After sixteen centuries, William, the father of all werewolves, was dead.

An anguished cry erupted from his brother's throat. The sight of William's death threw Marcus into a murderous rage that easily overcame the pain Selene had just inflicted on him. He sprang to his feet like a demon freshly released from h.e.l.l. He attacked Selene with renewed fury, forcing her back toward the whirring helicopter blades until they were right behind her shoulders. She fought back as best she could, parrying his blows with every last bit of strength she could extract from his father's blood, but quickly found herself on the defensive. His right hand closed about her throat, drawing blood with his claws, and she gasped for breath. His hybrid flesh felt slick and clammy against her skin, even as he crushed her windpipe with killing force. The spinning blades roared in her ears.

"I knew Viktor made a mistake keeping you as a pet!" he ranted. Even his voice sounded different in its hybrid form. Harsh and guttural as opposed to cultured and urbane. "He should have killed you with the rest of your family!"

His words stung like sunlight, reopening old wounds, but she was determined not to let her pain show. She faced the mutated Elder with the same icy mask she had presented to the world for more than six hundred years, until Michael had come along. Marcus was hardly the only soul ever to lose a loved one....

Using everything she had, she pried his hand from her throat and thrust it up toward the blades spinning behind her.

Thwack-thwack! Marcus's hand was removed in the blink of an eye. He screamed in torment, blood spurting from his severed wrist, and his fearsome wings unfurled behind him. The right wing struck like lightning, spearing her right through the chest.

She gasped out loud. The shock and pain were even worse than when he had stabbed her hand and hip back at the pier. Letting go of the Elder's arm, she clutched at the deadly talon with both hands. She tried to tug it loose, give her body a chance to heal, but the wing was too strong. The talon refused to budge. Marcus gave the claw a s.a.d.i.s.tic twist, forcing another gasp from her lips. She felt her life force ebbing away, beyond even the power of Corvinus's blood to keep her alive.

A thin smile came to the hybrid's hideous face. He may have lost a hand, but Selene was only moments away from losing her life, along with everything she had fought for these past few nights. He drew back his second wing, preparing to impale her with the other talon.

No! Selene thought. She wasn't going to die tonight. For the first time in ages, she had too much to live for. Digging deep, she twisted the talon with all her strength. The rigid claw sc.r.a.ped against bone, and she let out an ear-piercing scream, but at last the talon snapped off at the knuckle and she yanked it out of her bleeding chest. The searing pain eased just a little.

"b.i.t.c.h!" Marcus snarled. He grabbed her throat with his remaining hand and squeezed even harder than before.

Selene drove his own broken talon up through his throat and out the top of his skull. He stared at her with absolute shock, his black eyes filling with blood, before she spun him around and shoved him into the spinning helicopter blades. His body came apart, wings and all, in a tornado of blood and carnage that chopped him up and scattered the pieces all over. Selene scrambled backward to avoid being sprayed with hybrid gore.

Sparks flew from the rotor a.s.sembly, and the blades finally slammed to a stop. The clipped steel blades were now slick with blood. The remains of Marcus, the last of the Elders, were splattered all over the dungeon. Selene wiped a single smear of blood from her face.

Now she had killed two Elders.

The morning sun began to glide over the Carpathians, shafts of daylight slowly penetrating the breach in the dungeon. Selene heard footsteps upon the stairs and knew it had to be Michael. As far as she knew, they were the only people left alive in the castle. He emerged from an archway and stepped out onto the bridge behind her. She could tell by his scent, which was now almost as familiar to her as her own, that he had s.h.i.+fted back into his human form. He gasped out loud, stunned by what he now saw.

Frozen in place, almost afraid to move, she stared in wonder at the sight of her own hand lying directly in a sunbeam, completely unharmed. The morning's radiance warmed her chilled flesh, nothing more.

"Selene!" he said softly. Awe filled his voice.

She turned toward him slowly, her brown eyes filled with emotion. Holding her breath, she stepped entirely into the sunlight, exposing her entire body to the golden rays.

Nothing happened. She was completely immune.

Corvinus's blood, she recalled. She recalled the transcendent look on the old man's dying face, as well as his answer when she had nervously asked him what she would become.

"The Future."

Michael joined her in the daylight. She knew she didn't have to explain how much this meant to her. He was obviously just as moved as she was. They kissed pa.s.sionately, the kiss evolving into an immortal embrace that seemed to last forever.

Together, side by side, they watched the most glorious sunrise she could ever imagine. Her moist eyes reflected the first light of a whole new day. Selene felt as though her old life, which had come to a brutal end one night in a blood-splattered barn, had finally been restored to her.

She still had questions, of course. The unknown was now her new reality, for she did not fully comprehend what she had become. The future would bring many new mysteries, maybe even new dangers and fears, but the first step, the first new day, had arrived at last.

Six hundred summers, she reflected. Six hundred snowy winters. Thirty-five generations of mortal humanity. And finally, again...the sun.

end.