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*Put down that toy and give your life to me freak!* The disgusting presence shouted in my mind.

Growling I turned and swept my sword up in a block, just in time to deflect the ugly weapon that the rogue had in his paw. He was in Were-Form and I could once again see the cunning insanity in his eyes.

"Mikel, you are as crazy as you were the last time I saw you." I replied out loud, "But this time I can actually make a fight of it. How's the ear anyways?" The last I shouted out of spite.

He was armed with two weapons, both were ugly brutal things that lacked any kind of finesse or beauty. The first was a sword, though to call it as such was almost a travesty since it looked like a piece of sheet steel that had been cut to form then sharpened. In a way, it reminded me of the uruk-hai sword for Lord of the Rings the aesthetics were similar though it didn't have the hook of that weapon. In his other hand was something even less appealing than his sword, it was a mace that looked like it had been made by dipping a piece of inch thick rebar into a bucket of concrete... a bucket that had been pierced with various short, jagged sections of rebar and sheet steel.

"Like them? I made them myself." He told me as he swung with the bucket-mace. "They've been blooded too."

I dodged the clumsy weapon and shook my head before deflecting his sword with mine and an image of training him when he was a young cub came to my mind from my cat. "You really have lost it Mikel, there was a time when such clumsy things would have sickened you." I felt my cat saying through my mouth as I slowly gave some ground to the mildly insane were-cat. Since I was limited to my human form I couldn't stand and match him power for power, instead I had to outwit him, out play him, and even out wait him.

"You have no right to say that, freak. You shouldn't have lived..." Mikel growled before I heard a heavy twang and an angry whistling noise before a heavy crossbow bolt thunked into a tree nearby, a few moments later.

I smiled as I remembered the heavy crossbow that Jack had brought with him, when I'd been staying at Wild Valley I'd watched him train with the weapon more than once and had come to respect his skills with the thing. It may be ungainly and slow to load, but if he managed to make a hit with one of his bolts I knew that I would make a definite impact. "Mikel, you may have once been a proud cat, but now you are little more than a shadow of what you used to be." I growled, the heavy snow was making visibility and traction an issue as we fought. My combat boots weren't well suited to snow, they were made for dry ground and sand.

"I am greater than any fucking turned cat like you will ever be." He growled. "I will return to that sick little Pride and return them to greatness, exterminating all of the... oof!" He exclaimed at the appearance of a set of feathers in his left shoulder, causing the ugly mace to drop from nerveless fingers. He looked up to where Jack was barely visible reloading his crossbow and gave voice to an ugly growl. "When I am done with you, I will finish that insect who interrupted me last time."

I tried to attack him with renewed vigor, he couldn't get to my friend, who was little more than a pup and I knew wasn't capable of stopping a monster like Mikel. However, the ugly truth was even though he was down to a single weapon Mikel was more than a match for both Anna and myself. Mikel's main focus seemed to be me, since I appeared to be the weaker of the two of us. He only defended against Anna's attacks while constantly attacking me, battering at my defenses like a force of nature. I was doing the best I could under the circumstances, drawing heavily on what I'd learned from Olaf as well as the knowledge that my own cat had passed down to me. "Mikel you're a disappointment to all of those who'd hoped you were model for the future for our kind." I felt my cat growl once more, looking for a chink in his mental armour. "We trained you to be the best of us, and instead you have proven yourself to be one of the worst. Oh, how you've disappointed the ones who trained you oh so many years ago,."

"I learned long ago that those people were weak, they didn't have the stomach to do what really needed to be done. Humans and dogs are a disease that need to be expunged from the universe." He replied with a nasty growl.

"You are wrong, Mikel, leaving Russia and then losing your uncle made you a burned-out cynical cat before you even hit your second century." My cat stated while I defended myself as best I could.

With a roar of rage Mikel gave up all appearances of thoughtful or considerate attack and charged at me with his sword raised. This was what my cat had been trying to do, to make him loose sight of his goals and simply attack without thought or concisions direction. I felt myself gather into one perfect moment and waited for his attack like a spider waiting for the fly to enter his trap.

He was moving with brutal, unthinking speed when I made my move, dodging his strike and then swinging my weapon in a drawing slash, hearing a pained grunt and the sound of knees hitting the ground along with something wet. I turned on a heel, ready to dodge another strike to find Mikel on his knees, between his legs were the loops and coils of his intestines spilling from the gaping hole that I'd slashed in his belly.

