Narrative P.O.V. 

Cain's knee bounced up and down rapidly as he sat in the uncomfortable plastic chair, impatiently waiting on Dr. Zosak to return. 

Footsteps echoed down the long hallway and he looked up expectantly, only to see it was just Daniel walking towards him. 

Daniel sat down in the chair next to Cain and handed him the steel cup. 

It was the sixth time in two hours that he had refilled that cup.

While he knew that Cain's body was just going into overdrive to compensate for what it had been starved from, Daniel knew that the more that Cain drank, the harder it would be for him to back off of it. 

He watched with wary eyes as Cain lifted the cup to his lips.

Cain could feel Daniel's eyes baring into him. 

He knew he was a sight to behold.

Ella's blood still stained the sides of his face and neck. It coated his hands and fingers and, although it had dried, he could imagine that it painted a gruesome image against his skin. 

He was still shirtless, despite the freezing temperature of the hospital ward.

"Ask," Cain demanded, setting the cup between his feet on the ground beneath his chair.

"Ask what?" Daniel asked, although he was not entirely oblivious to what Cain was referring to.

"The question that you've been dancing around for the past two hours," Cain said.

Daniel sighed before staring at the wall that was on the other side of the hallway.

"What did it taste like?"

Suddenly, a door opened and both men looked to see Dr. Zosak exiting a room on the far side of the hallway. He looked at Cain with a solemn expression. 

"Better than I could ever have imagined," Cain answered before standing up and walking towards the doctor.

The spotless granite flooring and the fluorescent lighting that reflected off of it seemed to stretch on for miles as Cain walked with a cool outward expression. 

On the inside, his mind raced with thoughts of what he was about to hear. He had sorted out every scenario and planned for every sequence of events. In his deliberations, however, he couldn't see a happy ending; only several ways the situation could end badly. 

"How bad-"

Dr. Zosak held up his hand to silence Cain, a bold move that made Cain narrow his eyes. 

"Ask her yourself."

Before Cain could enter the room, Dr. Zosak stopped him.

The doctor was the only thing in between Cain and the girl on the other side of the doorway. 

Cain felt his fists clench as he fought the urge to shove the old man out of the way. 

"You need to know something," the doctor said. 

Cain raised an eyebrow. 

"What happened in your office should not have happened."

Before Cain could utter the words no shit, Dr. Zosak continued. 

"The infection is in her system." 

This made Cain's stomach drop. 

"If she had lost anymore blood, we would have had to start the process of turning her." 

"Turning her into what exactly?" Cain asked. 

"A Vampire."

Dr. Zosak's breath caught in his throat at the intense look Cain gave him. 

"You don't get to make those decisions," Cain told him, stepping closer to him in anger. 

"Faced with the alternative, I would have, sir." 

The two held each other's intense gaze for a few more moments before the doctor cleared his throat and pushed his glasses further up onto the bridge of his nose. 

"She needs blood," Dr. Zosak said. 

"So? Give it to her."

"I can't, sir." 

Cain crossed his arms. 

"Why not?" 

Dr. Zosak gulped down the lump in the back of his throat. 

"Other than what she's receiving currently, we don't have any left to give her." 

Cain felt the tension in his crossed arms give way and they fell to his side. 

It occurred to him then that he had probably drank seven or eight quarts in the past few hours. 

"Get someone to donate," Cain argued. 

"It's not that simple," Dr. Zosak said. "Her blood tests haven't all been completed yet. I can't just give her a Lycanthrope's blood. I don't know whether her body would reject or accept its potency." 

Cain thought for a moment. 

"What about a sibling?" 

Dr. Zosak nodded. 

"Yes, I believe that would work if they were the same blood type." 

Cain turned and looked to Daniel who was still sitting in the chair against the hallway wall. 

"Go get her brother," Cain told him. 

Daniel didn't ask questions, he simply stood up and did as he was instructed. 

Cain turned back to Dr. Zosak. 

"Anything else?"

The doctor, not appreciating the sass, shook his head and stepped out of Cain's way to allow him into the room. 

- - - 

Ella's P.O.V.

I laid on my back on top of the examination table.

Thankfully, Dr. Zosak had elevated the back of it slightly and I was able to lean back without being uncomfortably flat. 

