After the dryad left me, I ran home and changed out of my school uniform into some casual clothes — couldn't be bloodying my uniform now, could I?

Victoria found me just as the sun sunk over the horizon, yet she didn't begin to lecture me like I thought she would. Instead, she simply sat next to me on the lake shore and waited for the full moon to appear.

It wasn't too long before the glowing orb of the moon rose over the nearby mountains, reflecting on the lake and sending shivers throughout my body. I could already feel its power calling out to me, willing to let the wolf loose.

But I held it back a moment longer. I closed my eyes — hoping Ember was at home, away from the woods. I didn't dare let myself imagine how she would react if she showed up here.

I'm not a killer.

"You know, Theo?" Victoria began, her voice soft, and I braced myself for her voice to turn cruel, but it didn't. "It's impressive what you will do to protect your friends, even if it means killing someone."

"Hmm," I grunted, trying to ignore her worming into my head and trying to fight the beginning pangs of the full moon.

"You're having trouble already, aren't you?" She smirked.

I closed my eyes tighter and tried to find an anchor in Ember — but all I could think of was how she would look at me once she knew what I'd done. She wouldn't be able to forgive me for it; that much I knew.

You don't have a choice, I attempted to remind myself. I don't have a choice, do I? This is the only way I can help Kaden and protect myself from the hunters.

"So, who are you going to kill?" Victoria asked, forcing me to open my eyes.

"There's an old guy living in that cottage over there." I jerked my thumb over my shoulder in the direction of the cottage, just a few minutes' walk from where we were. "He's dying anyway so I thought I'd put him out of his misery."

"Oh, how thoughtful, Theo," she praised mockingly before adding in a serious tone, "You don't know him though, do you? There's no grudge against him, is there?"

"I'm not killing a teenager," I responded through gritted teeth. "Isn't killing someone bad enough without it having to be someone young?"

"Fine." She narrowed her eyes. "But this won't be the last time you kill for me."

"Just as long as you don't drag Kaden into it." I narrowed my eyes back at her, but her power as an Alpha made it hard for me to turn against her word.

"I can't make any promises." She grinned cruelly. "He'll have to kill eventually."

I didn't say anything else, not wanting to make things worse for Kaden or myself. Even though they weren't going great anyway.

Standing up, I sighed, "I should probably just get this over with."

Victoria said nothing and just looked up at me.

I turned and began walking to the cottage where I was about to murder a defenceless old guy.

Okay, so the dryad had been right — it would be easier for me to kill him, but that still doesn't take away the fact that I'd rather not kill anyone.

How is Ember going to forgive me for this?

Surely, she wouldn't want to be with me, let alone talk to me, once she knew everything that I'd done... And yet the dryad had said that if I confessed to her, I'd be closer to finding my pack, and I desperately needed to find my pack.

A thin spiral of smoke was escaping the cottage's chimney, and I could only see one light on inside. Taking a deep inhale of air through my nose once I was close enough, I reaffirmed that he was dying; the stale, cold stench of Death surrounded the entire cottage.

I braced myself as I could feel the full moon's power taking over my body. My nails and teeth sharpened into deadly points. Yet the pain felt only numb in my body — the drive of having to hurt someone made the transition easier, though not entirely painless.

Victoria's presence had altered my transition, as I didn't fully become a wolf. Perhaps in allowing me to remain more human, she wanted me to feel more guilt. I had my fangs, my claws and my wolf eyes — but the rest of me was human.

It was odd to be so close to humanity on a full moon; it was the sort of half-transition that I was able to maintain when I had total and absolute control. Yet I didn't have long to question Victoria's intentions over controlling my transition.

My sight became infrared as my eyes honed in on heat signatures. The old guy was lying in bed, I could see him through the walls of his cottage. His heartbeat was weak, faltering every few seconds.

Any human compassion I could've felt toward him was overridden as the wolf took over me. There was still blood beating around his veins, his flesh would still be warm as I ripped it off his body.

Snarling, I ran over to the cottage's heavy wooden door and knocked it down with one blow. He didn't even move, probably too weak or he didn't hear it. I inhaled a breath of the musty, decaying air and stepped toward him. And then I picked up another scent.

A scent that shouldn't be here.

But the wolf didn't take any notice of this other scent — it was only the human side of me that urged me to stop. I couldn't stop. The full moon glared down at me through a window.

Do it, I could hear the moon urging me, encouraging me. It seemed to insist, this is good, this is right.