He looked up at me and I saw in his eyes, not insanity but instead something that tore at my heart. The absolute lucid sanity of a man who knew he'd taken a mortal wound, I also saw his cat, a being who knew that he would never be free of his bones for a million years, if ever. "Uncle..." he said, and I saw a tear trickle down from one of his golden eyes.

"Yes Mikel. The one you tried to kill, he's been carrying me for all of these long years, waiting for the chance to let me loose." My cat said softly before I took over. "Mikel if you'd stopped and asked me perhaps I would have surprised you. You were such a handsome creature... the only ugliness I saw with you was in your eyes and now in this moment I can see what you once were before you let your anger, hate, and despair consume you."

"End it Uncle, please, I know I will never again walk this world, but end it now, end my suffering, end my pain." He said bowing his head down and I shook myself feeling tears of sympathy fall from my eyes as I raised my sword over my head, how such a noble and bright child of my cat's memories could become the thing kneeled in front of me with his guts in a pile at his feet and his head bowed in resigned defeat, knowing that there was no way he'd ever be able to redeem himself in the eyes of the ones that he'd hurt the most.

I closed my eyes and with a single swift motion brought my blade swinging down on his neck and hearing the crunch of it biting through his neck, and the jerk as my blade did it awful work in removing from life one who'd so affected my own life.

The instant he died I felt a wrenching stabbing pain in my head and I tilted my head back and roared out, in pain, agony, triumph and sorrow feeling my cat and I sharing this roar for one who found himself some shred of his old honour and dignity in his death.

When I opened my eyes, and looked down and realized something, I wasn't standing there as a human, but as a fully matured Were-Tiger, in Were-Form. I breathed in scenting my mate and turning I gently hugged her softly with tears in my eyes for the one who now lay at my feet. "Anna, I know that we can never let him free from his bones, but at the same time I feel some kind of sympathy for him, though he tried to destroy us and all we hold dear."

"Mark, he may have done horrible things, but he was still one of us. He was Tiger of the North, and when he died he did so with dignity." My mate replied hugging me tightly and running her heavy fingers through my pelt before she turned, released me and dashed over to the crumpled up remains of the car. She stopped, and then grabbed one of the mangled doors and ripped it free with a massive grunt of effort, sending the bent thing flying before shifting back to human and working her way inside. A few moments later she emerged, cradling a small form in her arms. "Mark, get over here he needs help!"

I quickly sheathed my sword and growled, since for the second time in two months I'd managed to shred a set of clothes, before dashing over to her side to see what she was holding in her arms.

The small form was a child, not more than eighteen months old, with wide blue eyes and straw-coloured hair.

"Mark, he's going into shock, it will kill him... and he's badly hurt." She shouted up to me before shoving the baby into my arms.

"Anna, please, I can't..." I begged her with tears once more in my eyes. I couldn't turn an innocent, or somebody who couldn't consent to it. To do so would be worse that doing what Mikel had done to me.

"Mark, I'm worn out, I need to rest... fighting as a Were... it wears both sides of us out. That is the penalty we pay for having such a powerful form. You need to do it, he's dying. You've read the rules on turning, in emergencies like this a turning is permitted."

"Anna, don't you get it? You're asking me to do to this little one what Mikel did to me!" I shouted.

"Mark, look down at that baby, really look at him and tell me that you don't feel something!" Anna shuddered softly as she gathered her clothes from a pack that she'd been wearing and hurried to put them on.

I did as she instructed, and after a long moment I fell to my knees and roared at the snowing sky, I couldn't leave this child to die out here, with the rest of his dead family. There was so much potential in his open innocent eyes, though I could see the signs of shock and pain in them as well.

As the echos of my roar quickly faded in the constant muffling fall of the snow I bent my head down and quickly gave the child what he needed to live, his thin, agonized scream of pain ended quickly and I found myself licking the two small puncture wounds in his left shoulder before I hugged him tightly as my mate wiggled her way back into the wreckage for a moment before returning with a battered looking white purse and a diaper bag. "I found their IDs love, we need his so that he will have a future." She told me, "His name is Shawn, Shawn Daniels and he's only a year and a half old," She looked over at the corpse on the ground and gave a half-hearted growl before Jack came over and slipped under her arm. "Lean on me Anna, you're exhausted, and so is your mate." He said looking at me as I went to help her with my free arm.

"Jack, we need to bring... his remains with us." I told Jack as we helped my mate up the embankment. "We can't leave them here to be discovered with the wreck of the car."

"Let me get him Mark, you have to get some clothes on and take care of that baby." He told me when we reached the car and I finally shifted back to human. I had a few extra clothes in the truck, I hadn't exactly planned to shift to Were, but it had happened and now I had to put on what I did have in the truck, which turned out to be a pair of shorts, socks, and a pair of jeans and a t-shirt.

