She thought that she knew what it was like to hurt â€" until she met Andras. That wasn't how things had felt at first, but as time went on, that was when it truly began to creep into her heart and bring to her chest an ache unlike anything that she'd ever felt before. In Willowhaven, tucked into the security of her small country hometown, there'd been little capable of hurting Beylani. Some would say that it was because of that protective blanket her mother and father surrounded her in. There was no question that they were good parents, having received more than their fair share of compliments on how well-behaved and well-raised their one and only child was. The sweetness that had always be present in the blue-eyed blonde girl was a charm that had drawn many to the young girl, her bright and cheerful laughter one that would so often give others the chance to smile when their days might not be going so well. She'd always been known as a ray of sunshine on even when it seemed like the pewter clouds laden with rainwater had no beginning and no end. Her mother and father and even the rest of her small yet loving family, for as long as the young woman could remember, have always called her Lamb for the gentleness and innocence that illuminated those baby blues that looked upon the world and saw the light to just about anything and everything. For her, there had always been that silver lining on the horizon, a reason to be hopeful that something grand and beautiful was waiting even when it seemed like everything was dark, that all she would ever need to do was be patient and keep that soft heart of hers open for when the sun would finally break through those figurative storm clouds. As she grew older one year at a time, as she became just a little wiser with every lesson, she only came to realize just how hard it would be for her to hang onto the light. She saw the world for what it truly was â€" or what she'd thought it was before moving to Sacrosanct â€" through the news channel and Sunday papers that her father would always indulge in. And yet, still she clung to that hope, that small thread of light that could be seen in almost every aspect of her life so long as she was willing to look for it with more than just her mind touched and made very nearly timid and wary by the realities that surrounded her. Perhaps it was foolish, something that she should finally leave behind her with the rest of her childhood memories. She knows that the world is far from kind, and if Halloween night hadn't taught her that much, then surely, she would have been considered a lost cause. But, even in the darkest night, she also knew that the sun would rise, and this was something that her heart knew and trusted above all else.

However, what the blue-eyed blonde woman hadn't anticipated on, was just how much of her heart and soul another would be able to take when she'd never meant to give it. She had tried. Gods knew she truly did, that voice within the back of her mind warning her against what would come of this. You'll only end up hurt... You'll never be anything that he deserves... You're just a nobody, some small-town girl from the countryside and he is royalty, what makes you think that you could ever be with him?... These had been the thoughts that filled her restless nights at first. And, once upon a time, they'd been enough for Beylani to do what she could to tell herself that the things he said to her, the way that he would look at her, the way that he would touch her was all nothing more than some wild misunderstanding made by the heart of a naïve young woman who thought that, just maybe, she could mean so much more to someone than she felt she ever could to the world. Of course, her family would always tell her that she was their entire world, her mother and father always assuring her that she was the most beautiful and precious gift they'd ever been given. She could hardly count the number of times that she had been complimented on the sweetness of her smile and the way that it always seemed to make her eyes dance like stars in a clear summer night sky or how she had a heart so warm and so big that it left the bearer of these words surprised that there was not already someone special in her life. There had been Brayden, but even from the start, the young teenage girl had a feeling that it wasn't meant to last, that it was just some little crush or something that was made into more that it really felt. And she'd been right, her one and only boyfriend of her younger years leaving her behind just as her supposed friends did when high school was over and they fled from the small countryside to the bigger cities with large universities, hellbent on getting away from the quiet little town they'd grown up in as their reckless spirited craved excitement and something bigger... all while Beylani had been content to stay behind, living a quiet existence where everything was so simple and plain yet no less fulfilling than the things her former classmates had taken after in wild abandon. She had been the face everyone knew, the kind and gentle soul that would never hesitate to help those that might need it. In Willowhaven, she had been the closest she would likely ever be to being somebody. She could have happily led an easy life there in her hometown, and yet that dream had always been there, calling to the young woman and eventually beckoning her from the only home she ever knew and into a world where she was just a nobody. Perhaps she would have been perfectly happy with this, but fate had something altogether different planned for her. When she encountered Andras, everything had changed. She'd found herself falling in love, something she hadn't thought would happen in the way that it did. Even in spite of the warnings, that voice in the back of her mind that told her she would only end up so terribly broken, too far beyond any fleeting chance of ever healing completely from the wounds that would cut into her heart so deep she would be left wishing for no heart at all, though she had done her best to tell herself it would never be her love story, she had fallen so hard and so hopelessly for perhaps the one who would never love her back.

