The cage.

It was all I could think about in the silence that followed everyone's departure. It wasn't a matter of months away, or days at this point. It was hours. Minutes. Seconds from becoming reality. And there I sat on the floor, alone with the two men that had the most insight on what was about to happen, and I couldn't get my brain to engage enough to ask. Funny, they weren't in a mood to volunteer, either. We sat in silence while everyone else made like the Seven Dwarfs and Hi Ho'ed it to work.

It wasn't awkward, that silence. It could have been. It could have been filled with meaningful looks, and not the good ones. I was half expecting Jeremy to follow through with the 'not done with you' portion of the night. No doubt there was a rant or a lecture building up inside of him, waiting to bubble to the surface of all his insufferable calm. Each time he sipped his tea, I expected him to follow up with how disappointed he was in me.

He kept his silence.

So did Antonio. Though he got a pass on reading me the riot act for breaking my promise. He looked as if he was having trouble remaining upright, a faint sheen of sweat on his brow from the effort. Twice now I opened my mouth, wanting to order him back to bed, but something kept my tongue in neutral. Something that warned me that this was a vigil of sorts for him. Sending him away would be an insult, even if it was meant to spare him pain.

So… the silence.

And the inevitable countdown to my cage match. Only instead of some spandex wearing show-dude, I'd be wrestling with myself. The pain would be real. Death would be real. And no McManus in the world would be able to tap me out when things got deadly. It wasn't like I could spend the rest of my life with Jeremy's hand dangling off my shoulder. But don't think for one second that I hadn't considered that as a viable option. That's what fear does to you, folks. It makes you crazy.

"We're ready."

Clay's voice came out of nowhere, the solemnity of its tone more frightening than anything to date, and I jumped. Because now it was going to happen. Now I was going to be taken to the cage, and possibly to my death. Nothing in my visions had ever told me that I would make it out of that cage again—just that I would spend time in it. Suffering. Suffering horrifically.

Thankfully Jeremy was ready this time when I jumped, his palm pressing into my shoulder before I could accidentally wiggle free. "Okay," he said. "Come and help me, please."

Translation: Come and take control of Lotte so I can get off the couch.

Clay reached out a hand to me, and I took it, letting him draw me to my feet. He pulled me to the side, an arm around my waist, while Jeremy took his time getting to his feet. The doctor part of my brain started in with the stern warnings that neither Jeremy nor Antonio should be out of bed at this point. They should be resting, if not sleeping, all snuggled into their beds watching soul-crushing sitcoms or something.

Instead, Jeremy was helping Antonio to stand, the two nearly leaning against each other as they walked past us. Clay steered me in step behind them, and Elena and Nick took up the rear as we walked into the kitchen… and down the basement stairs. No one started in with the fake sentiments, which I appreciated. No "you can do this" or "you'll be fine" or even the "if you want to survive, do this." No one was much in the mood to lie, I guess, and even my usual sarcasm had buried its head in the sands of disbelief, praying that this was all some kind of joke.

That I'd get down those stairs and walk into festive streamers and cake and punch, a big banner saying "SURPRISE" descending over the cage. Like I'd just passed some sort of weird sorority initiation, or some test to join a Super Secret Society. Well, if I survived my cage match with myself, that last part would technically be true. I'd be part of them then, part of the secrets that caused all of Bear Valley to whisper.

The Order of the Stonehaven. The Danvers-Sorrentino Knighthood. Or… or something.

We reached the base of the stairs, and all my thoughts on secrets and my future died mid-stream. There was only the tepid light of a single bulb to illuminate the way to the cage, the sun having long set on my last day as a human. In a few steps, just a handful of footfalls, I was going to meet my fate.

I won't lie and say I went into that cage without hesitation, with my head held high, and determined to meet my destiny with grace and dignity. My steps slowed and faltered the closer we got, and only Clay's arm around me kept me in formation with the others. Stars, he was so strong. Would I be that strong if I survived? Would my skin burn so hot, too?

I bit my tongue when our feet hit that unfinished cement floor, holding back all the little excuses that instantly sprang to mind. They wouldn't have helped, and would have only delayed the inevitable. The strength in Clay's grip was more than enough certainty that I was going into that cage whether I wanted to or not. Fighting would just leave me tired and hurting when I went in, and Antonio had said before that I needed my strength.

