Ronan towered over the bed, his eyes fastened intensely to the rise and fall of Kate's chest as she slept. His eyes averted to Adeline sitting at her bedside, applying more salve to some of the lesser scrapes visible to the eye.

He was grateful when the sedative had taken effect, allowing Kate a moment's reprieve from the physical - and emotional pain.

His jaw tightened as he crossed his arms against his chest, his gaze drawing once more over Kate. He would give anything to ease her suffering, anything to alleviate that woeful gleam that frequented her green eyes. She had been battered and bruised till left bereft of life. How much more could his little woman withstand?

He was Alpha of the Black Mountain pack. He could govern and command countless others, but in this he felt entirely helpless, incapable of aiding the one that needed him most. How could he possibly ease the grief that plagued her? Had she not suffered enough cruelty and hardship at the hands of others?

That latter thought brought a far more pressing concern to mind. The fates had gifted him with a beautiful, courageous mortal as his mate, but her mortality could very well be her ruin. If she remained a human, he would indispensably subject her to a life of carnage and violence. She would always be vulnerable to his enemies.

You could always turn her. Micah's words from earlier replayed on his brain and he would have shoved it to the deepest recesses of his thoughts only he hesitated, turning it over with deep consideration.

Mortals were not meant to survive the bite of a werewolf, and if they had, he had yet to hear of it. The transitioning of one human to loup-garou was excruciating and tortuous on that of a mortal's flesh and bones - and sound mind. The pain was absolutely grueling, especially to one as fragile as Kate.

Even if she survived the bite and its impending transition, who's to say she would accept it? Had she not fought all this time to achieve her freedom? She had escaped one cage only to be offered another? For that was all he could offer her. She would be enslaved to the moon, forever bound to a beast.

No matter his desires, his desperation to keep her forever at his side, he could not, would not bound her to this lasting life of pain.

"Well?" he demanded of the elder, his face darkening with a glower.

Adeline's weathered hands paused in their gentle ministrations, but she remained facing away from him as she muttered with graveness, "There isn't much more to be done."

A cold sweat took hold of Ronan and he stiffened beneath the dim light of the room, "I'll not accept that." He growled resolutely.

The elder's shoulders sagged with an exhaled breath as she shifted to her feet to pin him with those dark, timeless eyes. "Ronan, perhaps you - "

He held up a hand to silence her, "No -" he growled, "I'll not think of it."

"You would have her die then?" the elder demanded, mirroring Micah's words from earlier but in that moment, reflected sharply in those dark eyes, he detected a fathomable glint of knowing as though the elder knew something to which he did not.

He dismissed the thought and pegged it for slight superstition as he pushed a hand through his hair, his stomach churning at the harrowing thought of death robbing him of his very heart. "She yearns for freedom. I cannot offer that."

Adeline shifted closer, "Have you not fought all this time to keep her? Have you not defied our laws, your pack, to keep a mortal as yours? And now you would simply let death claim her?"

His eyes flared angrily as he spun to face her, "Do you not think it cruel and selfish to turn her, and if she doesn't survive the bite? Then essentially I have killed her, and I cannot abide that very thought."

"And what if by miraculous chance, she surmounts it?" the elder asked with sincere severity.

"I could offer her nothing but an eternity fettered to a beast. And what kind of life is that for a woman who has endured and lost so much?"

The elder was silent a moment, weighing his words as she chanced a glance at Kate asleep in the bed. "You speak on her behalf but what do you truly know of her heart's desire?"

Ronan fell silent, his eyes wavering from the elder to his mate. He knew not what to do. Either way he was gambling with her life. He could let her succumb to her wounds and end her torment altogether, or chance the bite in hopes of delivering her from death's door. Could he let her go? Could he risk the bite?

Suddenly, he heard someone at the front door from downstairs. Every muscle of his body turned rigid as he stalked from the bedroom with a snarl.

"Where is she?" Bennett exclaimed a look of sheer consternation etched discernibly on her face.

He loomed at the top of the stairs, his eyes burnished profoundly of silver menace, "Did I not order you to stay and ensure her safety?" his hand curling fiercely around the banister threatened to crush it.

Bennett approached the footing, her cerulean eyes glinting sudden daggers at his reproach, "I don't take orders from you, Morrissey." And then some of her anger lessened, replaced with sheer concern. "How is she?"

"Observe for yourself." He growled, twisting away from her with a scowl.

He settled within the doorway, bracing his weight against its frame as his eyes swept fearfully over Kate's pale, lifeless frame. What if he did offer her the bite of the loup-garou? Would her body embrace it, or worse - reject it? Would she reject him if he opted to be selfish and keep her?

An audible gasp sounded beside him and he shifted to peer down at Bennett, her eyes turning wide as blue saucers. "What did this?"

