"Jade! Stop!" I'd yelled, already much, much too late.

Jade had her hands around Ember's neck, ruthlessly squeezing all the air out of her lungs.

I'd managed to drag Jade off her and push her towards Jason, but not before Ember had passed out. She was still breathing, but barely, her heartbeat was weak, her face bloodless and pale.

She was still alive.

I'd scooped her up in my arms and carried her inside, wishing that Abi and Storm were there; maybe if they were, Ember would've been safer, instead of wandering outside.

Why did she wander outside?

Now, she was lying in my bed. Still unconscious with bandages carefully wrapped around her swollen, bruised neck. I sat next to her, clutching her limp hand in mine.

As I was still recovering from the full moon, it was hard to grasp what had gone so wrong with Jade.

We'd gotten about 20 miles away from the ranch — almost all the way to Coloma or the smouldering remains of it anyway, before transitioning. That should've been far enough for us not to wander back to Bonner Mountain, where the ranch was.

That full moon wasn't a supermoon, just an ordinary moon; meaning it was difficult to tell why we'd travelled so far, so quickly. We weren't hunting a deer, or anything, it didn't make sense the way we'd journeyed.

Maybe Jade was hunting though... hunting Ember.

And then the pack instinct would've made me, Jason and Ryder go with her, to back her up, to help her with the kill. Just as real wolves would do.

But this was no deer.

This is Ember.

I glanced down at Ember's cold hand clasped in mine, thinking that it had twitched and that she was waking up.

I thought wrong.

For a moment, I watched Ember, wondering how she came to change so much. Her hair was constantly tied back, her thin skin, the weight loss — not that she was overweight at all, she was ordinary, average, but now she was borderline skeletal. The constant coldness of her body continued to agitate and unsettle me. I had no idea how to get her warm, or if she'd ever be warm again.

Well, you can think of one way to warm her up... Can't you, Theo?

Anyway. She didn't want me like that.

None of us — that being me, Jason, and Ryder — had any idea what the hell was going on with Jade. She'd totally lost it.

It was extra terrifying for me because it made me think of a traumatising night terror that I had a couple of times back in Lake Oldoy. A night terror that contained Ember being attacked by Victoria... And seeing Ember being attacked by Jade in that way was pretty damn close.

As I sat watching over the wounded, sleeping Ember, Jason and Ryder were occupied with keeping an eye on Jade, who they'd wisely decided to chain up in the cellar beneath the ranch. Of course, the effects of the full moon were wearing off by now, but Jade could've still been unpredictable and psychotic.

I don't understand what's happening or why it's happening...

Exhausted due to still recovering from the full moon myself, I rubbed my free hand over my face. I really need a shave, I thought gruffly; I hadn't had time to shave properly in a long while, so I resolved to do so. As soon as Ember woke up; I wasn't planning on leaving her side until she did.

I just hoped it wouldn't be long.

Just because dealing with comatose Ember sucked, that's all. No other reason. Other than that, she was being a total pain in the ass... So many — too many things about her were different.

Who knows what she really went through whilst on Svalbard?

I'd have to earn her trust again for her to feel as if she could tell me, and I knew that trust had always been an issue for Ember.

Especially when it came to me.

Especially because I was a stranger to her again.

And I didn't know how to move past that.

There had been moments between me and Ember that almost seemed normal, like that almost kiss we'd shared after she'd forgiven me for the harsh and brutal way that I'd gotten her out of her comatose state.

That almost kiss where our lips had just pressed together for a millisecond — before Ryder sprung into the room, interrupting us. Like a jerk, I'd jumped away from her as soon as Ryder walked in when instead I should've told him to piss off, before kissing Ember again. I saw the hurt in Ember's eyes when I'd jumped away, which only made me regret the action more.

"Hey, man," Ryder said softly, standing in the doorway.

"Hey," I acknowledged, not taking my eyes off Ember — watching the slow, steady rise and fall of her chest, how peaceful her face seemed when she was sleeping, how beautiful she was; she was always beautiful.

"Theo," Ryder said as if I'd ignored him.

"Huh?" I half-turned to him, my eyes not leaving Ember's sleeping form.

"I told you that you should get some rest — take a shower, whatever." He walked into the room. "Have a break, I'll stay with her."

"You sure?" I raised an eyebrow, hoping the answer would be no.

"Yeah, positive." He nodded, and stood next to me, waiting for me to get up so that he could sit in my place.

Bringing Ember's cold hand to my lips, I softly kissed her fragile knuckles — where her skin was disconcertingly thin — before gently laying her arm back on the bed and standing up.

I hesitated in the doorway. "Is... is Jade back to normal yet?"

"Depends what 'normal' is these days." Ryder exhaled, sitting down in my place and shrugging. "But, no, she's hardly changed."

"Okay." I lingered for a moment longer, and then I begrudgingly walked away towards the bathroom.

For some reason, I really didn't want Ryder to be the first one that Ember saw when she woke up. I wanted it to be me. I wanted to be the first one she saw when she woke up.

Me. Not Ryder.

