Chapter 2

Katrina had been beyond surprised at how long the girl had lasted before finally being claimed by exhaustion. They had fucked nonstop for hours, way longer than any human had lasted with her before. What kind of training had the girl gone through to be such a warrior? Again, Katrina wanted to face the girl in battle. Maybe just a little bit of a spar? No, she shouldn't be stupid; even the strongest human in the world wouldn't last a second against a vampire were the vampire serious.

Putting her dress back on, she gave one last look to the sleeping girl with a frown. Her throat was burning uncomfortably, it had been a while since she last fed. She should just drain the girl and be done with it. Instead, she was leaving the girl alive, and even in all those hours of fucking, not once had she considered taking a bite out of the human. The girl must be a sex prodigy to have made Katrina forget about her own thirst.

The brunette let out a grumble, and Katrina grimaced as she realized the girl was waking up. She was a second away from disappearing, but then the girl sat up, the covers falling off of her naked upper body, and Katrina was momentarily mesmerized by the girl's naked tits. She had seen so many pairs of breasts before in her existence, yet something about these made them especially marvelous, and the girl wasn't even done growing. What powerful weapons this human had at her disposal! Just one glance, and she even had a vampire like Katrina salivating to have those tits in her mouth and hands again.

"Katrina? Where are you going?"

"I have things I need to do," Katrina answered vaguely. It was hard to control her own hands at this point. She wanted nothing more than to reach out and grope the girl for a little while longer.

"Mmkay," the girl mumbled. Was the girl half asleep? Most humans would at least be a little confused at what a woman would have to do only a few hours past midnight. "What is the best way to keep in contact with you? I don't know how long I'll be able to handle being away from you, since I only just found you. All of my instincts are telling me not to leave your side, so…"

Katrina grimaced. This girl was completely lovesick. If the brunette had been a vampire instead of a human, Katrina would have almost thought she had found her mate with the way she was acting. The human was lucky to make it out of this encounter alive, didn't she get that? Amazing sex or not, she should be running away from Katrina, not toward her. Regardless of how good the girl was in bed or how delectable her tits looked, Katrina was not one to play pretend lover with a human-especially one like this one.

"I don't want to meet you again," Katrina answered bluntly.

It took a moment for Isabella to actually register the words. "Wait, what do you mean by that?" Her heart felt like it was stuck in her throat. Surely, Katrina hadn't meant what she had said, right? There had to be some kind of misunderstanding.

"You heard me. The sex was great, but I'm not one to hang around and play house." Katrina started walking toward the door, but she hadn't made it far before the human grabbed her wrist.

"You can't mean that! I mean, we're-I-and you-we're destined to be together!"

Ugh, Katrina almost felt bad hearing the desperation and pain in the girl's voice, but the idea of destiny made her bitter. Made her think of Sasha and how "destiny" had played out for her; how Sasha's death left Katrina and her sisters devastated and unable to heal. Shaking off the girl's hand, she turned on the brunette, making sure to look directly at her nose. "Oh, you poor thing. Destiny is for fools."

"But you said…"

"Yes, I did. I would say anything to make sure I got you in bed. I needed a good fuck, and you were the best one I had available." Katrina had needed a good drink, too, but for some reason, she still couldn't bring herself to tear into this one.

"You used me?" Isabella asked in a small voice as she stared helplessly at her mate. She could barely make the woman out through the tears that spilled down her cheeks. This was supposed to be the start of their happily ever after. Their forever.

"I did," Katrina replied simply. She started for the door again, but again, she was grabbed by the girl. She felt her irritation flare.

Isabella didn't care how desperate or needy she sounded. She would do anything to keep her mate here for even a second longer. Surely there had to be a way to fix things, there just had to be. "But surely...surely you felt something for me?"

"Lust. I felt lust." Katrina's voice was flat, hard, as she shook off the girl's hold on her again. She shoved the girl back a few steps, making sure to keep her strength under control. "I don't care what you think or what you feel for me. Quite frankly, I don't feel the same for you, and I never will." Katrina leaned in close, putting her mouth to the trembling girl's ear. Her voice was cruel as she whispered, "You were great in bed, I'll give you that much. If you want, I can screw you once more before I leave."

"Stop it."

"I'll whisper all the sweet words you want to hear-"

"Stop it!"

"What? You don't want me to fulfill your fantasies one last time?" Katrina taunted. "You can think of it as a parting gift."

"Please," Isabella whispered brokenly.