Even with all the strife and heartache that closely accompanied the feelings having taken root within her heart before she'd been able to stop it, there was no place else that she wanted to be more than with him, whether it would be here or in the breathtaking arms of Insomniq. Despite the trials and tribulations that came with what she felt, regardless of the differences between them that could not possibly be clearer, it was hard for her to think of her heart beating for anyone else. No, it was impossible. She knows that if any were to hear this, to know what resided in each and every beat of her heart, if they could see the world that she saw with him, there was no doubt in the young woman's mind that they would tell her that all things, even the deepest of wounds, would heal with time. They might tell her that it only meant Andras was not the one for her, that her other half was still out there somewhere in the world waiting for her to find him. She was certain that if she returned home lost and heartbroken, her family would wrap her up in their arms and tell her everything would be alright in the end, that she would learn to live without him and just maybe he would fade away into some hazy memory where she couldn't even picture his face anymore. He would just become a small part of her past that left her hurt, teaching her how to get back up after enduring enough heartache that she almost wanted it all to end. Beylani would be surrounded by all the love and support she could ever want... but even in knowing this, the blue-eyed blonde woman didn't want it. Any of it. She would never want to try and find love in another man out of some futile attempt to fill the gaping hole Andras would leave behind as he shattered her fantasies and forced her back into the cold reality of what they could have: nothing. She was uncertain that she could continue to live here in this city knowing how it was that she felt for him and how he did not feel for her, unable - and unwilling - to forget the places they'd gone, the memories that they'd made. She would hold onto them tighter then, even when it only broke her more and tested her desire to breathe without him. Beylani knew that she would feel as though she were drowning in cold water and he would not be there to save her this time, and somehow, through the steadily growing dread and heartache, she was alright with this. She didn't want to let him fade into just another chapter of her life that she couldn't remember clearly, though she was also almost entirely certain that she would never be able to. He haunts her now, in those moments when they were apart, and so she cannot imagine finding those hazel eyes on her dreams, in her empty days where she would be wishing desperately that things could have been when she knew that they could never be. Even for all the conflicted and yet somehow sp perfectly intertwined feelings of bliss and sorrow that the fae man stirred within Beylani, her heart would always be his. Nothing would ever change that, even when he would come to reject it. She would never be able to take it back. He would be the first true love she'd ever known, and he would be the last.

Midnight tenor tones reach for her again, and she cannot help the way that her baby blues soften despite the humor in his words."You've given me no such reasons to feel otherwise after that first night", she answers truthfully while she lays there so very close to him. When his next words find the young woman, her own quiet laughter falls like a trickling stream over blush-colored lips, knowing that there was truth in his words. Had he come to bed with her... well, she doesn't allow for herself to finish this thought, not with him beside her and the fae man seeming so easily capable of telling when her thoughts would wander to such places. Andras grins devilishly down to her for a moment before she can feel him nearly go rigid like ice as those slender fingers brush delicately against skin, hazel eyes turning predatory as they so often did when they fell upon the lamb in her moments of bold and daring gestures. After a few moments, the impish smile playing upon her lips hardly wavering, he takes her hand in his as he says her name in a warning way as he holds it over his beating heart. She knew that, to some degree, her daring ways so brought to the surface by none other than Andras himself could stir the almost constant composure he tries to keep when he was around her. He then lifts it to his lips where he places a chaste kiss and just like that he softens her again. It was startling, how easily his gestures could change the tides of her emotions. She wants to tell him now, of how it was that she felt, and yet she was without the words and at a loss on how she might show him. The young woman can feel his hold tighten around her, and it was when she looks back up to him and those handsome features lined with concern that has her gathering what little courage she did have to tell him. The moment was right... and she was unsure of how much longer her heart might be able to withhold all that it felt for him. She can feel a change in him then, as though there was something that he also harbored, and the foolishness in her wonders if it was now that he would tell her that her fears of him pushing her away had been wrong. Maybe he did love her... and then again, maybe it was going to be on this morning that he would break her heart. She wanted to think that this wasn't true, and perhaps it was his hesitancy and the fleeting silence that lingered between them that only has her mind racing to find a way to tell him the secrets she's been carrying for what felt like an eternity. She wanted him to hear her first, because she was scared of what he might have to say and it would leave her without any courage at all to tell him. Please... not yet. Don't make this end. Just let me stay here for a little while longer... Finally, she draws a shallow breath and takes the plunge, so terribly unaware of what was coming next.

