Ronan staggered to his feet, gnashing his teeth against the intense pain running rampant through his body. He swayed, feeling the asphalt shift from beneath him as he clutched his chest, blood oozing from between his fingers.

            He swept the alley through heavy-slits, surveying the massacre of broken and twisted bodies lying inert in a pool of blood. The eruption of menacing growls and violent snarls had simmered to an uncanny calm, and as Ronan did a quick perusal of the alley, he felt a cold sweat hasten alarmingly over him.

            Fuck. Von was no where in sight. The bastard had escaped.

            “Ronan.” Micah emerged from the dark, falling in beside him with a hand to his elbow, assessing the wounds visible beneath the streetlight.

            “The human is missing.” Ronan growled gutturally. Had the bastard escaped amid the chaos? Was he going for Kate this very moment?

            He suppressed a vicious snarl, “I need to get to Kate.”

            Micah stayed him with a tightening hold, and Ronan reacted instinctively, broadcasting a full set of razor-sharp canines. “Let go.” He hissed warningly.

            “You’re bleeding. You need time to recoup before you go to her.” Micah advised, “You are no good to her this way.”

            Intolerable. He needed his mate. Kate was in danger and he would not rest until those threats were six-feet under.

            He shoved Micah’s grip off, “I’m already healing.”

            “Ronan, these wolves were rogue.”

            He halted, turned and pinned his beta with a sharp glare. “Rogues are solitary. They don’t heed the command of another.”

            “Regardless, they singled you out, and that threat was influenced by a hand of charge.”

            What Micah suggested simply was not likely. Rogues were solitary creatures and like one rabid beast to the next, they did not submit kindly to authority. Was Roux consorting with rogues and how? What sort of incentive could he have possibly used to lure wild, untamed wolves to do his bidding?

            “Dispose of the bodies.” He grumbled.

            Micah gave him a reverent nod and then, “You need to hunt.”

            “I need Kate.” he replied resoundingly.

             The moment Julie’s jeep pulled from her driveway, Kate sank to the floor, defeated, and sobbed. She wept as though to unleash every afflicting thought, every remembrance of pain, and every crippling, daunting aspect of her life that reduced her to this sniveling, fragment of herself.

            Her fingers tentatively brushed the tenderness of her throat. How much more pain must she endure at the hands of a man?

            But her abusive, murderous baggage was the least of her worries. Even now she could see those talons, sprouted from Ronan’s fingers, and the red tapestry of his eyes, reflecting that deadly, feral beast within.

            Her eyes had not deceived her. She had witnessed what most believed a fable creature, but Ronan was anything but a product of one’s imagination. He was very much the supernatural in the flesh – and she had unwittingly given herself to an alpha of a werewolf pack.

            Kate inhaled a deep breath through her nose, the gesture painful on her ribs as they protested sorely. They weren’t broken, but bruised nonetheless.

            Her eyes centered on the darkened interior of her home, its enclosure feeling far larger, far emptier than it had ever felt.

            She so desperately wanted Asheville to be her new beginning, but it had presented a whole new level of crazy she just wasn’t equipped to handle.

            Pushing off the heels of her hands, she made for the stairway. Her heart hammered against her breast with a sense of urgency, but her limbs moved as though leaden, weighed by the burdens that tormented her.

            Once upstairs, she reached the bathroom and flicked the light to gape at the disheveled image in the mirror.

            She didn’t recognize this person – this stranger. The woman’s eyes that peered hauntingly back at her, were empty of life, lacking the drive to live.

            Her hair lay atop her head in a tangled, unkempt mess, betraying the cruel fingers that had ripped through it. Her face, streaked with dirt and tears, was red and sure to bear a nasty bruise come morning. She reached up and peeled the collar of her uniform back, revealing the harsh imprint of hands.

            Kate bit down on her lower lip to still its trembling as she resisted fresh tears.

            It felt as if a hole had been drilled in her chest and that pain was boundless.

            Her heart rate doubled in acceleration, forcing her blood to pump fiercely through her veins, inciting an unimaginable tide of anguish. She dragged in a ragged breath as if starved for it, feeling as though her entire world threatened to crumble at any given moment into pathetic bits of nothingness.