My injured arm was pressed against my chest while the fingers of my other hand toyed with the conjoined oxygen tubes that ran down my chest from where they had been pressed up under my nose and tucked behind my ears. 

Hearing the faint murmur of conversation in the hallway stop, I opened my eyes and turned my head to see Cain walking into the room.

His shirtless, muscular chest was the first thing I saw. After I managed to tear my eyes away from naked torso, I saw the blood on his face and arms. It was my blood.

The sight was gruesome and it was hard to look at.

I felt my heart begin to race and the neon green lead on the cardiogram that I was hooked up to began to bounce up and down quickly, pinging its way loudly across the monitor beside me. 

His lavender eyes scanned me, observing both the saline drip and blood IV that I was hooked up to. His gaze shifted to my left arm. 

A thick, black polyester sleeve was fitted over my forearm, holding together three layers of cotton gauze pads and bandages that were stacked over the stitches holding together the sliced skin. 

"I don't have to tell you how absolutely stupid that was," Cain said, his voice cutting through the tension that loomed between us.

"You don't," I replied, looking up from my arm to him.

He said nothing else, just looked at me with an unreadable expression.

I looked back down at my arm.

I had risked my life to save his. Why? 

That was something I couldn't quite figure out. 

I looked up to see him walk over to the tablet that Dr. Zosak had left on the table beside me.

Picking it up, Cain read it aloud.

"Patient experienced blood loss approximating to thirty-two percent of her total blood volume. Transfusions needed."

Thirty-two percent.

Cain had drained my body of nearly half its blood in a matter of seconds. 

I felt Cain walk closer towards me.

He sat down beside me on the edge of the cot. Reaching an arm over my body to rest his bloodied hand on the other side of the cot, Cain took my injured arm in his other hand and observed it. 

He drew in a deep breath and placed my hand back down on my stomach where it had been resting.

I looked up at him as his attention shifted from my arm to my face.

"Thank you," he whispered. "But don't ever risk your life to save mine again."

"I was trying to help you," I said incredulously, sitting up straight.

Cain put a hand on my shoulder and gently pressed me back down.

"I know that," he said, pulling his arm away. "But, you may have done more harm than good."

My eyebrows furrowed.

"I don't understand," I said honestly. "Did you want to die?"

He gave me a look so intense I felt myself physically press myself further back into the cot.

"Let's make one thing clear," he said, "I didn't want to die. What happened was not intentional."

"I don't understand how I made things worse."

He sighed.

"There are things I haven't told you about me," Cain said, looking away from me. "You and I have to have boundaries because of what I am. The stunt you pulled crossed a line that should never have even been touched."

"What kind of boundaries?" I asked. "What aren't you telling me?"

"Blood is a necessity for Vampires," he said. "You know that. Whenever we need blood, we get cravings like you do when you get hungry. The problem comes when there is prolonged proximity without indulging in these cravings."

"So, you're saying that being around me for so long has affected you because you want to drink my blood?" I asked. 

Those words felt weird coming out of my mouth. 

"It's worse than that," Cain said, much to my horror. "Because we're mates, the Lycanthrope part of me wants to be around you all the time. I crave your touch, Ella. But I can't have it."

"Because being around me makes you want my blood?"

He nodded.

"It's been a hard few weeks," he admitted.

"Why did you let me come with you if you knew it would be this hard?" I asked. "Why did you let me come back after I left for Frankfurt?"

A grim smile passed over Cain's lips before it disappeared.

"Everyone likes to pretend they don't have problems, Ella. You were proof that I could be something worthy of love."

I swallowed the knot in the back of my throat as I fought back tears.

"Cain, you are worthy of love without me."

"No," he said shaking his head. "I'm not worth anything, with or without you. I've done terrible, horrific things."

"You don't have to let your actions define you, Cain," I argued, feeling my inner counselor start to surface.

"My actions don't define me," he said. "I define me. Half of what I am used to be hunted down by the other half of me. I'm not a good guy by nature, my actions just prove that further."

I started to say something but he stopped me.

"I'm done with wallowing in self-pity," he said. "I didn't come in here to make you feel sorry for me. I came in here to tell you that I'm sending you home with your brother as soon as you're well and to say goodbye."

My heart dropped. 