Nick and Elena moved ahead of our procession, pulling two chairs out of a shadowy corner and placing them before the cage. Jeremy helped Antonio into one, and then took the second one, himself. He nodded once. Elena took the lock—Jesus, that padlock looked like it could keep a charging rhino from breaking through!—off the cage door, and Nick opened it.

Inside was a single steel-framed bed, complete with pillow and blanket. I blinked. Blinked again. Was it really going to take that long? Long enough that I'd need to sleep? To spend days here? In a cage?That couldn't be right… could it? They wouldn't leave me here in a freaking cage while I suffered…

… but then I remembered the pain. And the fact that no one was offering helpful suggestions.

God, it really could take that long. In agony for days… with no hope of surviving. I glanced over my shoulder at Jeremy and Antonio, at their stolid expressions. Then and Nick and Elena, who were doing their best to mimic the others. And realized that they weren't escorting me so much as friends, but more like the pallbearers at my funeral.

With Clay's arm around me serving as my coffin.

Clay moved me forward, and I couldn't stop the way my hands latched onto his arm. Couldn't stop the tremble that seemed to shake my whole body. It didn't slow him in the slightest, and I didn't have the heart to look up and see if his expression was just as stony as the others. He wasn't Clay in that moment, wasn't the man that had grown from the boy that was like my brother. He was the… enforcer?... of Jeremy's will. And Jeremy wasn't Jeremy, but was my Alpha.

My alpha… sitting vigil for what would surely be my death.

After all, they had their special snowflake, their unique she-wolf that had broken all the rules and survived the change. Honestly, what were my chances of lightning striking twice in the same spot? Next to none, that's what.

Clay walked me into the cage, pulling me to a halt just within the door. Just far enough in that he could snake one arm through the bars of the door as it closed and touch me, while letting go with the other. I stood with my back to them all, staring down at the blurry floor. Oh, wait, it wasn't blurry. It was my eyes. I was crying. Like a fucking pansy.

I heard someone take a breath, opening a mouth to say something and I just couldn't let myself listen to what it was. Not if I wanted to salvage some kind of dignity. If that was even possible anymore.

I spoke before anyone else could. "Thank you," I surprised myself in saying, surprised even further that the whispery tone of my voice didn't waver with the tears. "Thank you—all of you—for at least trying to save me. Tell Char that I love her, and will always watch over her. She won't… she won't understand right away, and maybe not ever, but she needs to know."

I stepped forward before anyone could say anything, breaking the physical contact with Clay, and gave over to my fate.

I plunged beneath the agony, torment rising up around me and slamming down like waves in a dark ocean. I wanted to say that I was prepared this time, having had a preview of this coming attraction. That would be a lie. No one can ever be prepared for that kind of pain, nor can they stop the need to fight back against it. It was just a biological fact of life: if something was hurting you, you did your best to get away from it or you attacked it head-on.

It was called the fight/flight response. So how was I supposed to tell my body not to do the only two things available to it, the two things programmed into it from the moment of conception?

I had no idea, either.

So I just sank into the muck of suffering, breathing in fire and exhaling terror. I never felt it when my hands and knees hit the floor, didn't know if I was screaming or screaming silently, or just kneeling there waiting for my heart to explode. There was nothing but the pain, the sick feeling of claws raking down my insides, of bones breaking and reshaping, of my soul reforging itself.

Despite my best efforts, I tried to rationalize my way through the change. Tried to accept the pain, and make myself okay with the fact my body was becoming something altogether alien, if not completely unnatural. Those wrong teeth filled my mouth almost instantly, and my hands, my talented surgical hands, start to morph. Vision went next, fluctuating in and out as if someone had replaced my irises with a fish-eye camera lens.

And right on schedule came the pop-snap-twist of my spine, my ribs cracking and elongating, twisting my chest completely out of shape.

This was all anticipated; all something I had felt the first time I started to change. It didn't make it any easier, mind you. And god, did it hurt somehow worse than I remembered. The shaking came and then turned into convulsions. My vision vanished, my hearing gone next, leaving me in blackness and silence and pain.

