I awoke the moment I felt Elena's soft, sensuous body ease away from my own. I felt her roll into a sitting position on her side of my bed. I opened my eyes in time to see her slip off the mattress and onto the hardwood floor. I watched as she dressed slowly in the clothing she had discarded before we went to bed, enjoying the peep show, until the material of her shirt and jeans covered her feminine curves.

She padded to the door and opened it. I quickly closed my eyes as she cast a glance back at the bed, before slipping out into the hallway, and closing the door behind her. Everything in me to stay frozen in bed and not run after her to make sure she didn't leave Stonehaven.

I was trying really hard not to crowd Elena. I was trying to give her all the space she needed, hoping with all my heart that this time she would choose to stay at Stonehaven. That she would choose to stay not only with the pack, but with me as well.

I wanted to believed in what she told me after the Mutt uprising was true. That whatever Fate had in store for the Pack, that we would all face it together. I wanted believe that this time when she said the words, that they were true.

It was hard though. In one way or another, over the years since she had become a werewolf, Elena had made that promise to me. But something would happen, she and I would get into another fight or she did something in defense of the pack, that would horrify her, and she would be off and running again.

This last year of separation had been brutal. Not only did Jeremy forbid me from visiting her in Toronto, but he had forbade me to even call her. Meets would come and go, and Elena never came to them. Birthdays and holidays had come and gone, and still no Elena.

Finally, I had to face the very real probability that I would never see Elena again. That she did intend to live herself separate from the pack, and Jeremy would be forced to declare her a Mutt.

I had nearly gone insane with despair. I could not imagine my life without Elena in it. With every fiber of my being I loved her. She was the perfect woman for me. My soul mate. That was why I had risked everything to save her life on that fateful day.

I knew I could not do as Jeremy asked of me. I could not kill her. I could not kill the woman who had from the first day we met, turned my innards inside out, and my world upside down.

But by biting her, I had betrayed Elena's trust, and I don't know if she will ever be able to forgive me. I know that Jeremy had told her why I had done it, and she had come to me, and told me that she knew the truth at last. That I had bitten her to save her life.

In her actions, more than her words, over the past couple of days, she had shown me such love and tenderness, despite her grief over Philip's death, and losing our Pack members. It made me want to believe that maybe, just maybe, Elena really intended to stay at Stonehaven this time. With me.