My time among the coven in Alaska was brief, or at least it seemed that way.

Throughout the week I stayed there Eleazar and Carmen tried to talk to me, to figure out what was bothering me. I held my silence, still too ashamed to admit what I had done. My conversations with Eleazar and the girls were curt and brief. When I wasn’t brooding in a guest room in their home, I was hunting more often then needed, trying to drown out the memory of her scent. It didn’t work, every time I attempted to sate my thirst on the native animal population it was never enough. Almost as if, starving, I had tried to stop my hunger by eating ice. I was truly ashamed of myself, for what I still caught myself imagining occasionally… every time my monster came forth, it was like a little more of ‘me’ died. I was a soulless being, damned by god, cursed to hell.

One night I stood beneath the stars, watching the haunting dance of the aurora. Eleazar approached me, saying nothing he simply stood beside me watching the stars circle the sky, enjoying the ghostly show of the northern lights. We stood in a companionable silence for quite some time, perhaps hours. After all time, and the cold, meant nothing to us.

“Why do you hide here?” He suddenly asked.

“Hide? I am not hiding, I am protecting my family.” I responded.

In my peripheral vision I saw a minute smile cross his lips, “Protecting them from what exactly?”

“Myself.”

“I do not understand.” He turned his head to look at me, though my gaze remained fixed upon the sky, “Why would your family need protection from you?”

“It is not myself per se… rather what I would do, I nearly lost control.”

An eyebrow quirked, “Nearly? However nothing happened.” It was not a question.

My mouth tightened slightly, I did not wish to talk about this. And I knew he already knew everything anyway, so why bother to ask?

“Because some things need to be spoken aloud. Sometimes one can not figure everything out on one’s own.”

I gave a short humorless chuckle, my own ability, turned around on me by Eleazar. “And you would know this?”