Chanyeol didn't know exactly how long he had spent wandering, he thought it was an eternity but there was more confidence in the ten minute option. It had been awhile since he had seen a Baekhyun from one of his previous lives, his path continuing on until it brought him to the forest just in front of the school.

He stared at the scenery, his brows raised in confusion when he realised that the trees that were growing around the school had straightened their positions. Baekhyun had noticed that most of them were growing away from the school and yet here Chanyeol was realising that even the subconscious world made a few mistakes. It was reassuring to know that even though the place looked like a carbon copy of his home, it wasn't. Hopefully Chanyeol would be able to overcome the end of this challenge.

But he has been alone for over 10 minutes now.. Surely that meant that he was merely waiting for his Baekhyun to arrive now, right?

"Yeah you're going to be waiting for quite awhile.." A new voice announced throughout the air, forcing Chanyeol to turn towards the very familiar sound. His breath hitched at the sight of the wolf standing before him, its head tilted to the side as it stared back at him with its tongue hanging out of its mouth. "but I guess this gives us some time to talk, right?"

Chanyeol let out a breath he didn't realise he was holding onto, he felt his chest tighten as the wolf got closer to him taking calculated steps forward. "You're my first life right? The Eighth wolf creator turned protector?"

"I suppose that's me," the wolf dipped its head, its tongue swiping across his snout as he turned his head towards the sky. The full moon was shining so brightly in the sky right now, which was another mistake for this world. The full moon wasn't meant to come until the day of the eclipse which just so happened to be the day that the comets would come to take them home, if they were able to get out of here first. "although I wouldn't really call myself a creator."

"You created the sun for your mate, that's quite a large thing to have made."

"A large but dangerous thing," the wolf agreed, it's voice sounding so familiar yet so foreign at the same time. "something that I still regret to this very day. I wonder how long my creation will last since the source of its power has been taken away from me."

"What do you mean by that?" Chanyeol didn't like the words he was hearing. He had been told that the wolf standing before him created the sun for his soulmate, Baekhyun's original soul. Why would the source of its power be gone? "What do you mean taken away from you?"

"Your definition of what a soulmate is isn't at all what we viewed it as," the wolf explained, Chanyeol watching as the creature's legs folded beneath its body, pulling him down to the ground. "Six was my soulmate but that didn't mean that we were meant to be together romantically. Our relationship was strictly platonic, regardless of the feelings I had for him."

"You need to explain things to me so that I can understand them, otherwise I'm going to rip your head off." Chanyeol spoke through gritted teeth, his hands formings fists by his side as he stared down at the wolf.

The creature blinked up at him, those deep brown eyes twinkling in the shine of the moon before they turned their gaze away from Chanyeol and onto the stars above their heads. "We both know that there is darkness coursing through your veins, you've felt it and I don't doubt for a moment that you haven't heard the voices."

Chanyeol felt the goosebumps rise on his body, his heart hammering against his chest. "No one knows about that apart from my mother..."

"You forget that I am you, or at least I was in one life-time." The wolf snorted, placing one of its paws over the other. "You've been suffering with a hunger of your own, not one lusting after blood like the Baekhyun of your life-time but one that craves something a little different. Power. It's been driving you crazy ever since you were old enough to experience it, it took me quite some time before I felt it too. The voices can be quite persuasive, sometimes you wish that you allowed yourself to be overcome with them, so that their sounds are no longer there. Picking away at your mind, at your nerves.. at your patience."

"How do I know this all isn't a trick? A part of the test that comes with our curse?" Chanyeol gulped down the lump in his throat, the skin in his palms breaking from the pressure his nails were putting on them.

"Because everything I'm talking about has already happened to you, you know exactly what I'm talking about and it's about time that I tell you why."

Chanyeol sat himself down on the grass, half expecting it to be wet from the chilly air around him but didn't move when he realised that it wasn't. "Okay fine, tell me what you want to tell me."

"You already know that Six and I were soulmates-"

"Platonic ones right?" Chanyeol narrowed his eyes, unafraid to watch the wolf before him bare his teeth in frustration. "You can't lie to me, I know myself, I know when I lie."

"Yes I lied," the wolf confirmed, its lips pulled backwards as he talked through his teeth. "Six and I were soulmates of the kind you know of today. But as much as I hate to admit it I never wanted him as my mate, he didn't deserve me. He was out of my league. I believe that is the term you use now-a-days, I wasn't worth anything in comparison to him. I was our mother's greatest disappointment, my ability to control the element of fire was almost as dangerous as the flames themselves. Fire is destruction and just before the war I had finally got it under control."

"I know from Baekhyun's dreams of our second life that I had it under control, I wasn't a danger with my abilities." Chanyeol shook his head, not fully understanding where this conversation was going.

"Because you were looking through the eyes of your mate," the wolf explained. "Baekhyun didn't see you struggle with the turmoil going on inside of you. A turmoil that I had put there because I was desperate to keep those I love alive. The Krones were a disease plagued by all the worlds by the witches who thought they were doing good by creating them, my pack had to shift and become protectors of the very things they had created. I had only ever made one thing in my existence, the Earth's sun and all the other suns in the universes outside the one you know now. The Krones feasted on this darkness, a vast sphere of dark matter that had morphed under our noses when we were creating the worlds. This accidental creation was birthed with one purpose and it was to erase everything that we created, all the worlds you have yet to explore. The creatures used this as their source of power, feasting on it little by little and slowly growing stronger and stronger as the days went on. There was never going to be an end to the war that would have had the good guys winning, so I took it upon myself to get rid of it never once thinking about the consequences."

