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The howl pierced through the biting cold, breaking apart the bitter stillness of the night. Ron sighed, he recognized her pain woven within the inhuman cries. He shook the light dusting of snow from his shoulders, stood up, and paced around the frosted pine he had chosen to wait for her beneath. The time was quickly approaching and he wasn’t sure that he was ready. He pulled his silver ring from his finger, kissed it, then gripped it tightly in his fist as he cherished the delay of the confrontation for as long as he could. He cursed the day he chose to walk the path of a hunter, but now he cursed more the day in which his work had followed him home. His negligence had proven to be costly and now he had to make amends in the worst of ways.

The crunch of her heavy footfalls in the snow and the decisive snapping of twigs echoed from the surrounding woods. Her heavy panting beat against his eardrums, even at this distance. Each of her breaths was a cruel strike to his heart, rending him to the point of tears that he fought with all his strength to keep from breaching his eyelids and cascading down his face. Her howling sliced through the silence once again. He looked up to the pale of the full moon and kissed his ring once more. She was close.

He squeezed the symbol of his commitment tighter in his grasp, warping it from its perfectly circular shape, as he stepped back below the shadow of the pine. Reaching beneath his coat, he hesitantly gripped the handle of his antique muzzleloader pistol- an heirloom given to him by her father in place of the dowry he could not afford. Ron peeked under the flap of his jacket at the inscribed initials of the old man. Her father had scratched them out of the finely polished wooden grip, replacing them with an inscription of Ronald’s own right beside them. A tacky, but meaningful gesture, Ron had always thought. He drew the pistol and, after tearing away the paper end of a powder cartridge with his teeth, poured the propellant down the barrel.

He always knew there was the risk that their time together would be short. It was only natural in his line of work. However, he never expected it to end this way. He always thought he’d be the one to die first. Of all the evils he’d faced, all the monsters he’d slain, of all the glories of Heaven, and the terrors of Hell- he never could have predicated the occurrence of a tragedy such as this. He knew better, but he couldn’t approach this with the same decisive coldness with which he regarded his usual marks. This was the love of his life. The spark of warmth that set fire to his passionless and icy existence.

Ron tensed as the crunching of snow drew nearer. He breathed in deeply through his nose. He could smell her perfume. He closed his eyes, wishing he could wrap himself in the aroma and pause time to bask within it for all eternity. It was the same sweet scent of roses that had always accompanied the arrival of her letters when he was away- and her presence when they were together. The scent that would now forever plague his memories and leave him longing for the times before this night. His nose crinkled as another smell breached his nasal passages. The metallic scent of fresh blood invaded his nostrils, cleverly cloaked- disguised by the sweet flora like an assassin hiding within a crowd, waiting to strike down the innocence of his reminiscence. A sour reminder of what she had become.

Ronald desperately wished he had chosen any other path in life- a career as a banker, perhaps. He had always been good with numbers, or at least she had always claimed him to be. They could have moved to a big city, raised a family, grown old together… No. He couldn’t have. He was born into it- groomed for this twisted and hellish role. Destined to pursue the family business, but he tried- oh how he foolishly tried to have some semblance of a normal life on the side. This was the result. This was the fruit of his labors- the price he had to pay for carrying the family torch. But flames are greedy, and the fire had grown to dwell near his hand without him even realizing. Now, he had finally felt the burn.

She stepped out from the treeline and into view. A crimson sheen shone brightly under the light of the moon, crudely painted over the thick fur that infested her mutated body. She stopped suddenly, raising her snout into the air and sniffing suspiciously for the source of his familiar scent.

He gulped. It was time. There was no way around it, and although it pained him, he knew her suffering was far worse than his own. This would be the hardest thing he’d ever had to do, but he reminded himself of the vows they had made to one another. He had sworn to be there for her, in sickness and in health. Now she was sick, and only in death could she be cured. One way or the other, tonight those vows would reach out and grasp the cruelty of their culmination- tonight they would part.

Ronald stepped out from beneath the pine. He dropped his now bent silver wedding ring down the muzzleloader’s barrel and flicked the side to ensure it rested snugly atop the powder at the bottom. He held the pistol out before him, keeping it pointed at her heart as he edged closer to ensure his accuracy. Their eyes met as the lunar light flooded over him, and he could not stop a single tear from breaking through the barricades. Her eyes were the same blue that he had fallen in love with so many years before- but no recognition swam within the depths of their pristine hue as her pupils narrowed down on him. Blood and saliva dripped from her jaw, blemishes upon the purity of the snow beneath. She growled lowly. He pulled back the hammer with a shaking hand and took one last deep breath. Then all became quite steady.

“Cecilia.” Ron said calmly.

She roared and a single gunshot pierced the forest. A howl shattered the stillness of the night once more.