Omen [noun] - an event regarded as a portent of good or evil.

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In every nightmare, there was a moment, a long and painful one, where time felt like it had stopped, when Kane, in wolf form, was staring at me, waiting for me to move so he could pounce. It was the only instance where I could acutely hear three things—my heartbeat, the blood rushing in my ears and the air in my lungs.

I wasn't having a nightmare but time had stopped again and I could hear all three things in that moment. I took a step back and tilted my head in bewilderment. "You've known me for three years?" my voice echoed around the hall. "How is that even possible?"

A part of me knew how, but I didn't want to ask if Kane knew about my nightmares or worse, had some of his own.

Kane reached for my shaky hand and steadied it in his. "I'll show you." He took a step forward and his other hand gently touched my face. "You're still safe with me, Rina."

For the briefest moment, I wondered why he had said that until I realised the expression I had on my face. I was scared. Scared that something bigger than both of us was happening, that even though he had said he didn't, Kane did want to kill me the first time we met and that why he had looked at me as if he knew me suddenly made sense now.

He had known me for three years.

I blew out a breath and nodded, unsure if I was convinced. "Show me."

He led us all the way back to the house and up the stairs to the top floor. His house had three floors, and since our bedrooms were on the first, I had never felt the urge to explore, especially before I decided that I did want to stay with him.

We came to a door at the end of the corridor and he pushed it open, turning on the light. It was freezing, more so than the rest of the house, and Kane realised when I shivered.

"Sorry. Let me go turn the heating on." His hand slipped from mine. "Stay here and don't touch anything yet, okay?"

I nodded but I wasn't looking at him. I was looking at the array of covered paintings in the room. Seven easels were covered by white sheets. The biggest was in the middle and flanked by three on each side. Curiosity flooded through me but I listened to Kane's words and didn't touch anything. What did he want to show me?

He returned a minute later. His hand flattened against the small of my back and amidst all that I felt, the only thing that made sense was his touch. He looked down at me. "Ever since I was sent away, the only thing that helped me process my emotions was painting. It helps me make sense of things and I paint whatever plagues my mind." He turned to the easels and stepped towards the largest one, gripping the white sheet. "I painted this one three years ago and have looked at it almost every day."

When he pulled the sheet off, it felt like the floor had disappeared from under me.

He had painted me.

Beautifully. I was dressed in a white flowy dress with sheer lace sleeves. I was standing in the shallow part of a lake, dripping with water. My dark hair fell past my shoulders in waves with wet strands framing my face. I was smiling, a closed-lip smile, and my eyes held an emotion I knew I had never experienced before. Love.

I tore my gaze away from the painting to look at Kane. He was staring at it, captivated. I realised that he had painted me from his perspective. I was looking at him with love.

"How?" was all I could utter.

His head slowly turned before his eyes met mine, as if he didn't want to look away from the painting. "I dreamt of you."

I inhaled sharply and shook my head. He had dreamt of me. My dreams were nightmares. I saw Kane at his scariest whereas he saw me looking more beautiful than I had ever seen myself. What was going on?

"None of this makes sense," I repeated, feeling my breathing quicken.

Kane shot into action, curling his hands around my shoulders. "Hey." He stopped me from moving and lowered his head to catch my gaze. "It's okay, Rina. Can't you see what this means?"

My gaze darted between his eyes. "What? What does this mean, Kane?"

He brought his hand to the side of my neck with his thumb resting against my earlobe. "You're her." His words triggered a sense of deja vu. He had said those exact words when we first met. "Even when we didn't have anything on our wrists, I knew you. My soul knew you. You've always been my mate, Rina."

The amount of emotions I was feeling of late was becoming overwhelming. How could I tell him that the only time I had recognised him as my mate was when his name on my wrist confirmed it? The Kane I had known for the past three years was my murderer and tormenter.

That paled, however, in the face of the Kane I was getting to know—the real Kane.

I decided that he would be the only one sharing a secret when I took a deep breath in and out, and reluctantly nodded. "I'm your mate," I whispered, more to myself than him. It killed two birds with one stone. If everything else didn't make sense, the only thing I knew for certain was that I was his mate. I didn't have to be scared of him because of it.

"You are," he softly replied, smiling slightly. "And you are more beautiful than I even imagined."

