Sweet CEO's First Love

Mara sat at the cafe across the street from the canvas, sipping on a latte feeling mesmerized by the powerful emotions of stress and anxiety that washed over him as frantic students and normal ongoing adults hurried past him in various forms of rush and distress.

A cafe was always the perfect place to go. It was a hotspot of a variable of emotions, and exactly what he needed when he was feeling incredibly owly from a bad day.

He had lost a soul. A soul that was perfectly ripe for the taking, and they had gone and in their state of perfect desperation, when they should have called out to him to make a deal. They had gone to a loved one for help.

It was the perfect foil because as soon as a human desired and went to help from another human was the moment that they couldn't be his playthings anymore.

And this one had been so down on their luck, so miserable, their heart in a constant state of dishevel and decay, he could have had enough energy for a few more transformations.

'What a waste of all my time cultivating.'

And that was the problem really.

He didn't really care if he lost a soul in the long run of things, power was great and he loved the way it felt, writhing across his skin, but a soul was a soul and where he lost one he could get another. He didn't much want any specific people to die, and he really didn't care if they lived, he was rather impartial about it all. The problem came down to time, he had never had enough of it and so he hated wasting his time the most.

Time was his mortal enemy which had been why he had made the deal he had made in the first place.

'And the fact that he had known the power from this one would be exponential as humans and disparity went, he had invested time into this one.

'The time that was utterly lost, wasted...' He felt utterly disgusted.

'Filthy little thing he had wasted so much of his effort.'

The waiter walked up to him holding onto a little brown tray with a plate that had a fancy triple berry type cake on it with all the beautiful lavish dressings. One of their fanciest little sweets on the menu.

He stopped at Mara's table standing there nervously as he waited for Mara to notice him.

Mara looked up at him for all outward appearances, a beautiful young girl of around twenty years of age. Her long strawberry brown hair flowed down her back in long waves and her silver-blue eyes looked up at him filled with the perfect mixture of allure and wonderment.

"Yes?" Her sweet chime-like gentle voice fell from his pearly peach pouty lips. The large bottom lip pursing prettily as he spoke.

The boy's nervousness exuded off of him in even stronger waves, and Mara could feel how he was pining for him already.

Mara sucked back a giggle of pleasure that wanted to burst forth out of him, but otherwise, on the outside, he was completely one hundred percent composed.

"Um, there is a... free.. prem... promotion going on. Buy an espresso and get one slice of our new Summer's Merry Triple Berry Cake."

She blinked up at him sweetly.

"Would... do, you may be like you.. like one?" He stuttered out.

Mara smiled sweetly. "Oh, thank you. I would love to try it." She said gently.

The boy brightened and stopped his annoying stuttering and then leaned over the table beaming like his whole year had been made by their one interaction.

When he put the cake down on the table Mara made sure to lean his rather voluptuous chest forward so that it rested on the table and hit into his hand.

The boy pulled back quickly as if he had been bitten by a snake, and Mara held back a scoff of amusement.

"Sorry, thank you, have a cake, day." He said and then fled as fast as he could.

Mara watched him go with pure full-on amusement and the people around Him gave him looks of either adoration and lust themselves, or amusement and jealousy. He grabbed their emotions, enjoying them more than the triple berry cake he stuffed inside his mouth daintily.

He remembered the days back when he used to get nervous, or flustered, he even remembered what that felt like. To wait outside the pace for the one you cared for in hopes that you could say something to them. In hopes that they would be excited or happy to see you too.

But that had been so long ago, so long ago and yet to get that back all he needed was even more time.

He hated it, he wanted to speed up the process, to reach his goal faster and there was only one way to get Fate to come back to him sooner.

Only one thing he could do if he didn't want to spend an eternity sitting here changing form and collecting measly souls, building them up to become powerful enough. All he needed was a reversal. All he needed was more.

His natural greed fed that desire, and so he hunted, daily, non-stop, in a place without time, all while he waited in a place with a time that meant nothing to the time he actually needed. Yet here he was stuck here hunting fervently in an attempt to get back what he never should have let slip through his fingers in the first place.

And that was his problem. There was only one shortcut to his goal. He remembered Aurela telling him.

Heart...

Heart was the answer.

The boy came back and Mara looked up at him pretending to be interested and like he was too dense to see the piece of paper in the kid's hand.

"Would you... Do you?" He struggled.

"Can I give you my..." He seemed to have decided to ask him if it was okay to give him his number. Mara was about to politely take the number when he froze hand extended.

A large feeling like a heatwave slammed through his body like a ripple effect as a rock would have the moment it was dropped into a lake. The rings of power cascade through the air, each one slightly doubles in power as the last. Mara blinked in surprise.

There was only one thing that could be.

Mara stood up and ran around the corner, leaving everything behind, he ran until he was away from the crowds and then he winked out of existence and popped back in standing wide-eyed outside a building he had never been before. A building that didn't belong to any of his strings and a place he had never seen Heart come before. But yet there it was that unmistakable pull he got from Heart the moment Heart was nearby. He had put a tag on the kid, the night he had tried to take his life. It was why he could find the kids so easy when he didn't have control of Heart's string.

The tag on his power, a tag that had grown so much stronger than the last time he had seen him.

He was about to pop inside the building when his eyes caught on a boy with blue and pink hair coming out of the building with a blonde boy. The two of them hand their arms wrapped around each other and one was limping a little. Mara's eyes focused on them.

Mara felt a chill of anger roll through his body before the emotion left him just as fast as all the others.

"They had met! He had met the fourth string, and his power had already doubled that much! How hard would it be to kill this bastard if he didn't do it soon? If he didn't do something, Heart would be complete soon, his mission and goals met to reach the line he wasn't even aware he was crossing.

"No!" Mara screamed furiously. The girly voice shrieked loudly and the birds in the tree next to him flew away in fear.

Ripples of power rolled about him as he felt a wave of every emotion he didn't want to feel hit him quickly before fading away.

He panted hard trying to catch his breath.

That was the problem with this curse of never feeling emotions for long. When they came, you felt them strong and then they disappeared fast, but if you felt more than one, they hit you all at once like a cacophony rush that revolted you inside.

He panted like crazy, his mind trying to figure out what to do. He wasn't strong enough to fight Fate off and Fate would be watching the boy closely since he had just reached number four of five.

'No, No, no I refuse to let it end here. I will not be bested,' He scoffed incredulously.

'I can't be beaten without even fighting. My plans never go wrong!'

'Especially not a plan I have been working on for over millennia.'

And he wasn't going to be strong enough to fight both of them anymore.

'There is only one thing to do.'

"I have to make him die...'

'I have to make him die now... But I have to do it discreetly.'

Mara straightened a wicked smile on his pretty delicate face.

Now that he knew what to do, now that he was resolute. He couldn't hold back his giddy laughter of delight.

He didn't even care who saw, because finally all that time he had been trying to gain. All of it was coming to fruition not years later, but now.'

"He would have his delight, Now.'

Mara collected himself and then winked out of existence, the piece of paper with a stupid boy's number falling to the ground forgotten.