Leaving me alone with my wolf.

I saw her in the darkness, a sleek flash of white against all that black. She was small for a wolf, not nearly as big as I remembered Antonio and Jeremy as being. Small, but powerfully built, covered in pure white fur. Sleek, with delicate limbs made for agility and grace and speed. She had my eyes, though. My dark, nearly black eyes. And within them burned a fire-like intelligence no human should have ever seen. In fact, she bared her teeth at me, snarling that I was even there to begin with.

And suddenly I knew. I knew just why people didn't always survive the Bite. If I had been born to this, prepared from birth, I would have had insight into the wolf in me. She wouldn't have been alien, and parts of my brain that were at this very moment damn near gibbering with madness at the thought of becoming a wolf, would have been accepting of her. But they weren't, and god was she pissed about it, her displeasure echoing in the twisting of my body, the agony of every heartbeat.

She was just as much a part of me as I was now. And she'd be damned if she had to live every second of her life suppressed behind human eyes. Death was preferable to a cage of weak human flesh. She'd kill me—kill us—rather than suffer that fate forever.

The moment I had that realization was the moment she grew tired of waiting. She leapt, fangs bared, claws at the ready to rip our body to ribbons.

I screamed, threw up my arms to try and shield myself.

She battered through my pathetic defenses, fangs latching onto my throat, tearing into the vital arteries. Blood sprayed her white muzzle, staining it with our life-force. Her tongue lapped the blood, the sweet, hot, brandy savored. It was the taste of victory, of supremacy, of freedom. I tasted my pulse on my tongue, counting down the handful of seconds I had left to live. The handful of heartbeats as my blood poured across the landscape.

One heartbeat.

And I couldn't help but think that Jeremy should have done this last night, only with his hand instead of fang. He should have finished what he'd started and spared me this whole nightmare. A mercy, he had called it, and he had been so right. I wasn't supposed to surrender to the pain, nor was I supposed to fight it. Clay had said as much. Yet my body was now locked in a state of terminal confusion with no way to help itself. Except…

One heartbeat.

I did the only thing I could do, the only thing that memory pulled forth from the depths of my past. I fell backward again, splashing through a barrier of blue-white light, delving into that time when I was a child and Wolf-Jeremy stood over me. Into the memory of when my power first made its appearance. One hand fell to touch the paw of his wolf. The other hand rose, pleading. I was so weak now, so much blood lost. Dying.

One heartbeat.

Dying as surely as Charlene had been dying, as Jeremy had been dying, when they'd both slipped beneath the black waters as children.

One heartbeat.

Dying…

One heartbeat.

I was back to being that little nine-year-old girl. Lying on the cold ground of Stonehaven, stars glittering above me, and cool wind blowing across my soul. No, not blowing across it, but coming from it. From the power inside me, and glowing through the pentagram in my flesh. Over to my right, I saw Char slip and fall, disappearing in that pond. And following that, I saw a man tying a rock to his son's neck, and throwing him in after her.

Dying. They were dying, too. Somehow, some way, they were both still in that pond. They were both drowning on dry land, taking decades to go instead of mere minutes.

One heartbeat.

Char… Jeremy…

One heartbeat.

Dying…

One heartbeat.

I couldn't let that happen.

Above me loomed a wolf—my wolf—blazing as bright as any star in the moonlight. My hand touched its paw instead, my other reaching feebly for her nose. "Please," I whispered. "Please don't hurt me. I'm sorry I was afraid. Please help me. Help me save them. Char and Jeremy are still drowning. They never stopped. Please, save them. Save me… Save us."

My heart beat its last, and my hand fell onto that satin nose. And everything was flooded with blue-white light.

Something was wrong.

Something other than the fact that I was still in agony, and still screaming so loud and long that I hadn't finished with the last scream before I had to draw breath to take in the next. No, this was wrong because I was naked now, and light leaked in through the window high above. Light that felt more like the fading of afternoon than the rising of a sun. That, and I was somehow on the bed in that cage, the blanket thrown across me.

I didn't stay that way for long. Another part of my body broke and reshaped itself, and I went fetal with the pain.

