I was in the middle seat of Adam's S.U.V. sandwiched between Warren and Daryl. Adam was doing seventy in a forty-five zone and Charles was holding on to the front passenger door for dear life.

"Let me out!" Domina roared through my mouth and then I felt the change. I had only changed into the wolf once and I'd hoped never to do it again. My bones cracked and popped out of their sockets like snapping celery sticks and carrots.

"She's changing back hear!" It was Warren.

"Get her to the back!" Adam shouted. "The back!"

Warren peeled my jeans off and Daryl took my shirt. Any other time I would have flipped out about that... I mean, Daryl and Warren just stripped me in the middle of Adam's car, but I didn't have time. Using my human legs was impossible at that moment but I managed to use my arms, and some help from the wolves, to heave myself over the back of the middle seats. My skin slid around painfully and it felt like it split as my spine elongated and pushed itself up with a loud snapping sound. Dark fur rolled over me and claws burst from my new paws. The only good feeling about that change is when my face turns. It still hurts, or course, but my sinuses open up as my snout develops and it's like taking in the freshest lungs of air I've ever breathed. When my teeth come in it's satisfying, like they were aching before because I had something stuck there and now that they are out, that uncomfortable hurt is gone.

I twitched my ears, shook my tail and the car stopped. "How the fuck am I supposed to do anything like this, Domina?" I tried to scream but it all came out as a series of blood curdling howls. Someone opened the back hatch and I jumped out.

Adam was pissed and frazzled enough to shout, "Shit!"

I wasn't paying much attention to the rest, though. I spotted the front gates of Marsilia's estate and had a brief flash back of riding in Stefan's Mystery Machine while he drove my mangled self to his suburban home. I wasted no time smashing myself through the gates. It hurt like hell but I'd have time to feel pain later.

Onward! Domina urged. I smell him! He was here!

That was the first time I'd tried to run on four legs and I quickly found myself tripping over the ledge of a large circular planter in the middle of the driveway round-about that I'd tried to hurdle over.

One of the wolves behind me has shouting for me to wait, to slow down, but I didn't care. I crashed into the front doors but they were too heavy to break on my own. All I accomplished was successfully bruising my whole right side. Adam, Warren and Charles appeared beside me suddenly and Daryl was no where to be seen. I assumed he was manning the S.U.V. I howled at Adam and slammed into the door again. He helped pry it open but when I got inside I would not let him pass. This was my fight and this was Domina's fight. I didn't want them to get killed or worse for breaking into Marsilia's place because of my stubbornness or Stefan's complete and unexpected stupidity.

What was he thinking! Domina's voice in my head was a crashing wave of anger and worry.

I don't know... I thought to her.

Warren tried to step inside as hurried footsteps and hissing erupted from the depths of Marsilia's home. I threw my side into him and growled.

"You can't go in there alone, Girl! You'll die!" He looked to Adam. "She'll die!"

Adam looked at me solemnly, frowning. "She knew that when she begged to come here. I even told her so. You were there..." He was still staring straight at me and I nodded in agreement. "Ruby... I cant stop you from doing this... It's your choice..."

"Adam," Warren protested.

Adam raised his hand for silence and looked wearily over my head towards the sound of angry vampires and then back to me. "You do what you need to do tonight, Ruby Talbot. I don't know how you'll manage it but if you can get him out, you get back to us if you can. We will be ready. We all will. Marsilia's tricks have gone on long enough and if tonight is when we stop it then that's just the way things will have to be." He nodded and then ordered the rest to leave.

Adam and Warren sprinted away, but Charles lingered for a moment. "Godspeed, young one..." He said and then he was gone.

I turned to the house and thought to my sister. Feed me anger! I demanded. Feed me rage and give me the strength to save him!

Sprinting through the large front chamber of the front of the Seethes home, I roared at the top of my lungs. A vampire burst through a door leading to a long darkened corridor and I jumped on him. I'd never seen his face ever before in my whole life and yet... I had not problem tearing a mouth of flesh from his shoulder. He screamed and dug claws into my back and left side as we tumbled to the marble tiled floor. He kept scratching and tearing as I bit and ate away at his throat. Blood poured into my mouth, much to Domina's delight and I didn't feel the least bit of guilt for killing him.

Even in wolf form Domina swirled with in me. She wanted out, wanted to be free but I couldn't let her. It was my turn to fight for us. I fed on her rage and let it spread through me. I let it feed my strength. Vampires poured into the corridor, following the cries of their comrade no doubt, and they were on me. One wrapped my neck in an iron grip and lifted me, shoving me into the wall, curling black hair in disarray, fangs flashing from his snarling mouth. The others followed and I felt them bite and claw onto anything they could. I lashed out with an arm to punch on of them away, as was a reflex of my human self, but my wolf leg only flailed. I found myself wanting arms and hands to grab, needing two legs to kick and sprint with. I roared in pain as they ravaged me and I pushed at the vampire at my neck with my animal legs. Pain surged through my limbs and torso and I began to change again, though this was a different kind of change...

I had my hands back now but they were different. Definitely hands but... bigger, longer and still covered in fur. Before I had been off the ground and dangling at their mercy and now my feet reached the smooth chilly floor. I wrapped my hands around the back of a head that was sucking at my thigh and yanked hard sending a pale woman flying down the hall. I ripped the rest of them from my body without ease. They had latched on to me so tight that they came away with chunks of my flesh in their mouths.