"Oh, you poor girl, just look at you." Katrina pulled the girl close, and while the brunette didn't try to stop her, she didn't remove her gaze from the floor. "I can kiss you once, make you feel better-"

"I said stop it!" Isabella cried, unable to hear anymore. She covered her ears and squeezed her eyes shut. This had to be a nightmare, but she knew it wasn't. This was real. Her mate didn't want her, never wanted her. "How could you be so cruel?" Even if Katrina answered, Isabella couldn't hear it. Not only were her ears still covered, but the heartbroken screams of her beast were too loud. "Why would you do this to me? Leave me alone!"

Katrina looked at the trembling, destroyed girl one last time. For a moment, she felt regret. She wanted to take the words back, wanted to hold the girl and make her feel better. But for what? She already got to live, that was the biggest gift Katrina could give her, and after this, the girl hopefully wouldn't be so trusting and naive in the future. This way, she was likely to survive longer. With what she had done, Katrina was giving the girl a future.

Instead of saying another word, she left.

Why me? What did I do wrong? Does she hate me? Does she hate having a mate? Why did she do this? Say those things? Why couldn't I be enough for her?

Isabella didn't know how long she stood there, trembling and pathetic and in pain. So much pain. Her heart felt like it was twisting and squeezing and bleeding and ripping and burning all at once, and it wasn't going to stop. All she knew was that Katrina, her mate, had left...she was never coming back. With her departure, she had left a hole in Isabella's heart, a hole that would never be filled again.

Her friends had warned her about how dangerous a vampire was, how Isabella was basically walking to her own death. Yet even they hadn't thought of the vampire causing Isabella pain like this.

It would have been better if she killed me. Why couldn't she just kill me?

Isabella didn't know how she did it, how she held it together. Somehow, she managed. She managed to get out of the house, running until she was deep inside one of the forests belonging to the Ther. Even in this state, she worried about the safety of others, of not wanting to reveal herself to normal humans. Isabella had always been careful like that, careful until she ran into her mate.

The more she ran, the more it hurt. Even when she thought the pain was already unbearable, she found out how much more pain she could withstand. Soon, Isabella collapsed to the ground, her body freezing to the point of pain as her emotions and powers went out of control.

If I knew it would be like this, I wish I never had a mate. I wish I never had a heart at all. If I didn't have a heart, things wouldn't hurt. Not like this. I-

With one final pained scream, her beast exploded out of her, and with it, her power. With a blinding blue light, Isabella's place was taken by a giant and beautiful snow leopard. The temperature around her dropped fifty degrees as everything around her for miles was encased with ice. Nothing was spared, not trees or even the animals used for hunting and training. Still, Isabella's power didn't stop, affecting the very clouds in the sky, which started to release blankets of snow onto the frozen land Isabella had created.

Eventually running out of power, Isabella's four paws couldn't hold her up any longer, and the great beast collapsed onto the ice. She was barely conscious, panting from exhaustion, unable to so much as move...and still, the pain didn't lessen at all. Isabella didn't even know it had been possible for her to cry frozen tears until this moment. Yet here she was, frozen crystals running down her furry cheeks before shattering against the ice beneath her.

Day turned into night, again and again, for who knew how long. Yet Isabella stayed where she was. She didn't move, didn't even bother to open her eyes. The pain from Katrina's rejection never lessened, but even with all of the pain the vampire caused, Isabella still hoped that she would feel the woman's cold hand on her head, and open her eyes to find her beautiful mate staring down at her with worry and love in her beautiful red eyes.

It was pathetic. Isabella was pathetic.

"Found you," a familiar voice said at last, breathing out a sigh of relief. A body, equally as familiar but not belonging to the voice, threw itself at Isabella. Arms circled around her thick neck, the girl trying to muffle her sobs against Isabella's fur.

"We've been worried. I heard that you met your mate and that she was a vampire. When you didn't show up again…" another voice added. "I should have been there that night. What happened to you, Bells?"

Isabella was so weak, in so much pain, but she managed to open her eyes. Around her were her five best friends-Roarke, Kenzie, Merle, Arlo...and finally, Ceres. All of them looked worried, but Ceres's golden eyes had a glassy, lost look to them. She wasn't good with comforting others, yet it was clear Isabella needed it, somehow, and Ceres didn't know how to give it. What she hated most was not being there the night Isabella had found her mate. Had she not chosen to stay behind and train more, she liked to think she would have been able to stop Isabella from encountering this pain somehow.

Had Isabella been strong enough to feel anything but the loss of her mate, she would have felt bad at seeing her friends so worried about her. But she couldn't. Instead, she just closed her eyes so as to resume her suffering. Death was the only thing that seemed welcoming, and she wanted it to come for her.