The scrape of metal against concrete interrupted my howling, and I forced open eyes gummy with dried tears. A single metal cup, like something from a camping kit, had been pushed through the opening on the bottom of that door.

"Drink this, if you can," Jeremy said quietly. "Your body will need it."

I couldn't see him, my vision doing things I couldn't even put into words. But I could smell him, knew precisely where he was standing by his scent. Warm, he smelled so warm, like fire and safety and a spice uniquely his own. I wanted to roll around in that scent, cover myself with it, bind my wounds with it. Safety… and warmth… god, I was so cold.

And thirsty.

The simple water in that cup smelled like the finest whiskey in the world.

I fell off the bed, dragging myself hand over hand to that offered ambrosia. My legs didn't want to work anymore, and I didn't have the courage to look back at them. I didn't want to see a misshapen horror, a half-wolf-woman-monstrosity that surely I had to be given the way I hurt. I made it to the water, clasping it with twisted fingers, and spilling as much as I drank. But some of it got down my throat, and it cleared my head for a brief moment.

Enough to see Jeremy's face, and Elena's, the former as blank as I'd ever seen it. The latter contorted as if she was trying to stop from vomiting. Vomiting at the sight of me. Of a transformation gone horribly wrong. Oh god, what had I become?

I started to look back, and that's when Elena moved. Her hands grasped the bars of the cage, kneeling down beside me. Her perfect human hands, so close to my half-mutated paws splotched here and there with fine white fur.

"Don't look," she said urgently. "Don't look back, Lotte. Concentrate. You can do this. You can do this. Let the… let the pain take you where you need to go. Don't fight it. Don't give up. You can do this."

I glanced up, saw the sorrow on Jeremy's face.

Just like it had happened in the vision.

"I don't understand," I gurgled out, my mouth not able to produce the words when so twisted. "I met my wolf. I asked her for help. I… don't understand."

Jeremy stepped forward, placing a hand on Elena's shoulder. She glanced up at him, near pleading with him to do something. Anything. And when his eyes met mine again, I knew there was only one thing he could do to help me. He could finish what he'd started in that den.

Because I was a monster now. I wasn't going to make it.

God, where the hell was my wolf? Why was this happening?

She made a mournful sound in the back of my head, pacing the cage of my human form, unsure how to get out. Dying, too, because I was dying. Unlike me, she was strangely okay with this idea. Death was natural, and while not something to be longed for, it was what it was. We weren't going to make it, and she knew it. It was just too much, too much pain.

I'd asked too much of her… and of me.

"Do it," I heard myself say, shoving the cup away.

"Jeremy," Elena pleaded. "No, we can… she can… Don't—"

"Elena, go upstairs," he said quietly but firmly, walking over to the far wall and retrieving a set of keys. "Send Clay down to help me in five minutes."

"Jeremy, I—"

He silenced her with a touch, the placing of his hand on the back of her neck. Her eyes nearly closed, and I understood why he did that so much to me. The warmth, the scent… comfort. Comfort I couldn't have understood until this moment.

"Go, please."

She rose slowly, casting one final glance my direction. "I'm so sorry."

And then she was heading up the stairs. I closed my eyes as the key fit in the lock, and the door swung open. I kept them closed as he stepped inside, and wonder of all wonders, I heard him lock the door behind him and toss the keys out of reach. Locking us in together.

I pulled the blanket around my body, wanting to hide from him as much as myself. He didn't say anything, just sat on the floor next to me, and slowly, ever so gently, pulled me up against him. The moment he touched me, everything started to go back, twisting and contorting. He held me as I cried, as my body reversed what it had done until I was human again. Gasping and panting in his arms.

"I don't understand," I sobbed. "I did everything I was supposed to."

"I know," he soothed, stroking my hair, pulling me further into his lap until I was huddled against him. "This wasn't your fault. I blame myself."

I shook my head. "You didn't do this to me. You didn't kill me. Cain did. Cain… and fate."

"I should have kept you here at Stonehaven, or fought harder to keep you away. You, and your twin. I would have done anything to save you, please believe that."

I nodded. It was the only thing I could do, and he was so warm. I didn't want to waste a second of it. "We're stubborn like that. She has a crush on you, you know."