            The pain and fear was unshakable, overwhelming. She had lost so much. Her parents. Her child. Her former self. How much more could she stand to lose? She was sick of running, sick of crying. Danny wanted her dead, so why persist with this pretense of living when she wasn’t living at all, when the likelihood of it was so despondently ill-fated?

            She didn’t want to fight anymore. She just wanted the pain to end.

            And before she knew it, her legs were descending the stairs, reaching for the front door. She whipped it open and the night air blasted her coldly, icily, as if death itself had arisen, pending her demise.

            Kate turned from it and made a mad dash for the trees.

            Finger-like limbs battered at her from every angle, pulling at her lose strands and clothing as if to deter her from her purpose, but the ebb and flow of despair was far more potent, spurring her onward, deeper into the mass of silhouetted trees until finally breaking a clearing to a sudden drop-off of earth.

            Her chest burned with a fire all its own, her breaths fragmented with the shortness of air as her heartbeat resonated on her ears. She inched towards that overhang, staring wide-eyed to that steep, bottomless descent.

            She swallowed and took another tentative step as a gust of wind carried up from underneath, seizing her hair to whip it fiercely about her face.

            It would be so easy, she thought, as pieces of earth gave way beneath her toes. Just one leap and all her pain would cease to exist. No more running. No more fearing the menace that which darkness cradled so infinitely. She could be reunited with her parents – her child, she thought lastly with a hitch in her breath.

            Her chest expanded with a tremulous breath as she took another step. And just when she thought to take that leap, an image so vast, so unexpected, arose to mind.

            Kate gasped as Ronan’s face materialized before her eyes, forcing her to stagger from the edge with a horrified cry as she collapsed to her knees, palming her face. Her shoulders shuddered with a sob as she fisted the earth, her chest squeezing tightly, painfully, as if her heart would burst from its cavity.

            No matter the pain, no matter the measure of suffering, she could never take her own life. How could she be such a damn coward?

            She slammed her fist against the cold, unforgiving earth – realizing with absolute horror, she would have met a cold, unforgiving grave.

            What on earth had she been thinking? She had never been so ashamed, so disgusted with herself. Consumed with such grief, she had almost plummeted to her death, not realizing even then, Danny’s influence on her.

            She was not this person!

            Kate pushed to her feet, bracing herself against the onslaught of wind that rustled through the trees, carrying with it, an ominous sound. And then something stepped in her peripheral, and when she turned her head, the blood in her veins turned to ice.

            Standing before the mouth of the trees, cast in a beam of moonlight, was a creature unlike anything she’d ever seen, its eyes glinting savagely, ravenously with a red, unworldly haze. Its gray, withered skin stretched taut over protruding bones, its arms on either side of its gaunt frame, bore slender fingers in striking comparison to the sharp limbs that had struck her earlier. But it was the razor-like talons spanning toward her that captured her widening stare.

            The creature shifted its nape, tilting its nose as if to inhale her scent on the air. Its mouth twisted, peeling back to reveal a full-set of lengthening fangs.

            Kate blanched, her heart lurching fiercely against her breast with the utmost terror as one word resounded on her brain.

            Vampire.

            The creature lolled its head, its red eyes never straying from her, saliva dripping profusely from a corner of its mouth.

            Kate’s stomach churned with dread as her heart raged profoundly on her ears. She took a small step back, her eyes never straying from the creature leering at her.

            Death was staring her directly in the face, and now completely at its mercy, she wanted nothing more than to keep what life she had.

            She had never felt so foolish and now her gravest mistake may very well cost her, her life. Her eyes wavered to the trees on her right, her heart reverberating so violently with the thought of making a run for it. The creature’s eyes sharpened like rubies beneath the celestial ray of light, pronouncing their ferocity, and the depth of its hunger.

            If she tried to run Kate feared, no – knew she wouldn’t make it. The vampire would be faster, and would have those fangs in her throat before she could summon a breath to scream.

            Her eyes dropped to the earth dispersed at her feet and frantically sought a weapon to use against it, anything to keep it at bay.

            And then what, Kate? You can’t ward the creature off forever.

            She had nothing, nothing but a warped stick just beneath her, and quickly snatched it from the ground, brandishing it between them.