The realisation of this jealously writhed uncontrollably in the pit of my stomach. I wasn't sure of how I felt about Ember anymore and adding jealousy into an already confusing mix of emotions just worsened the situation.

I knew that I wanted her to trust me as she did in Lake Oldoy. But things had changed since then, and Lake Oldoy already felt like a lifetime ago, so how could I get her to trust me again? I didn't know what she wanted, what she needed anymore. Whenever I tried to talk to her, we just ended up falling out and arguing over the pettiest little things.

I'd screwed up by telling her that I— telling her what I told her at the airport. It was then that I'd lost her trust. All because I cared too deeply about her.

She didn't say it back.

Rapidly stepping out of my clothes and then stepping into the shower, I washed quickly, removing all traces of dirt and sweat from the night before.

After my shower, I leant over the sink and began putting shaving lather over my jawlines, where stubble had been left to grow out. A sudden sense of urgency made me rush and earned me two little shaving cuts, that healed almost instantly.

Throwing on the clothes I was wearing before, I headed back to see Ember again.

"Any change?" I impatiently asked Ryder.

"Dude, you were gone for like, ten minutes." He shrugged. "So, no. No change."

"Okay." I pulled up another chair and sat down next to him.

"Seriously, Theo. I told you: get some rest!" Ryder crossed his arms. "Everything's fine here. I'll keep an eye on Ember, you go have a nap or something."

"I don't 'nap,'" I growled in response.

"Then go and talk to Jason and Jade, for all I care," he huffed. "Just go, man."

"Fine." I sighed heavily, before starting to take the stairs down to the cellar.

The cellar stairs were accessible from the house, but the cellar itself wasn't actually under the house. From the bottom of the stairs, you had to follow a dimly lit corridor, that lead you down towards the lake, and that's where the cellar was.

There were two separate parts to the cellar: one was used as a wine cellar, the other as a meat locker, where Ryder's dad used to store the animal meat, which was the fruits of his hunting from the area. The meat locker was on the left, the wine cellar on the right. Both of the doors were made out of iron and had thick wooden bars that could be used to hold the door shut.

We'd decided to keep Jade in the now-empty meat locker, where for some reason there was a cage, large enough to hold Jade, and that was where she was chained up.

I knocked on the door to the meat locker. "Jason? It's Theo."

After unlocking the door, Jason let me in. "Hey, man. How's Ember?"

He closed the door tightly behind me and I stepped into the dark, damp room. Empty meat hooks swung threateningly from the ceiling above our heads and a few bloodied meat cleavers hung in a row across part of a wall, biding their time until they were used once more.

I tightly folded my arms, instantly feeling the chill of the ex-refrigerator.

"No different." I shrugged. "How's Jade?"

"Better, I think, but still not the Jade we know," he explained and led me to where she was chained up, in a cage. He spoke softly to her, "Jade, Theo's here to see you."

Jade was curled up in a ball in the far corner of the cage, but sprang up and threw herself at the bars, facing us. "I don't want to see Theo," she spat, eyes glowing a dangerous yellow colour. Her thick, black hair was matted, and her curls were looser. Her face was still covered in dirt and sweat from last night.

She looked deranged.

"Who do you want to see, then?" I tried, struggling to keep my voice calm and neutral, attempting to maintain my composure, contending with what she did to Ember.

"I want to see her," she growled at us, grinning with fangs bared. "I want to finish off that little bitch you brought back from the UK!"

"You stay away from her," I threatened, losing my composure too quickly, too easily. "You leave her alone. You leave her the fu—!"

"That's enough, Theo." Jason cut me off, taking hold of my arm, even though I hadn't even realised that I'd started going closer to the cage.

"Oh, Theo. Sensitive, sensitive, little Theo," Jade mocked and laughed in a sick, twisted way that reminded me all too much of Victoria — even the sadistic smirk was the same. "You never learn, do you?"

I shook my head, walking away from her, not wanting to know what I never learned. "Jason, is there anything we can give her? To help her?"

Jason came over to me, shaking his head, "Not that I'm aware of... I mean, there could be one person that knows but—" Jason held his tongue.

"Who?" I rounded on him. "We have to sort her out, Jason, or who knows what—?"

"Please let me out..." Jade whimpered, interrupting, and surprising me. "Please let me out; I'm okay now, I promise."

I frowned and walked toward her.

"Theo, don't," my Alpha warned, but I ignored him — what if she's okay, now?

"Jade?" I tried.

"Let me out," she moaned like a wounded puppy. "It was an accident, all just an accident... A terrible misunderstanding."

I set my hands on the bars. "If I let you out, will you promise never to hurt Ember again?"

She nodded, and, in the dim light, I thought I saw a couple of tears roll down her cheeks, out of her pitifully widened eyes.

I was just about to unlock the cage when Jason gripped my arm and yanked me away from her. "Ask her if she had to do it again, what would she change?" He implored quietly.

"Jade?" I turned to her, doing just what Jason had asked me to, "If you had to redo last night, what would you change?"