Walking over to him, he opened his eyes and looked up at me in utter fear. His mouth opened and began to shout before I grasped his neck and pulled him up to shove him against the wall of his cottage.

"Take... anything," he managed to choke out as I tightened my grip.

"I'm not here to rob you," I growled under my breath drawing closer to him, "I'm here to kill you."

Horror tore across his face as he noticed my claws, my teeth, my eyes, my strength. His mouth dropped open in utter fear and his eyes glazed over with tears — he knew I would put an end to him.

I was the ultimate predator; he was my prey.

"Do it already!" Victoria hissed, suddenly appearing in the doorway. Her eyes were a vibrant, violent red, even though she was in total control.

I drew my hands even tighter around his neck, half-strangling him. He desperately kicked and writhed in my grasp, though he barely moved at all as I kept him pinned to the wall. His heartbeat rushed and then stopped entirely as I raked my merciless claws across his neck; slicing through his thin veil of skin and releasing dark red spurts of blood, most of which splattered over my face.

Happy now?" I spat at Victoria, managing to regain a bit of control.

"No." The Alpha ran her tongue over the points of her fangs as she bared them in a sadistic sort of smile. "How do you know he's not still alive?"

Resisting the urge to growl at her, I merely glanced back at his motionless body and stated calmly enough, "Because he's not breathing."

"Come on, Theo," Victoria pressed, circling behind me. "You're a monster, a killer. All of us werewolves are. Now. Make sure he's dead."

I knew she didn't want me to check for his heartbeat. She wanted me to tear the corpse to shreds.

"He's dead, okay?" I insisted through gritted teeth, trying to silence the will to comply with her order. "I killed him."

I raised my head only to be greeted by the moonlight's piercing glare — somehow it seemed even stronger than before. As the pale, luminescent beams found me, I could feel that short-lived control slipping out of my hands like silky water.

"Make sure he's dead," Victoria repeated, leaning against my shoulder. "Don't you want to tear his body apart? Don't you want to feel your claws slicing through his flesh?"

"Stop it," I growled at her. "I know what you're trying to do. I've killed him, isn't that enough?"

"No, it's not enough." She stated, tracing one of her claws down my jaw. "I tried to give you the choice, but, as you've refused so blatantly... I'll just have to force you to."

"Victoria, you don't have to do this." I tried arguing with her — a futile attempt; Victoria was not in the mood for listening.

"I do though. How else is a new Alpha supposed to make a statement?" She smirked, her eyes merciless. "Make sure he's dead."

Up until that point, I'd never been controlled by an Alpha, but I knew what the result was. I lost all control over my body as Victoria's words pierced my skull and influenced my brain in ways I couldn't understand. My hands shook as I looked down at them, my claws seemed to lengthen even further and I felt a hot blinding agony in every inch of my skin as I tried to resist her power.

Before I knew what was happening, I was rolling his body over.

"Stop this." I tried to say, but my tongue knotted stubbornly in my mouth as if Victoria wasn't letting me speak.

My actions were no longer my own; I was barely keeping ownership of my thoughts. The combination of Victoria's control as an Alpha and of the full moon's power was unbearable. If I tried to resist any longer, I was almost certain that my brain would've been crushed into oblivion.

By the time I realised what I was doing, I was slashing open his chest — my claws quickly demolishing what used to be a man. Blood covered everything: the once-white walls of his cottage, my clothes, my hands, my face, Victoria's face.

"You happy now?" I spat at her eventually after finally being able to drag myself away from his long-dead corpse. A tremor shook my heart as I found myself in control of my body once again.

"Ecstatic," Victoria replied, though her voice quite the opposite of her words, "Don't you feel alive now, Theo?"

I ignored her and walked out of the door — trying to steady my shaky breath and racing heart. Jason had never tried to control any of us in the pack; either through the means of his Alpha status or otherwise. It was an experience I could only hope I would never have to endure again.

At least I changed out of my uniform, I thought gruffly as I walked to the lake.

Dropping to my knees, I began to wash the blood off my hands and face in the cool water. I let the delicate streams trickle down my face and breathed slowly. It didn't take long for the blood to wash off my hands, but I knew those red blotches would stain my soul forever.

The wind blew past me ever so slightly, and I picked up the same scent that I'd smelt just as I'd gone into the cottage.

The scent that shouldn't be here; the scent I knew so well.

Inwardly, I sighed and splashed water over my face one more time. I then straightened up and turned around.

The scent was Ember's. She stood with her feet firmly planted and her hands crossed across her chest. The necklace I gave her rested proudly around her neck. Concern was etched into her features.

