Preface

I found her sitting on the beach reading just as the sun was about to sink beneath the water.

I considered turning around and leaving, but she turned to face me, forcing me to carrying on with the words that would devastate both of us.

'Hey you,' she said, sounding as exhausted as I had ever heard her before. Yet she smiled, trying to replace her exhaustion with happiness. She closed the book and set it in her lap, opening her arms to me.

I had no intentions of getting even that close to her – but her arms, which had been mine for so long, were calling me, offering me comfort and warmth, offering me loyalty and love. It was was everything that I needed- only not from the person offering it.

What I was going to do would tear her to pieces, but I couldn't help myself from sitting on the sand next her and resting my head on her shoulder, allowing her to wrap her arms around me. Her hand went to my hair, just as it normally did, and she stroked it with her soft fingers.

'How do you feel today?' she asked.

That was her way of asking if everything was ok. Ever since my transformation she'd been worried about me, but she could see how it annoyed me to be asked, so she directed her questions elsewhere. For some reason the nonchalant way she inquired didn't bother me like the rest.

I wished I could have answered her question the way I would have a month ago.
'Amazing, now that I'm with you.'

But I couldn't. No matter how much I wanted it to be, that simply wasn't the truth anymore.

For I knew from the minute that I saw Emily, I wouldn't be complete until she was mine.

The thought made me want to scream aloud.

The pain that I would cause Leah was immeasurable, and I hated myself for that, but how could I ever truly love Leah the way I wanted to…the way she deserved to be loved, when I knew that what I felt for Emily was a thousand times stronger?

Being a man I had always thought it inappropriate to show emotion so freely, but I had never cried as much in my life as when I turned into a werewolf.Yet the day I realized that I would have to remove Leah from my life was even harder. It nearly made me sick.