            Her hands trembled as she gripped it fiercely between her palms and began backing toward the entrance of the trees.

            The vampire’s mouth broadened, its fangs glinting ominously beneath the moon as it stalked toward her.

            Kate gasped, “No – “ she whipped the stick about in a fluid motion in an attempt to dissuade it, but it advanced, hissing at her meager defense. And the more she tried to thwart its approach, the more it crept closer.

            With a disheartened cry, Kate swung the stick violently across the creature’s face and a satisfying streak of red trailed its lick. And before the creature could react, she spun on her heels and made a break for the trees.

            She ran as fast as her legs could carry her, slapping at the branches that hindered her flight. Her ears burned with the creature’s heavy pursuit as it barreled through the trees behind her, its breath hot on her nape as it shrieked an awful cry just before its talons ripped into her shoulder, wrenching her back with such force that she fell right into death’s arms.

            She fought wildly but the creature was stronger, and just as she released a blood-curdling scream, it sank its fangs deep into her throat.

            Kate could feel the vampire tearing into her neck, drinking greedily as its talons delved deeper into her flesh, dragging her roughly to the ground.

            Her scream died on the air, along with her strength as the creature quickly overpowered her. The only daunting, discernible sound was the partaking of her blood as the vampire thirstily emptied her veins. And in a last effort to salvage her life, Kate fought to pry those skeletal hands clamped so tightly on her shoulders, only to whimper as they tightened unmercifully.

            The pain was tremendous, hitting her like a tidal wave, but then slowly, it began to dissipate, and she felt herself slipping blissfully into oblivion, free of pain and without anguish. She felt her body go lax, giving herself entirely to death, her lasting vision being a pair of smoldering gray eyes.

            But then, a savage and soul-rattling roar reverberated through the trees, extracting Kate from her pain-free haven.

            She forced her eyes open, despite their heaviness, and saw an image that would forever implant itself to memory. Crouched low to the ground, its jowls peeled back to reveal a large set of canines, larger than the fangs suspended over her lessening pulse, was the largest wolf she’d ever seen. It braced low, arching its back with every fine hair of its pelt standing aggressively on-end, all the while, eyes so piercingly silver, penetrated the creature with open rage.

            The vampire released her all at once and she dropped like dead weight to the solid earth. She groaned as the pain encompassed her from every angle of her awareness, luring those silver eyes for a brief, altering moment.

            And she felt tears rush unbidden to her eyes.

            Ronan had come for her.

            There was a fleeting silence, a brief crackling of two predators sizing the other, and in that deafening moment, Kate faded, the image of one massive wolf depicted faintly on her brain, only to come to as violent snarls rendered the dead of night.

            Her bones jolted with the eruption of bloodshed, shivering as the air, now colder and laced of bestiality, hastened over her skin like chilling fingers. Her eyes fluttered closed, her lids weighed with a languid pull, only to wake to the sound of hissing paired with a fierce round of enraged growls followed abruptly by the tearing of flesh.

            Her stomach churned at the ghastly sound and she flattened her hands to push off her weight, but her body felt anchored to the ground, forcing her arms to go slack.

            It seemed forever, that incessant static of snarls and marring of flesh, until finally there was nothing but a discernible, uneasy calm. And she lay there, listening to the frantic pull of her heart, fearing the worst, until suddenly she felt gentle hands pulling her tenderly into the crook of strong, muscled arms.

            She felt her body being lifted as though that anchor had never been, and felt weightless, cradled in brawn that sheltered a lethal beast. Her head lolled against a massive shoulder and she forced her eyes open to peer into a stare projecting strongly of its beast poised just beneath a silver sheen.

            A breath lodged in her throat as she muttered painfully, “I’m sorry.” She felt a tear slip from beneath her lashes.

            Ronan reached up and cupped her face gently, brushing that tear away with his thumb, “Don’t think of it, sweetheart.”

            “I-I don’t know what I – “ with every word that passed through her throat, pain swiftly ensued and she felt the trickling of blood as it crept beneath the collar of her uniform.

She felt him straightening, shifting her closer, tighter against his bare chest, and unable to cling to consciousness anymore, she drifted to the steady cadence of his heart.