"She's been out here for a while," Arlo murmured. His brain was working as fast as it could, trying to come up with ways to fix and understand the problem without potentially worsening the situation. He eyed the huge pile of snow that had almost completely covered Isabella. "It doesn't look like she's moved at all, either. She needs food and to regain her strength. But I don't-"

Now that was something Ceres could do. "On it." She was gone, off to hunt something for her friend before Arlo even realized what was happening.

He sighed and grimaced before finishing his sentence. "-Think she'll eat anything."

"Why the hell not?" Roarke demanded. Merle was still sniffling, doing her best to push the snow off of her friend. Seeing Merle struggle, Kenzie dropped to Merle's side.

"Let me help," Kenzie murmured. "I never thought being Pyr would ever actually come in handy." She warmed her hands just enough so that a small fire covered them and began to melt the snow covering Isabella. The giant leopard didn't even twitch.

Arlo bit his lip at Roarke's anger, trying not to shake. He knew that Roarke was only feeling helpless and desperate, but he was an imposing guy, and until Isabella had forced them to face each other and become friends, he had always been scared of him. Still, he pushed past his cowardice.

"She's showing signs of being rejected." He tried to whisper it as lowly as possible so that Isabella couldn't hear him, but it was clear he failed when the giant leopard opened her icy blue eyes. She blinked once, letting out some kind of pained hiss. Frozen tears started to fall from her eyes, and continued to do so even after Isabella closed her eyes again. It made his heart hurt to see his powerful friend so broken.

"Well what do we do?" Roarke demanded. Damn it, he should have paid attention to the whole mate thing, but he never thought it would actually matter. "How do we fix it?"

This was where Arlo struggled not to cry himself. "The only way to try would be to get her mate to somehow accept her-"

Isabella's eyes immediately shot open and she started to tremble, letting out a pathetic, almost fearful cry. It was the reaction of someone who had been traumatized, broken, and terrified. Even in her destroyed state, even as her heart ached for her mate, Isabella made it clear she wanted her mate nowhere near her. She didn't want to go through that again.

"Shh, we won't bring her here, I promise. You're safe." Merle stroked her friend's fur, lulling her back into a more relaxed state.

"What else? There has to be something." Roarke did his best not to tremble with anger. The hell had that bitch of a vampire done to his friend?

"There isn't. At best, she'll be able to regain herself enough to be able to eat and move again, but the pain is never going to lessen. She'll spend the rest of eternity suffering. At worst, it'll kill her."

Death, huh? Yeah, death sounded nice. Isabella wondered how long it would take for death to take her. Even in her current state, she felt way too strong and nowhere close to being claimed by the eternal embrace.

"That's not happening," Kenzie insisted, whirling on Arlo with a glare. Arlo's eyes widened as the taller girl grabbed him by the collar of his shirt and started shaking him, hands still on fire. He quickly tried to pat at the smoking parts of his clothes, but Kenzie was too blinded by her fear for Isabella to notice what she was accidentally doing to him."Neither of those choices are an option. My best friend is not going to be suffering for the rest of her life, you hear me? There has to be another way!"

"Well, there is one-"

"The asshole just had to freeze everything in the vicinity," Ceres complained as she appeared, a giant dead elk draped over her shoulders. "It took way too long for me to find this one. She's lucky I love her-" Ceres froze, eyes taking in the scene with a bit of surprise. "Why is Kenzie setting Arlo on fire?"

"I'm not setting him on fire," Kenzie snapped. She turned to Arlo to get his agreement, only to realize his shirt was almost ash around her hands. The Pyr quickly dropped the boy, extinguishing the fire from her hands. The boy let out a breath of relief, followed by a squeak as Roarke dropped a pile of snow over him to put out the remaining fire on him.

"Right then." Ceres dropped the elk in front of Isabella. "Eat up, Isabella. You need to hurry up and get better so we can plan our revenge-"

"No revenge," Merle intervened quickly as she felt Isabella's muscles tense under her fingertips. "We're going to have nothing to do with that woman. Isabella is never going to have to see her again if that's what she wants."

Ceres opened her mouth to argue, but one look at her friends' faces made her decide against it. "Okay, fine. Just eat, Bells." She left the elk in front of her friend's face so she could pull Arlo out of the snow pile, seeing him struggle. Even in his heavy clothes, Arlo was now almost shivering. Yet he didn't even seem to notice, focused on whether or not he should tell them of one other piece of information that might save Isabella. He didn't want his friend to suffer either, but to give her that fate...

Isabella opened her eyes and just stared blankly at the elk. It was strong, fat, and still warm. Especially in leopard form, Isabella's mouth should have been watering. Now, however, she might as well have been looking at a rock, it appeared so unappetizing. Even knowing her friend had gotten it for her, how worried all of her friends were for her, she couldn't bring herself to even try a nibble of it. The only thing Isabella and her beast craved was her own death. An end to her pain.