"What are you doing here, Ember?" I asked, only slightly holding back a sigh.

"I'm here to make sure you're okay, Theo," she told me and stepped closer.

My power and bloodlust had just been expended on murdering someone, and yet I didn't fully trust the wolf not to lash out at Ember, so I stepped back. I pushed away the comforting feeling that her saying my name brought to me. "You shouldn't be here. I told you not to leave your house."

She narrowed her eyes and walked right up to me, face to face. "Theo, I don't care."

"Well, you should." I cast my eyes down and found myself staring at my palms before I shoved them into my pockets. "You don't know what's going on."

"Actually, I do know what's going on," she threw back, ever feisty with that crackly determination sparking up her eyes. "You can shut me out as much as you want, but there are plenty of other people who will tell me the truth."

"Oh yeah?" I snapped. "Like who?"

"Like the dryad that you met in the woods today," she retorted sassily and crossed her arms even tighter around her body.

My jaw nearly collapsed onto the ground below me. "How—?" I began but she cut me off.

"I've lived in this town my entire life; how do you expect me not to know things like dryads in the wood?" She frowned.

"Multiple dryads?" I echoed.

"Yep. The one you met today is called Olivis. The tree she belongs to is just behind my house," she explained. "So, she told me everything about your little chat with her today."

"Everything?" I echoed disbelievingly.

"Well, no. She told me everything you said that was important. There are only certain things that she can tell me anyway." Unfolding her arms, she took a hold of my arm — the sensation of her hand on me making me wish I could forever be safe in her arms.

"So... You know what I had to do?" I looked at the ground.

"Roughly." She smiled wanly, drawing herself closer to me all the same.

"And that doesn't bother you?" I exclaimed incredulously, pulling myself away from her once again. My wishes of simplicity were extremely unrealistic. "I'm dangerous. I've murdered people with my bare hands, Ember."

My confession obviously shocked her, as I could tell the air rushed out of her. Surprisingly, she stepped close to me again and her palms seemed to scorch my flesh as she placed them on my face, even though there were no flames visible.

"What we've done in the past doesn't determine us for the rest of our lives," she told me, looking me straight in the eye, and I couldn't pull myself away from her this time. "Someone once told me that our souls never change, Theo. They told me that we move through life, touching different points and changing things around us. But at our centre, at our soul, we're the same — we never change. And no matter what, that never changes." She repeated, "We remain the same."

"I don't know about that." I closed my eyes and pressed my lips into her palm. "He's still dead."

"Victoria made you do it," she insisted, bringing herself closer to me again and breaking down the walls I was trying to build up.

"Not to start with," I admitted, opening my eyes. "And... part of me enjoyed it — doesn't that change me?"

"It's just your nature," she whispered to me gently. "Eventually, everyone succumbs to their nature."

I shut my eyes again, hopelessly thinking that if I did, everything going wrong in my life would just go away. But there were too many things going wrong to wish for that sort of thing.

I swallowed, feeling tears building in the backs of my eyes (shut up). My eyes itched and irritated me, yet I couldn't rub them without Ember thinking I was crying. And I wasn't crying.

"You should go," I told Ember, finally being able to trust my voice not to break.

"I'm not leaving you here like this," she stated and planted her feet firmly on the lake's pebbly shore.

"Yes, you are," I insisted; just moments away from considering begging her to leave. "You're going home right now."

I could see the shadowy outline of Victoria walk over to the closest wall of the cottage to us and lean against it, watching us intently. Her presence seemed to reawaken the wolf's bloodlust, and I knew that Ember had to leave right away.

"Go home, Ember. Please," I hissed. "I'll come and see you later tonight, I just have to finish this first."

Her eyebrows creased with worry, descending her forehead like blinds snapping shut. "Just don't be too long."

"Don't wait up," I told her with a weak smile, though I think we both knew that she'd wait up all night for me if she had to.

And with that, she turned and ran off through the forest — her scent of firewood disappearing along with her.

"Happy, Victoria?" I turned to her as soon as Ember was out of sight.

"Oh, definitely." She grinned, revealing the blood on her teeth that glistened in the moonlight. "That guy might've been dying, but he had a good liver."

I glowered at her. "You're disgusting. You know that's cannibalism, right?"

"Please!" Victoria rolled her eyes, laughing, "Humans and werewolves are basically separate species. And I've never been a human, so it's less like cannibalism." She grinned wider, "I'd suggest it to you sometime, but it looks like your girlfriend might want you to go veggie."