"You knew that the Krones would continue to feast on this dark matter and grow stronger with every meal they took, so you took it away from them. You absorbed the dark matter into yourself so that way you would be able to keep it in control so that it wouldn't harm anyone else." Chanyeol whispered, his eyes wide. He could feel the tears trickling down his cheeks but he was too surprised to move, his body weighed down with the realisation. "That's why my element had flickers of dark flames when I was at Kyungsoo's ceremony, I haven't escaped it no matter how many times I've been reincarnated.."

"The curse took away your powers, which means that it took away the darkness but it could only do so much. The voices were still able to get through and even though the hunger you have is only a fraction, you will have to deal with so much more if you survive this test. Chanyeol if Baekhyun passes this test that my mate is trying to prevent from doing then I will have no more power to stop this darkness from becoming you, I've had it inside me in this subconscious world for hundreds of years. The moment you receive your memories and powers you will be overcome with this, you might not even be able to handle it."

"You left Six behind when you fed on this dark matter didn't you?" Chanyeol's voice broke, his shoulders shaking as he finally took in the information. Knowledge that he had been keeping to himself all these years, now everything was beginning to make sense.

"I tried pushing him towards someone else but he was too stubborn, he knew that I was doing it to protect everyone I loved but that didn't make it any easier for him. I told him and the others that I wasn't going to put my soul into the tree at the end of the war, I told them that I couldn't allow the darkness to live on. But Six was a stubborn soul and he begged me to because he said that our souls were linked and that I couldn't allow his reincarnated lives to be without a mate, as I lay dying he dragged to the tree himself begging me to come to him. I can't deny him when I love him too much."

"Then you already know that this doesn't change anything." Chanyeol swallowed the throbbing lump in his throat, his eyes stinging as he forced the tears down. "I love Baekhyun more than anything in this world-"

"Do you?" the wolf questioned, his head tilting to the side again. "Because from where I've been I notice whenever you hold yourself back from him. You were willing to allow Daehyun to have him in our second life, you were willing to look over your own feelings so that Baekhyun would be happy. And then again this life-time, you weren't willing to show him how much you meant the words you couldn't say. You wanted him to want you Chanyeol, you never wanted to approach him. You wanted Baekhyun to come to you because he loved you, you're not a selfish person but if you truly loved someone you would do anything to stay by their side-"

"Exactly-"

"If you truly loved someone not platonically then you would do anything to become more for them, not wait for them to come to you. You didn't fight for him, you let him have his growth to decide that he wanted you but even though I might be a little old fashioned when I tell you this, take it from me. Baekhyun wants reassurance from you, he doesn't want you thinking that he's just going to disappear if you touch him. I know how much your restistaning him but take it from me as your first life, don't. Allow yourself to lose control Chanyeol. Allow yourself to stake a claim-"

Chanyeol's chest heaved as his brain split out a memory from a dream both he and Baekhyun had shared. Their wedding night, when Chanyeol was hesitant to mark his mate regardless of the reassuring words the vampire had whispered to him.

"Stake your claim, show everyone that I belong to you Chanyeol. I'm allowing you to take this as long as you know that what you do to me, you will receive."

"Baekhyun will always be comfortable with you even if he doesn't know you, it's what makes our soulmate link that much stronger. Baekhyun had to listen to everyone tell him his entire life what he had to do, he could never make a solid decision for himself, his mind is always telling him that whatever everyone else is instructing him to do is the right thing. He values you because you don't do that, you gave him space and was there when he needed you but he also doesn't want to be the one to tell you what he wants. He wants you to take the initiative, sweep him off his feet because I've heard that a somewhat dominant man who knows what he wants is quite the turn on."

"Even though you're me I still can't help shiver at the fact that you just indirectly told me how you our mate." Chanyeol groaned, tossing his head backwards between his shoulders. "But noted, I won't hesitate anymore. When I know what I want from him I'll let Baekhyun know but I do like my whole gentleman theme going-"

"Well Romeo, Juliet can be quite a person so get over it." The wolf snorted, Chanyeol's wide eyes making the creature's breath hitch in its mouth. "Oh come on it's me you're talking to!"

"Doesn't make me feel any better."

"Well I guess that concludes our talk for now, I suppose its time for you to find Baekhyun now before it's too late-"

"What do you mean too late?"

"Just because you were able to break me down doesn't mean that Baekhyun was able to see through his first life, Six is desperate to get Baekhyun to see just how controlling his life is and he may not be going the right way about it. Like I told you earlier Baekhyun has been controlled by the elder people in his lives. In his second life he followed his father who wished to sign him up for the selection, he stayed quiet and was willing to go through with Daehyun's words because he was in a position of authority to him, the same and the king and the queen. In this life-time he was controlled by his parents who were the reasons he wasn't completely lost to your brother's mind control, and not to mention he was physically controlled by Daehyun's mind control. Baekhyun believes what he is told, even if his mind and heart think against it."

Chanyeol was on his feet within a moment, his chest heaving at the idea of Baekhyun falling through with the test. "I can't let him believe whatever your mate is telling him!"

"That's his final test, one Baekhyun has to face alone." The wolf stressed, getting up onto his feet at the sight of an aggravated Chanyeol before him.

"Yeah well you just told me that if I really loved him I shouldn't care about the consequences and that I should do everything in my power to ensure he knows that I love him, so if you would kindly excuse me I have a mate to find."

"Well then I guess congratulations is in order." The wolf snorted, Chanyeol scowling at the laugh coming from the creature. "Congratulations Chanyeol, you just passed your final test."