"Damn it, Isabella, eat!" Ceres snarled when the leopard closed her eyes again. "Don't tell me you actually want to waste away like this? Do you want to die?"

Isabella's silence was all the answer they needed. Isabella had no will to live anymore. Not after whatever had happened between her and her mate.

None of them had ever wanted someone to pay more in their life. If Isabella died, none of them believed they could be held accountable for what they would do once they got their hands on the vampire.

The realization that Isabella really was going to die at this rate was the one thing that shook Arlo into action. His next words would forever change the course of Isabella's life, and no one would know if it was for the better.

"There is one other option," Arlo admitted. He trembled, knowing how much trouble he could get in for even suggesting such a thing. To many, even suggesting this could be seen as treason. But he didn't want his friend to die, and he certainly couldn't back down now, not with all eyes on him. "She could become Erebus."

Just mentioning the word made the clearing they were in feel a little darker, and all of the people there save for Isabella stiffened.

"You can't be serious!" Kenzie exclaimed.

"You want her to become a monster?" Roarke snarled.

"She won't even be our friend anymore, she'll just be a husk!" Merle piped up.

To everyone's surprise, the one who stood up for Arlo was none other than Ceres. "Like she isn't a husk already! Just look at her!" The girl's words, filled with so much desperation and anger and pain, was enough to silence everyone as they gazed at the pathetic looking snow leopard. Everyone except Ceres, who turned her focus back on Arlo. "Start talking. How could becoming Erebus save her?"

Arlo tried not to show just how nervous he was as he explained. "Erebus are beings who are believed to lose their soul, but it isn't true. Apparently, the way that one can become Erebus varies, and the effects vary. It's not so much losing your soul so much as having what is viewed as emotions that correspond with light being muted. This includes things like joy, and, well...love. But it also enhances emotions seen as corresponding with darkness, like anger and hatred."

Ceres looked at her best friend thoughtfully, wondering if Isabella even heard or understood what they were talking about. If she considered it. Right now, the leopard looked so weak that she would have thought Isabella had already died, had it not been for the subtle rise and fall of her chest.

"This isn't in any book I've read. How do you know all this?" Merle's voice was laced with suspicion, and rightfully so. Everyone knew that those who became Erebus were known as nothing but soulless monsters, ones who became even more powerful due to giving themselves to the shadows. They were so dangerous, that normal Ther like them were ordered to kill Erebus on sight if they thought they stood even the smallest of a chance. Erebus were the creatures of nightmares, some strong enough to even destroy entire villages of supernaturals.

If Isabella became Erebus she would never be welcomed in their village again, never be welcomed among her people or her family again. Still, could becoming Erebus truly be a better fate than death?

Arlo surprised everyone by blushing. "Um, you see, I met someone...her name is Blair. She's an Erebus sorceress, and-"

Chaos erupted at the news. How could Arlo hide any Erebus, even one he had a crush on? It was grounds for treason! And what was to say she didn't fill his head with lies? Arlo tried to claim that she was different, that she wasn't interested in hurting anyone, but no one wanted to hear what he had to say.

That is, until Isabella took a bite of the elk, just enough to gain strength to shift. She turned back to human, snow and ice swirling around her, becoming clothing to protect and cover her. She tried to lift herself up on her arms, but she was still too weak and collapsed. Immediately Kenzie and Merle were at her side, holding her up.

A way to end this pain? Isabella didn't care what she had to do, she wanted the agony to stop. She wanted to go back to a time when she never knew the name "Katrina" or knew that her mate existed.

Since she couldn't do that, what better way to move forward and spit on Katrina's memory than to destroy the bond between them and live through it?

"Arlo, you said it could dampen love...but can it destroy a mating bond?" Isabella croaked out. It hurt to speak, her voice hadn't been used in so long, but Isabella didn't care. At least this pain made sense. It was a pain she could control.

"I, er...I think so," Arlo mumbled, his eyes wide as he took in the haggard form of his friend. As a leopard, they had all been able to tell she was in bad shape, but now...now she looked like nothing more than a zombie, her once pale skin now a shade of gray, her eyes sunken. "There were other cases of people becoming Erebus to escape the pain of mating bonds, and it seemed to work."

Isabella ripped another piece of flesh off of the elk carcass and forced it down her throat. Blood trickled down her chin, but she didn't bother wiping it away. She didn't care how she looked, only that she had enough strength to do what needed to be done.

"How soon can I meet her?"