"Goodbye?!" 

I sat up in the cot so quickly that I felt lightheaded.

"You can't make me leave, Cain. We haven't found my grandfather."

"I will find your grandfather, Ella. I promise. I owe you that much," he said earnestly. "But, I can't let you stay here. I've got obligations to millions of people besides myself. I can't afford to spiral the way I have been. And you..."

He paused and took a breath, shaking his head as he did so.

"You've got so much to look forward to," he said. "You're in school to get a career. You deserve a white-picket fence life. I can't give that to you."

I felt my heart sink lower and lower into my stomach with every word he spoke.

"So that's it?" I asked him, my voice shaking. "You're just going to drop me after all this time? If you've felt this was for so long then why didn't you make me leave sooner?"

He stood to his feet. 

"I could have killed you, Ella," he said, starting to get angry.

"But you didn't!" I argued. "You pulled away. You're not giving yourself enough credit."

"I'm not willing to live in a game of Russian Roulette where I have to guess how long I can kiss you before my teeth cut through my gumline or if I can even kiss you at all without my hands starting to shake."

I shook my head in disbelief.

"You deserve to be kissed well and often," he said. "I can't give you that and I'm not going to deprive you of it simply because of my own selfish desires."

"What about you?" I asked. "Do you not deserve any of those things?"

He let out an airy laugh that made me want to slap him.

"If you knew who I really was, the only thing you would think I deserved was hell."

The door to the room opened before either of us could say another word.

Dr. Zosak walked in with Zak and Daniel behind him.

Judging by the looks on their faces, they knew they had caught Cain and I in the middle of an argument. His stance was rigid and defensive and my eyes were puffy and bloodshot. 

Cain turned to look at me one last time.

"Goodbye, Ella."

With that, he left the room. 

"Cain, wait..."

I tried to get out of the bed, the room beginning to spin around me.

I became mixed up in the cords that ran across my body and groaned in annoyance as I tried and failed to beat my disoriented state and untangle myself. 

I felt my knees buckle and Zak caught me in his arms.

"I'm fine," I repeated over and over, forgetting he couldn't hear me. "Let me go."

I could faintly hear Dr. Zosak instructing Daniel to lay me back down on the bed. He said something about transfusions.

The dots clouded my vision again and the ringing in my ears grew louder and louder.

I can't believe he left.

It was the last conscious thought I had. 

- - - 

Narrative P.O.V.

Cain used every ounce of strength in his body to take each step that he took out of that room. 

He felt like he was walking against a windstorm that was pushing him backwards, urging him to turn around.

He heard the struggle that ensued after he left. 

He saw the nurses run past him into the room.

But he kept walking.

He could do nothing good for her except walk away.

He walked straight past the steel cup that sat on the ground in front of the chair he had previously occupied.

With hands clenched and shaking, he nearly ran up the stairs to get away.

Walking to the garage, he knew he couldn't return to his office. 

He had to leave until she did.

Rounding a corner, he plowed into Priya's small frame, nearly knocking her down had he not caught her. 

"I'm so sorry," she said urgently.

But he didn't stay to accept the apology.

"Sir," she said frantically, moving quickly to catch up with him.

Her short legs worked hard to keep up with his long stride.

"I need to discuss something important with you," she said.

"It will have to wait."

"It can't, sir," she said.

"Take it up with Daniel or Jai."

Priya stopped walking and let out a huff.

"Would you stop and listen to me?"

Cain stopped and so did Priya's heart.

I've just disrespected an Alpha, the Alpha... I'm going to die.

"You've got two minutes," he said, his jaw clenched.

Thankful she was still breathing, Priya let out a sigh.

"You know the two Indian men who we discovered were traveling from Mumbai to Frankfurt for transfusions?"

Cain nodded, vaguely remembering.

"We got their personal information sent over from India," she said.

"And?" Cain asked.

"That's not all they sent over," she said, handing him the small piece of paper in her hand.

Cain took it from her warily.

"What is this?" He asked.

"An invitation."

He turned the paper over, inspecting it.

"For what?"

"The funeral of the Indian Beta and a request to have your team investigate his murder."

Cain's head shot up from the invitation in his hands.

"He was killed?"

Priya nodded.

"How?" He asked intently.

"Vampire."

- - -