"A vampire." He replied with a noticeable trace of accusation.

Her eyes narrowed as she turned cerulean daggers his way, "Are you suggesting I am at fault for this?"

Ronan stiffened his mouth curling at the corner with a vehement snarl. "Is it not your obligation to rid the earth of them? You are lacking sorely in skill, huntress."

Her eyes narrowed with a flickering of rage as she shifted to fully face him, wagging a finger before his enraged countenance, "How dare you blame me for this, you mangy bastard!" she jammed a finger in his chest, "Last I checked, you were still alpha of this region, is it not your obligation to ensure their riddance?"

He advanced closer to her, his eyes flaring fiercely of violence. "She was vulnerable and you abandoned her - "

" - perhaps if you had not been dead set on vengeance this would not have occurred!"

"Enough of this!" Adeline commanded, appearing suddenly between them to nudge them apart. "Finding fault with one another does not change what's happened, nor does it help her any."

Bennett inhaled a calming breath, raising her chin with an edge of defiance, glaring fiercely with those blue daggers as she said with a hint of contrite, "You are wrong if you think I am without guilt." And then she stalked across the room to settle at Kate's side, the huntress seizing her friend's lifeless hand within her own.

Minutes transpired in grave silence, turning over to prolonged hours of relentless pacing and before Ronan knew it, the sun had risen, a new day burgeoned.

Kate lay still as ever as though death had but a few wispy fingers entangled about her lifeline and threatened, at any given moment, to extinguish the very light from those green eyes.

Bennett had not moved from her friend's side, in fact, she had nestled closer, gently stroking Kate's inert hand. He sensed the woman's guilt as it weighed heavily on her bowed shoulders, and realized his finding fault with her had been nothing more than his own anger with himself. He felt completely helpless, unsure as to what to do to help the woman he loved. He prayed for a miracle.

He had regained his pacing, pushing a shaky hand through his tousled hair, a habit he realized magnified with every passing, unchanging hour.

For hours he continuously mulled over the daunting decision on whether or not to turn her. Her life hung in the balance and yet he lacked the courage to change her. What if after turning her, she despised him for it? He wasn't so certain he could abide her hatred. If by some miracle her body embraced the bite, he would have ultimately enslaved her to an eternity of breaking of bones and tearing of flesh. What if she never grew accustomed to her wolf? There were some who considered their "gift" an absolute damning curse and repelled their very beast to which anchored their soul. What if she too detested it?

All these notions burned into his brain, deterring him further from making a decision.

He recalled his vow to her earlier, that nothing would dare divide them, including death itself. And here she lay, practically within its deadened fingers, and he hesitated?

You fool ... his conscience chided. You have defied all the odds, and now you would let another stand in your way of taking what is rightfully yours?

He felt his wolf suddenly stir uneasily beneath the skin, rousing to the inclination of something terribly amiss, jarring him from his immersed thoughts.

Adeline who had taken residence by the window suddenly turned from the pane, her dark eyes narrowing with a flickering of concern as she arose to her feet and crossed to the bed.

Ronan froze before the foot of the mattress as Bennett swiftly sat up, clutching Kate's limp hand her face turning to a sheen of white.

His silver eyes, rapt with the ferocity of dread, widened as the elder placed her weathered hand over Kate's heart and from there his ears strained for what failed to be on the air - her heartbeat.

Seconds traveled over him in an alarming, intensifying wave of trepidation that coiled like icy, unforgiving fingers about his spine, jabbing straight to the core of his being as the elder lifted dark, troubling eyes and gave a disheartened shake of her head.

Bennett gave a dejected cry before slamming a palm over her mouth as though to stifle another.

Ronan's eyes broadened at the unthinkable as he found himself absently shaking his head in disbelief, his gaze riveted on Kate. "No - " he exhaled on a ragged breath, stumbling as the floor began to tilt uncontrollably beneath him.

He pressed his hands flat against his head, fighting the wave of vertigo as the world pulled back, retreating into a vast expanse of emptiness, and he crumpled to his knees. He felt a dark veil of unimaginable rage and anguish seize hold of him, tear into him, wrenching his beast from its seams to the forefront of his countenance as he unleashed an ungodly, ear-splitting roar. His talons lengthened, fueled by a vengeful fire running rampant in his veins and he set them to the floor, marring the hardwood unmercifully as his muscles tightened and bulged with an immeasurable strength, quivering with barely suppressed madness.

He sat back on his hunches and bellowed fiercely to the ceiling as the despair assailing him threatened to tear him asunder. He felt his beast rising abruptly, menacingly, to the surface and his bones began to shudder with the impending breakage, and he welcomed the pain with relish as it rained upon him in a maddening sweep of splintering and fracturing.

And as his beast took complete visage, he sprinted from the room.