Veti put all the spin on Gabe's toss that he ever could have wanted, grinning widely as her amber eyes followed him appreciatively along the length of his graceful falling arc toward the Fenrir's backside. She shook her head with an incredulous chuckle.

Batshit insane. A crazy fucker - yeah, she'd called it. Hopefully he had just enough brains not to fall off the ass end of the Fenrir, but at the moment the FNG was nowhere near Veti's biggest concern. No, at the moment she was sprinting toward Siya and her impossibly huge shadow, the one that seemed to engulf the demigod of destruction in a darkness that was all the tiny vampiress' own. Honestly, she hadn't the least idea what she would do when she got there, but Veti had had enough time away from her partner this past day. It was about damned time they got in on a little action toge - 

Veti stopped cold, falling forward to all fours, her momentum nearly sending her hurtling to her snout in the dirt. She simply could not believe, [i]would[/i] not believe, what she was seeing before her very eyes. 

[i]"Thad?"[/i]

A groan of inconsolable despair escaped her throat as she closed the distance between herself and her love in an instant, her powerful arms wrapped encasing him entirely as she pulled the seemingly catatonic man close, lifting him off his feet. Even beneath her thick crimson pelt, Veti shivered at the cold that radiated from him like mist off a block dry ice.

And the werewolf knew this strange, unexpected sensation that had absolutely no place here in this mild Irish night, beside the crimson lightning of a god that wanted to burn the world to ashes. This was the cold of Daisy's realm. The cold of the grave. The bitter chill of a cooling corpse beneath a lake of black ice. 

This wasn't fair. This wasn't [i]right[/i]. He had only just returned to her. They had fought so hard to find him again, to bring him back... 

"Thad? Baby?" As she cradled him in her arms, Veti could feel the labored rise and fall of his chest, and knew there was still breath in his lungs, however shallow; his heart still beat, though far too slowly, far too faintly. His blue eyes were still wide open, but unseeing, almost unblinking. Whatever had happened here, the werewolf knew instinctually this was no working of the Fenrir. 

Her lover held tenderly in her arms, Veti retreated several yards from the demigod, knowing very well that neither she nor Thad had a thing to offer in this fight. She had fulfilled her promise to her only wolf brother and now, if the whole world truly was crisped to ash by the Fenrir, if somehow, some way, her friends' gambit failed? There was little else Veti could ask in this life, but to leave her mortal life beside the man she loved.

The werewolf collapsed to the ground, Thad's unresponsive body still held to her thick, heavily-muscled chest as she gathered all of him to her. His head was nestled in one of her great, ebony-tipped claws, and she rocked him so tenderly.

"Thad, baby please wake up. Look at me please, [i]baby look at me.[/i] Please don't go - not yet. Not without me... " Great tears welled up in her amber eyes, trickling down her muzzle to fall against Thad's neck. "Stay with me Thad," she pleaded, "You, [i]all[/i] of you... The pieces of Max, the warlock, the student... The son, the lover -[i] my love.[/i] Come back to me baby, [i]please[/i]... "

But Thad did not move, beyond what faint, nearly imperceptible motions of his lungs and heart, that said he still somehow remained this side of death - though for how much longer, she could not begin to guess. 

[i]"I love you Thad,"[/i] she whispered, one of the werewolf's claws running the length of his now-limp arm, bringing his fingers to her maw, laying the cheek of her great head - wet with tears - in his palm. She would never love another, as she did this man. He was her love, her mate, the one perfect man born to complete and match her in every last way. There should have been a ceremony. If they both had not spent so many years in complete idiocy, there would have been a ceremony, a grand celebration with beloved friends and family, filled with laughter and reminiscing and jests and probably not a little drunkenness, to share the promise of lives entwined with love and devotion to the end of their days. 

[i]"Please don't go. I love you."[/i] Veti felt so hollow, empty, holding the shell of the man she loved. The werewolf turned her head to the hand she held, baring her teeth as she wrapped her jaws oh-so-gently about Thad's forearm. Slowly, deliberately, she sank her fangs into his flesh, her long soft tongue lapping about his salty skin tinged with the faint coppery taste of blood. 

[i]"You are my mate, Thad,"[/i] she whispered as she released his arm, the wolf disappearing into the woman who still held the man she loved so dearly. [i]"That 'maybe someday' we talked about earlier - it came tonight baby. Forgive me. But if you are going to leave me here alone, or if we're both going to die tonight? The whole damn world, this side of death and the other, will see and know. You are the one I was created for, and I have always known that you are mine... "[/i]

Tears coursed down Veti's ivory cheeks as she rocked the still man in her arms, sitting there in the ominously flickering scarlet flames of the Fenrir.