My face warmed and I cracked a smile. "That painting is the most beautiful I've ever seen myself."

I turned back to it, examining it further.

"It doesn't compare to seeing you in real life, Rina." He stood beside me.

The painting was a mix of dark and light blues and amber. The sun was shining on the water and bathed me in a warm glow. It was almost like looking into a mirror. My gaze fell on my wrist in the painting. It wasn't bare. But instead of his name, the number 77996 was burned into my skin.

I reached out towards the painting, brushing my fingertips across the canvas. "What does this number mean?"

Kane shook his head gently. "I don't know. But that's what I saw."

More unanswered questions. "Have you told anyone about this?"

He shook his head again. "No." A sad smile crossed his face for a second. "Imagine how it would've sounded. 'Hey, I know I don't have anything on my wrist but I'm sure I have a mate.' They would've just chalked it up to pathetic wishful thinking on my part."

"It's not pathetic," I instantly replied, holding his gaze. "Everyone wants a mate." I looked down. "Most don't know what it feels like...to think and try to accept that you'll be alone for the rest of your life."

Warmth surrounded me when he curved his arm around my waist, pulling me against him. I wrapped my arms around his neck, stepping up onto my tiptoes to hug him properly. The tension instantly left my body and I buried my face into his neck, taking him in.

"You're not alone, Rina. Not anymore," he spoke into my hair.

I leaned back to look at him. He had started to paint after he was sent away, isolated away from his parents and pack for his own safety. His painting of me, and him looking at it almost every day, told me that it had been the only thing stopping him from feeling alone.

Spurred by that thought, I replied, "Neither are you."

He leaned down and when he kissed me, he smiled against my lips. His arms tightened around my waist to hold me against him and I could feel his heart racing in his chest. My hand curved around the side of his neck and the artery pulsated against my palm, reiterating that he was alive and here, with me, not dead and out of reach. We were no longer alone.

At that thought, desperation poured into our kiss. I wanted to commit everything about him to memory, to flush out everything else that had been etched into my brain for the past three years.

When we pulled away, neither of us wanted to let go. His forehead was against mine and he applied slight pressure as he spoke. "For so long, I wanted to touch you—for you to be more than a figment of my imagination." The tip of his nose caressed mine. "I almost didn't let myself feel it but I'm so glad I did. I knew that if I wanted you then you had to be real."

I opened my eyes to see his still shut. He had made it clear from our first meeting that he wanted me. He had said as much when I had asked him in anger.

"Where you drew me..." My words coaxed his eyes open and he stood up straight, listening. "Is it a real place?"

He nodded. "It's part of my land."

The cogs were beginning to turn in my head. In my nightmare, he had always chased me in my pack's territory. It was why I was, notwithstanding the fact that I saw it every night, so familiar with the terrain. It made sense for his dream to be somewhere that he knew too. But did it have a reason?

"Can I see it?"

He reached down for my hand. "Of course."

I was grateful he wasn't asking any questions. It was silent between us as we walked out of the house, and he led the way to the lake. I presumed it was different to the body of water that stretched across the clearing where he had completed his challenge. We were on the other side of the forest. It was dark now and the waning gibbous moon gently reflected off the ice but I recognised it all the same.

My wrist began to throb, not painfully, but almost as a reminder that his name was etched on my skin. "Do you feel that?"

"Yes," he answered, looking at his own.

We stared at the frozen lake for a few minutes in silence until I forced myself to ask a question. "In your dream...did I ever say anything?"

He glanced at me. "My name. Just my name like you had said it a hundred times before."

Maybe that was why our names appeared on each other's wrists.

"Did you know my name?"

He shook his head. "I never spoke. You would say my name and we would stand in the water together. Then the dream would end after you kissed me." This time, when his gaze locked on mine, he didn't look away. "That's why I waited for you to kiss me first so that I could have something from that dream."

My mind was beginning to spiral. All this time, I had thought that us being mates was accidental, something forced upon us because of our misdeeds. But everything Kane did was so intentional. If we had known each other in our dreams before ever meeting in real life, it meant what I was thinking was correct.

Our dreams had truths to them.

But then I thought back to my nightmare and how in reality, it ended differently. A thought crossed my mind for the briefest moment before I forced it away.

If parts of my dream had changed and didn't come true, I wondered if what Kane saw would ever come to pass.