He stiffened at that for a moment, truly surprised. "Who?"

"Char. Ever since you saved our lives that day at Stonehaven."

He chuckled, the sound a soft rumbling in his chest, and I couldn't help but draw closer to it, to him. His arms tightened in response. "I'm flattered."

"She'd kill me if she knew I kissed you. She loves her fiancé, but…" I tried to shrug, but it hurt too much. "A crush is a crush."

That one hand rose again, caressing down my cheek, and tipping my head back. And in the shifting of our bodies, I felt the syringe in his other hand, almost hidden against the blanket. A syringe filled with something deadly, most likely, cleverly hidden when he'd grabbed the keys so I wouldn't see it coming. A single prick, a tiny sting, and I would fall asleep, to never wake up again.

A mercy. The only one he could give me now.

I let my eyes open, staring up into his. Into a blue so deep I was nearly drowning in it.

"May I kiss you, truly this time?" He whispered, a soft smile on his lips, one that couldn't wash away the sadness in his gaze. "I seem to owe you that after everything that has happened, after everything you've done for us."

A distraction, surely. Like Romeo. Thus with a kiss I die…

I tilted my head back, and he leaned in. I tried not to feel the hand at my back as it moved, positioning to deliver that lethal dose. Every part of my body began to tingle, fill up with glittery, giddy, elation of all things. Relief that it was all coming to an end? Probably. I had no idea, and in that moment I didn't care. It was all going to be over soon. In seconds I wouldn't have to face so much pain ever again. Even the brand in my flesh no longer burned. No, it seemed to pulse with pleasure as his lips closed the distance, touched mine.

Safe. Always safe and warm with him. The wolf within me agreed, whined behind my eyes and paced in frantic circles. This was what she'd wanted all this time, to touch the Pack, to taste them. To taste him. Alpha. Our Alpha. The only one with the strength to save us, to show us true joy as a pack and a family. To guide us through the most difficult times.

If only he would reach for me, for us, and guide us through this.

The tingling consolidated in my chest and then burst through my mouth and into his. His jerked, shocked, as my power raced through him, my wolf calling his. Begging his to save us. The needle fell from his hand, skittering across the floor. His wolf responded to that call almost instantly, and I felt both of his hands gripping my shoulders hard, his mouth consuming mine, as if he could climb through me and get to the wolf inside.

Oddly enough, it somehow did.

His wolf roared on a wave of fire down my throat, traveling the distance between us on the pathway provided by my power, scorching through the cold and latching massive jaws around my wolf's throat. Slowly, ever so slowly, his wolf bore her down into submission, until she would follow him as her Alpha forever. Follow him through anything. Through everything.

Including… including how to change.

Don't ask me how it happened. I'll never know, and I don't think he knew, either. He shoved me away from him, gritting his teeth through a cry as he began to shift. And with every twist of his body, mine followed suit, as if he still had his metaphorical jaws around my wolf's throat, and she had no choice but to follow him. My vision blurred, his will so strong that it dragged me under…

The next thing I remembered was staring up at Clay, Elena, Antonio, and Nick, the look of astonishment on their faces enough to make me blink. My head lolled on my neck like parts of a broken puppet, so weak and tired and hurting. But hurting in an all together new way. It took everything to crack open my jaw and try to say something. To ask what horror I had become now.

A whine left my throat instead, a whimper that no human could have ever produced.

That whine was answered by the darkest, deepest growl I had ever heard in my life. I froze, eyes snapping shut. Until I felt a tongue against my face, a lap against my eyelids as if to tell me to keep them closed, and the scent of warmth and safety was all around me.

Jeremy… I would know that scent anywhere.

Stars, I was so tired all of a sudden.

He growled again, and a paw half the size of my head descended right next to it. He was standing over me, protectively. He snapped at the air, the click of his teeth like the speaking of words, and the others fell back. I couldn't help but open one eye, and stare down in stunned wonder at my perfect paws. My perfect white paws. Jeremy seemed to have heard that one bat of eye, and he glanced down, nuzzling my face a moment.

Before he, too, lay down next to me, his head resting across my neck, eyes open. Watching. Protecting.

And for the first time in days, I felt safe enough to drift off to sleep.