entryway. "I thought we'd eventually be scouring vampire hideouts and going on revenge rampages throughout Europe to seek vengeance on the untimely end of a poor human. Turns out he was enjoying a cup of tea with the witches." Charlie, as talkative as ever, trudged in, followed by Andy, Brandon and Tyler. The three wolves were exhausted and looked the part, with their dark eyebags taking centre stage. Tyler was the only one who still appeared energetic.

"Glad to see you're safe," Tyler said as he walked by, patting the human on the shoulder, not noticing the complicated look in the man's eyes as he said to himself, 'Will you think the same once you know my secret?'

Aidan wasn't expecting anyone else besides Gavin to show up, and turned wide eyes to Emilia, who motioned with her hands for calm. Samaira excitedly welcomed the group in and introductions were made before everyone adjourned to the living area. Samaira was both thrilled to have guests over, and mildly tickled at the sight of several large werewolves trying to squeeze themselves into her rather small Ikea sofa seats. Aidan hurried to Emilia's side, anxiety spiking as he whispered in her ear, "I don't think we should tell them anything."

She had a calculating look on her face as she refuted, "On the contrary, now is the best time to tell them everything."

"What? Why?" His stomach was already doing somersaults that would've put Olympic gymnasts to shame.

"I know about your brother falling out with his friends. The Committee Intelligence Unit reports to my father, and what happened to your brother wasn't a well-kept secret to begin with. The fact that the three of them are here means they've come to help in exchange for forgiveness. Your brother will side with you, and they will side with him."

Aidan tilted his head to the side as he tried to look at it from her analytical viewpoint. "And what about Tyler?"

"He wants peace and stability for his people, which makes me ninety percent certain he'll be on our side." She threw a glance towards the big werewolf. "He reminds me of you when you were young."

Aidan went silent. When he was young, hopeful and naive. It hadn't ended very well for him. Hopefully Tyler would have better luck. "You seem really sure about this," he finally said.

Emilia looked rather smug as she said, "Trust me, I've been observing people for seven hundred years."

Her words made Aidan abruptly face the petite witch, and suddenly an image of her from his past life seemed to superimpose onto the Emilia that stood before him. She felt both familiar and foreign to him, although for a moment, he couldn't tell which version of her was linked to what emotion. With a pang, he realised that Emilia had grown in multiple ways during his absence and he was going to have to get used to the many new facets to her personality. He forced aside the sudden negativity and smiled, "Yeah, okay."

Aidan took a seat on one of the single high back chairs, the others having arranged themselves on the twin and three seater sofas. The second everyone was seated, a flustered Gavin could no longer hold back and asked Aidan, with no small amounts of impatience, "What happened after we were separated?"

All eyes turned to face him, waiting expectantly for his explanation. Aidan closed his eyes and took a deep breath to try and bring about his inner calm. When that didn't work, he tried recalling his life as the prince of an entire species, of how he'd trained his whole life to carry the burden that was expected of him. When Aidan opened his eyes, a strange, resolute calm seemed to have taken over. Stealing Emilia's opening line from her earlier conversation with Samaira, Aidan began, "About that, it's quite a story I have in store for you."