Once I was dressed I sat back in the front passenger's seat while Anna sat in the slightly cramped back seat and leaned against Katy's child seat and almost instantly dropped off to get some rest. I pulled her phone from the center console bin and unlocked it, I growled a bit at it being an iPhone but I shrugged my shoulders and went through her contact list till I found the one I was looking for, he was a local RCMP officer who was also a Were.

There was a yawn at the other end followed by a slight growl, "Who is this?"

"My name is Mark McEwan and I am from Blackwater." I replied. "There's a bit of a mess here on Highway 16 east of Prince."

"Good fucking grief... something else I have to worry about. Besides this Class One Rogue in the area." He growled,

"The Rogue has been dealt with, you won't find his body either." I replied and yawned feeling the fatigue of the day starting to catch up to me as the truck shook slightly. "What you will find is a single vehicle accident with multiple fatalities, and one missing child." I carried on looking through the rear-view mirror to see that Jack was getting the corpse into the back of the truck.

"I take it the child is with you?" The wolf asked, and I could sense it in his voice.

"Yes, I am responsible for his fate now, it was the only way he could survive." I told him while looking down at the sleeping baby in my arms.

"I am not going to judge your actions Mr. McEwan but at least you made sure that the rogue didn't leave behind a trail of bodies a fucking mile wide. All the same there will be questions, not many because of the snowstorm. Just please make sure that it isn't too badly messed up, though the snow should make hiding the signs of your battle less obvious."

"Sir we needed to take the child's ID and some supplies." I informed him.

"I am on my way out, I will sanitize the site before any more services get there. Please be gone when I get there." He told me as Jack climbed into the driver's seat and I handed him my keys, which I had retrieved from the shreds of my pants.

"Yes and thank you. You do good work. If you see a Ford Raptor with a few more lights than are strictly legal please let us pass, I can't ask my young friend to drive without them on in these conditions." I replied as Jack started the truck and got us out of the ditch and headed back to the city, and home.

"Under these conditions, I encourage as much light as you can get, I tend to look the other way if you have every light one the front of your vehicle lit up when it is snowing this bad, now get moving." He barked before closing the connection.

With that done I called Purden Lake Pack again and after a few minutes the panting voice of their Alpha came on. "This had better be damned important cat."

"It is, the Rogue is no longer a problem Alpha Francis." I said simply. "You can get your people out of this storm now."

"Very well, Assistant Guardian, you have my thanks." He replied just as simply before hanging up.

I knew that he would be somebody that I would never be close friends with, but we could perhaps be at least amiable colleges in leading our people in the modern age. With that phone call finished I made one more call, this time to Tabor Mountain Pack.

"Assistant Guardian Mark, since I am receiving this call I am assuming that you were successful and that the rogue has been dealt with." Toby said almost as soon as he picked up.

"Yes, Alpha the issue has been dealt with and I am heading home for a well-deserved night's sleep with my mate and cubs." I replied with a soft smile, unlike Alpha Francis, I knew that there was a distinct possibility that in time I could become friends with Alpha Toby, he seemed to be a fair minded and intelligent wolf who would listen to other opinions other than his own.

"Thank the Spirits that you and your's are safe and that the issue has been dealt with, may he find the peace in death that he obviously couldn't find in life." He said softly, and I could sense that, like me, he did feel something for all sentients.

"I hope so to Alpha, I think in the last moments of his life he managed to gain some measure of peace and overcome what he'd become in the past forty years. I took no joy in his death, though it did free my Were and allow me the ability to finally realize my third form." I told him and I could still feel the enormity of what I'd had to do. He may have been a lost soul in the world that he didn't understand anymore but that didn't mean that killing him was a pleasure. I knew that I'd never take any pleasure in killing another sentient, no matter how much he or she needed to die.

"That is as it should be Guardian, taking a life is never something one should do lightly or easily even though we are predators. I always make a point to give a hunter's prayer to the Spirits before I lead a hunt because to do less would be a dishonour." Toby told me. "Now you go home and get some rest, it sounds like you are one tired cat."

"Yes, Alpha, that is what I am doing currently, though in these conditions we can't move too fast lest we become another sad statistic about the risks of driving faster than the conditions themselves allow." I told him as I looked over at Jack and the young wolf smiled at me tightly as he concentrated on his driving, before Toby ended the call.

"Mark is what Alpha Toby says true?" He asked me as a police car heading the other way with full lights on passed in a blur of red, white, blue, and yellow.