"Leave her out of this," I growled, but this time I was completely in control. Ember showing up there gave me something to hope for; a reason to cling to my humanity instead of giving into Victoria's will for me to kill.

She laughed again. "I'm planning to get Kaden to kill somebody in a couple of moons. It's always fun watching Betas lose control."

Hurt and still affected by her mind games, I snapped, "Hey, I did not lose control tonight."

She shook her head slightly and winked at me. "You almost did though, didn't you?"

A growl rose in the back of my throat, but I pictured Ember standing right there beside me, holding my hand and insisting that I stay with her. Lashing out at Victoria wouldn't benefit anyone in the long run, even if it would've been temporarily satisfactory for me.

"Well, congratulations." She smiled. "You're no longer a worthless Omega, you're now a slightly less worthless Beta. Same for Kaden as well." She paused, eyes scanning my face. "Why don't you look happy about that?"

I glanced at her. "Because I'm still an Omega from my old pack. That won't change until they're found."

"You've got me now, Theo. You don't have to worry about them anymore," she told me sincerely, coming unexpectedly close to me and wrapping her arms around my neck. Her voice had dipped to one of seduction, a low and sultry tone that made my skin crawl with nausea.

I'd only known her for a few months, but I had eyes for Ember and Ember only. Part of me knew, even then, that it'd be like that for a long while.

"Get off me," I responded bluntly, emotionlessly. I stared off into the woods and started stepping back from her.

God, she looks so much like Jade...

I shoved her arms off me and stated, "We're done for tonight."

"Aw, don't fancy killing off someone else tonight?" Somehow, she managed to master both a teasing and a serious tone in her voice. "The night's still young."

"Yeah, it is," I agreed grudgingly. "That's why I'm done here."

"Fine," she huffed and stepped away from me. She probably realised that she wouldn't be able to influence me on this, and I guessed that there's only so much mind control you can do in one night.

Starting to walk off in the direction that Ember had left, I grunted a goodbye, not wanting to stick around any longer. I'd spend even less time around Victoria if throwing herself at me would become a regular thing — and trust me, I did not want that happening.

After a last glance at the cottage that I knew would be all over the local newspapers soon enough, I broke into a run. Blood coated the inside walls and its metallic stench lingered in my nostrils for hours.

The local police would find out pretty soon, I reckoned — before it hit me; if he lived alone and had no family, how would they find out? It could have been days before they discovered his body. Even though I'd done so much wrong that night, I felt I had to do at least one half-decent thing.

I have to leave an anonymous tip.

Slowing to a walk and pulling my phone out of my pocket, I fumbled with it in the half-light.

Eventually finding the keypad, I began to dial 911. Wait no, it's 999 here, I remembered just in time and changed the digits before I rang.

"Hello, this is—" The operator began in my ear.

"I need to leave a tip for the police," I interrupted, making my voice lower and trying to disguise my blatantly obvious American accent; otherwise, I'd stick out like a sore thumb.

How many American werewolves could there be in Lake Oldoy?

"Alright, go ahead," a tired-sounding police officer said, probably looking forward to the end of his shift.

"The man living at the cottage at the edge of Lake Oldoy has been murdered," I said and then instantly hung up. Heart pounding in my chest, I hoped they wouldn't be able to trace the call back to my phone, and ultimately, me.

"Oh my God," I muttered to myself as I shoved my phone back into my pocket.

Continuing to run through the woods, I tried not to think about what I had just done.

I am a killer.

No matter what Ember said, I had changed.

But she forgave me, I thought incredulously. All the while forcing myself to run faster, run harder.

By the time I arrived at Ember's house, my forehead sheened with sweat, and I was ever so slightly out of breath, as I'd been punishing myself by running too fast, too hard.

She forgave me, I reminded myself again — though I was debating whether even going to see her at all.

Having decided to see her, I began to climb up the drainpipe outside her bedroom window. I could tell instantly which room was hers — her body heat signature was unmissable to me. I was glad that I'd cleaned the blood off my hands, as otherwise I probably would've slipped right back down again.

I gripped the slick black pipe with my palms and shimmied up it — trying in vain to silence the endless thoughts that writhed in my mind like a mass of spaghetti.

"Ember?" I called out softly into the cool night when I was outside her window. Tapping on the glass slightly, I hoped she'd let me.

She forgave you, I thought again, almost like a mantra. A mantra to keep me going, just something to keep me going; anything to keep me going.

Ember kept me going. I needed her in my life more than I would've liked to admit to myself.