Her face then distorted maliciously, mercilessly... murderously, as she snarled, "I would've killed pretty, little Ember sooner. And used my claws, my teeth, dragging out all her insides, and leaving them strung up in a tree. I would've clawed her face up so bad that even God wouldn't be able to recognise her. And I—"

"Stop!" I yelled at her, trying to shut out all the tortured images of Ember that were flooding ceaselessly through my mind.

"That's not the first time she's tried that act," Jason explained, his face serious. "She tried the same with Ryder, poor kid..."

"What did she say to him?" I questioned, curiosity getting the better of me, already trying to protect Ryder even though it was already too late.

"She brought up Hayden," Jason replied bluntly; after all, it was the only thing that he needed to say.

"Has she tried it with you?" I asked and had to press him when he didn't respond. "Did she bring up Sienna?"

Jason flinched at her name, proving that Jade had mentioned the late love of his life.

Jade — or whatever, or whoever, was making her like that — had used the people we cared about most to hurt us. Even I had reacted the way she intended, and I wasn't sure about how I felt about Ember anymore. Maybe I did.

No, I don't.

Everything was too hard right then to even start getting into the condition of my and Ember's relationship. Too hard, too complex. Too complicated.

She didn't say it back.

"Who do you think could help us, then?" I turned to Jason, repeating what I'd started and not been able to finish earlier, as well as shutting out complicated thoughts.

"You won't like it," Jason warned me.

"I don't like a lot of what's happening, right now!" I exclaimed and threw a hand towards the caged Jade, as a way of explanation. "I'm willing to try it."

"Hell, Theo, even I don't like it — suggesting it is a terrible idea, but we—" Jason rambled.

"Jason," I cut him off, "Just spit it out."

"Chris," he mumbled, "Chris Woodman."

"The hunter?" I yelled at him, whilst a growl rose in Jade's throat.

"He did tell you that you wouldn't like it," Jade said in a sing-song voice from her cage.

"Shut up!" Both Jason and I shouted at her — to which she merely snickered.

"Look, Theo," Jason began, "The hunters have resources that we could never have. They know how to cure themselves of supernatural diseases and infections. Chris is our best way, he's more likely to be trusting and trustworthy."

"And why would he be 'trusting and trustworthy'?" I frowned, using my fingers as quotation marks, "Or have you forgotten what his family did to Luke?"

Jason swallowed. "No, you know I haven't, and I never will. Theo, there's a way that we can get him to trust us."

"How?" I spat, pacing the cellar floor, "Drug him? 'Cos that's the only way that he'll do it... Whatever it is..."

"You know how, Theo." He just sighed, looking away from me.

With a feeling that shook me to my core, I realised what he meant.

"No," I insisted firmly, "No, we are not doing that; there has to be another way. There is always a better way."

"I don't know what else to do, Theo. I don't know what to do." My Alpha was crumbling in front of me, stress and anxiety pouring off him. I could smell it in the air — the strain rolling off him in waves, he was... lost.

Without Sienna, he was lost. Lost because he'd lost himself in her, and her alone.

My Alpha is lost.

I'd lost myself in Ember, falling for her harder than anything I'd ever experienced in my life. I didn't think I'd see her again so soon, and I was no way near prepared for her telling me over the phone that she was flying to Montana from Svalbard.

But now she was back, and I was still lost, not knowing, or understanding how to act or be around her anymore.

I needed to talk to her, properly. About everything that had happened whilst we were apart.

Everything... including Fern.

I needed to talk to her about all of that time we'd spent on different continents; how were we supposed to move on if we were holding onto and lingering in the past?

He mumbled, "I don't know what to do without Sienna."

I understood that; Sienna was the moral compass that he never knew he needed, his anchor, his soulmate, his everything. His Luna. It was very unlikely that he'd ever find someone like her again.

It's very unlikely that I'll find someone like Ember again...

I needed to talk to her, knowing that we wouldn't get interrupted by anyone or anything. Especially Ryder.

I had to talk to her; there was no other way to get through to her.

All that there was to do now was to wait for her to wake up.

"We can't," I told Jason, turning my attention towards my Alpha again, "We can't use her to lure Chris in..." I hesitated, before something hit me, "Maybe this was all part of their plan — the hunters' and the Agency's plan, I mean — what if they poisoned Jade or something whilst they had all of you, and she's only feeling the effects now?"

Jason's forehead crumpled in confusion. "I don't see why it would only be affecting her now. I mean, this is the second full moon that we've had since you found us."

"But what if they want us to turn to Chris for help?" I pressed desperately, anxiety gnawing at my insides.

"I'm sorry, Theo. I truly am," Jason apologised sincerely, his brown eyes softening slightly as he realised how much I would struggle with this plan. "But, there's not much else we'll be able to do without him. We need her to do this."

I lowered my head, as Jason always had the final word and absorbed it all. Absorbed what Jason was meaning, that she would have to do it... We needed her to.

The fact that, as soon as she was awake and well, Ember would be tasked with getting the son of a hunter to help the werewolf that almost killed her.