No sooner when those words leave her lips does everything suddenly shatter like glass on a concrete floor. He goes stiff before suddenly, with her still in his arms, pushes the two of them into an upright position. The sheer forcefulness has her breathless and baby blues wide in surprise. When they find hazel though, there is no softness there like she might have naïvely hoped. Instead, there is something there that she has seen only twice. It was fierce and it left her unable to look away as he seizes her shoulders. Tenor tones once smooth like satin are heavy and hard as he growls them through the tension in his frame and her heart is hammering wildly in her breast almost as it had when they'd first met though for a different reason entirely. There is confusion and fear that races through her. It was not a fear of him, but rather a fear of what his next words would be that have her ceasing to breath, and when they come they are commanding and as fierce as his eyes foretold they would be. There is anger in his next words before he pushes himself upright and from the futon, her skin suddenly cold as the storm of her own emotions break through the walls that once contained them. She feels her heart break into a thousand pieces then, knowing now that he did not see what she saw. This was the moment she'd dreaded for so long, and she feels a tightness in her chest as a knot suddenly rises in her throat. And yet, the heartbreak was not alone in her baby blues that begin to blur with tears borne of the ache that is thrust upon her and swallowed by confusion. There was hurt burning brightly in them as her mind tries to make sense of everything, all that he has ever said or done. He paces, and when he speaks again, it is then that she breaks completely. She rises from her own place on the futon, those tears a wild flurry of grief at knowing he did not love her mixing painfully with confusion and something almost like betrayal as he reprimanded her for the love that she felt for him as though she were a child. Before she can stop herself..."Like what, Andras? Like I actually thought I meant something to you!? Stop talking like there was something real and wonderful in how you made me feel, when it seems now that all it was... was just some game you were playing with my heart!?", she fires back, every once of her hurt showing while those tears fell over her cheeks and the ache only grows. She feels dizzy as everything spirals so far out of control, as that fantasy world is taken and brought to an screeching end. She goes quiet then, her gaze lingering on his own for a moment longer before she can no longer take it and looks down to her shaking hands."I tried not to let myself...... but I thought that, just maybe.....", she staggers breathlessly, her voice shaking and barely above a whisper beneath the pain that seizes every part of her. She felt nauseous... her head was spinning as she tries desperately to grab onto something, anything that wasn't Andras, but she can't. She feels herself falling further and further, her heart tearing time and time again. She wraps her arms around herself as she tries hopelessly to stop the tears, refusing to look back to the fae man."Please... just go.....", she says through the sobs she tries to silence before finally she turns on her heels and opens the door to her bedroom, shutting it behind her, but not before meeting his haze one last time. All I ever did was love you.... Not another word is send then as she quietly closes it, pressing her back against the worn wood she doesnt quite feel as she slides slowly down the surface. She pulls her knees in to her chest then, wraps her arms around her legs as she places her forehead on her knees with blonde hair falling around her as she sits there and surrenders herself to the heartbreak she knew was coming, but never in a thousand lifetimes did she ever think that it would hurt quite like this. She doesn't hear him leave, but her shattered heart knows that he does as it calls out to him mournfully despite everything, despite the pain.

Please... don't go...