I ripped into all of them and brought them second death. Final death. All except one. A man with long red hair and eyes so frosty blue he looked blind.

"Where is Stefan?" I asked him. My voice was so deep I felt the floor beneath my feet vibrate ever so slightly.

My new jaws were strange and made my words sound so different, so odd, I thought maybe he hadn't understood me. He just lay there bleeding before me from the claw wounds I'd inflicted across his belly. "He is below..." He finally managed. "With Marsilia..." and then he pointed to the end of the long hall. There was a door there and it was open, exposing a darkened flight of stairs. I was going to end him before I left him but I new with his guts spilled out like they were even if he could heal himself he wouldn't be going anywhere anytime soon. I lept down the stairs wondering if vampires could bleed to death... I also wondered if I cared...

The stairs were endless. I lept farther and farther into the darkness towards a small burning light that slowly grew in size as I neared it. When I reached the wall torch I found that it illuminated a second door. A thick wooden one that was steel enforced and looked as old as time itself. I thrashed it. It was stronger than the front door that I'd had trouble with, which proved that whatever it was that I'd changed into was much, much stronger than regular wolf form.

The 'in-between' Domina whispered. You have seen this once before...

I thought about her words and then remembered the night Adam had come crashing through the guest room window. Adam was an alpha. He said that he was able to take the in-between form because as an alpha he could siphon power from the pack and channel it into the beast I had just become.

But why have we done this? I thought.

My sister laughed. We are special of course. Ruby, we are not tied to the moon. You and I fear no wolf authority. We need no alpha, no pack because we are singular. We are our own master. We can do what ever we want. I understood. Now go, She said. Go and rescue our Stefan.

I almost chickened out just then for the realization of what I'd done finally made itself real to me. My bones and skin ached. My mouth tasted of vampire blood and flesh and I reeked of death and horror. My dear sister had said that we were singular. So, in a sense, we were our own alpha... but would Adam have destroyed so many like I had just done? I remembered asking him what he would have done if he were me, if Stefan were Mercy. He answered me be rushing me into the mouth of danger. Did that mean if he really were in my shoes it would be him covered in blood right now?

I worried for a few moments about my sanity. If I got Stefan out would I always remember this night as the most exhilarating hunt of my life? Because in all seriousness, that's what it was. Exhilarating. Would I want this all the time? I stood there in the door way thinking all this through in a matter of seconds. The last thought I had on the matter was concerning what would happen if I left this place with Stefan... but I didn't think it for long because someone stepped into view at the end of the dark room before me.

"How utterly monstrous." Edwin rumbled. His eyes were glowing red and the look on his face was of pure... hunger...

I don't know what set me of first, the look in his eyes or how completely delighted he seemed to be to see me but I rushed him. I tried to kill him. I wanted to eat into his flesh and feel his blood, his very life force leave his body and I wanted it to be because of me. I couldn't catch him though because he would not fight me. He dodged everything, laughing.

"Oh, don't look so angry..." He chuckled when I stopped attacking and roared up at the ceiling. "You and I will have our time together soon, Girl... but for now there is something I would love for you to see..." He smiled pleasantly and it was almost attractive, almost. "You did come here to see your lover, didn't you?" I stopped when he said that and he threw his head back and barked with laughter.

"Where?" I growled.

"Change back to the young girl and I will show you." He expected me to change before him, to be weak and vulnerable for a few moments. Absolutely not. I told him so and frowned. "Then I suppose Marsilia and Stefan shall have to have their fun without you..." He crossed a pale arm across his stomach and rested the elbow of the other arm upon it, reaching up to cup his smooth chin thoughtfully.

I winced at his false thoughtfulness and asked, "Their fun?" He seemed to happy to invite me to watch, which must mean that Marsilia was doing horrible things to Stefan. Was she torturing him? Was she draining him? What?

"Marsilia and Stefan were lovers once, you know. Bed sport between the two of them was not always so uncommon. I am so pleased that he has taken to her again so enthusiastically. I do love seeing my mistress happy..."

I gaped at him and the change came involuntarily, at Domina's command. It was quicker this time, probably because I was already in the In-Between form. I knelt there on the floor naked, surprisingly unharmed by Edwin who I thought would have attacked me while I changed. "What has she done to him?" I cried, body still aching from the change and covered in the blood of vampire foes.

"I would love to explain it," he said, eyes roaming over my nude body hungrily, "but I would love even more for you to see for yourself..."

Domina's rage boiled inside me and urged me to my feet. She appeared beside Edwin, though he could not see her. "He wont hurt us... not physically, not yet... He wants to see our hearts break first. Go to Stefan and get him out of here. Do not let what you see cause you to hesitate. There will be time for pain later." She said, looking both angry and incredibly solemn, as if she had seen what had happened already and then she disappeared. I tried to read her mind, to feel her but it was no use. She was there, still raging and roiling but it was like she was shielding from me, blocking my mind from hers.

"Show me." I said to Edwin and he nodded and strode through an open door to my left.

I left a good ten feet between us at all times as I went deeper and deeper into torchlit halls of the Seethes hide out. He didn't make a move to touch me but he did glance back to gaze at me every once in a while and smile to himself. Soon I could hear small sounds coming from the dim depths and I didn't need Edwin to guide me any longer. He stopped outside a large door and gestured for me to go through it. The door was cracked open slightly and from the sound of things, Stefan wasn't being tortured at all...