I nodded, "Yes Jack it is, I don't think I could ever take a life without thought. We may be predators, wired to hunt and kill to live, but that doesn't mean that we should do so lightly. Look, at what happened to Mikel, he grew so blasé about inflicting death on the world that it made him more than a little crazy."

"I didn't think that was what made him rogue though?" He asked honestly.

"Jack, that wasn't the reason at the heart of it, but some rogues do what they do because they've grown so use to handing out death that they forget what it is like to live. When I inflicted that wound on him, I broke through his insanity and the old Mikel came to the surface, the man who'd let his hatred and towering anger at the perceived injustices of the world take hold in his heart to make him into that thing. When he came to the surface he realized that in his quest to destroy the world he'd instead nearly killed one of the few people he could ever truly feel kinship with." I told him calmly.

"You can't really tell me that you feel sympathy for that... thing?" Jack sounded a bit shocked at my admission.

"Jack, the reason I have advanced as quickly as I have is because my cat is old, he's been around before and he's seen much, including Mikel's childhood." I closed my eyes and once more an image of a handsome young cub came to my eyes. "Vladimir Berekov has much to answer for, he worked hard to corrupt his sons to his point of view, he almost didn't manage it with Mikel, he was bright, attractive, and thoughtful, but alas he did, and the world paid heavily for his corrupted point of view."

"But, Mark that thing was a rogue, he almost killed you. How can you feel sympathy for him?" Jack persisted.

"Because Jack, regardless of what he let himself become he found himself in the end and realized what he'd let himself become." I said simply while hugging the sleeping little boy to my chest. I was well aware that my arms probably weren't as safe as Katy's seat in the back was, but I also knew that at this moment I couldn't let him go.

Jack nodded and I could tell that he was beginning to understand. "From that, you would rather he not be mummified or made to last a million years before his bones break down?"

I nodded, "I can't ask him to never be allowed to live again Jack, he may have done terrible things while he was a rogue, but in the last moments he redeemed his soul and found himself again." I leaned back in my seat and closed my eyes, seeing the lights of the city starting to penetrate my eyelids. "Jack tonight do you mind staying at the Pride? I don't think that either Anna or I have the energy to drive you back to the Pack tonight."

"I can handle it for a night Mark, the same house where we stayed before?" He asked, driving through the city which was being blanketed in a coat of new snow that was falling hard and fast.

"No, I will guide you." I told him with a yawn. It really wasn't all that late, but for some reason I was both hungry and exhausted.

"Thank you, Mark," He replied before letting me lean my seat back slightly, though I was careful not to disturb my slumbering mate.

Perhaps an hour later I guided Jack to park the truck in the garage by the House and I roused myself from my doze enough to send to Olaf. *It is finished.* I told him simply.

*Thank you, Mark, get some rest, you probably need it. We will talk in the morning about what happens next.* Olaf replied to me as I opened the door and roused my mate.

"Come on dear heart let's get upstairs, I can order us some food to our suite, and perhaps we can spend some time with the cubs."

Anna woke with a start and a yawn, "I was having a nice dream there Mark." She told me grumpily as she sat up before climbing out of the truck.

"Sorry dear, we're home." I told her as I looked down at the child in my arms. "He's adorable, Anna, I guess I just adopted another one... again eh?"

Anna looked at the baby in my arms and nodded, "Yes you did Mark, but would you rather the alternative had happened?"

I looked down again at Shawn and then shook my head, "No, I don't think I would be able to live myself if I'd let him die out there in the cold when I knew that I was capable of saving his life like I did." I told her while watching the baby sleep in my arms.

"Mark, since he's turning we have to isolate him, or else he still might die." Anna reminded me gently.

"Anna, I am not going alone, if we're going into isolation we're going in as a family." I told her softly as we headed into the house.

Anna nodded, "I know that Mark, but you know that if you don't isolate him while he doesn't have an immune system your bite will be for nought and he will die anyways."

"Then we will isolate our family Anna. You me, the cubs, and even Jack since he's had a part to play in all of this." I told her rocking to sleeping baby in my arms. "We need a chance to recover and bond as a family and this might be the perfect chance."

Anna nodded and closed her eyes and I knew that she was sending to her father as we headed upstairs to our family apartment. When we got there, I hung a sign on the door basically telling anyone that was coming this way that the room was off limits till we exited it due to a Turn in Progress... Anna and I ate a heavy meal with Sergey, Jack, and Katy while little Shawn slept in my arms. After dinner, we all crawled into bed and snuggled up together as a family before falling asleep.