The southern plains of the werewolf territory were filled with the wails of disturbed mourners as Magnus walked among hundreds of dead bodies. His eyes were cold, and his rugged clothes that were covered in blood, clung onto his body as he took slow yet steady steps towards a small stream that seemed so far away through his blurry vision.

He collapsed from exhaustion once he reached the bank, and a deep, primal growl echoed into the night as he tried to get up, but he felt all the bones in his body ache the harder he tried.

"So, this was it, the ending of the great Magnus Hyde," he sighed inwardly as he raised his head and looked up at the dark clouds that covered the moon, which was almost in full view.

Magnus grimaced as he tried to inch closer to the water. How had he forgotten that it was a full moon? The light from the full moon fell onto his weakened body, and he let out an earth-shattering growl as he felt his bones snap and reposition to take on the form of a wolf. He felt so weak and doubted that he could make it through the transition, but if he did, it was his only chance at survival.

Being in his wolf form could make it much easier to heal from his injuries, and as the long, painful transition took place, Magnus tried not to lose consciousness from the pain because once he gave in and shut his eyes, there could be no guarantee that he could wake up.

He could not let that happen, he wanted to live, he had to survive because he had something to fight for. Magnus had to get back at all the people that had betrayed him. Yes, he had to take his revenge.

Moments later, a huge white wolf stood tall and proud as its dark green emerald eyes looked sharply ahead. Magnus had survived because, well, he had always been a survivor. His eyes looked at half a dozen wolves that were approaching him.

He studied all of them skeptically, and once he had recognized them as allies, he sprinted across the stream, and the other wolves ran after him.

Magnus ran faster as he remembered the reason as to why he had nearly died. Half of the dead people he had left behind had died at his hand because they had refused to give him what he wanted.

He had not intended to slaughter them, but they had stubbornly refused to give him the witch that he had spent quite a while searching for, so they had simply paid the price for enraging him. But there was something that Magnus couldn't quite understand. How were humans so protective and willing to die for another person who was not even their family?

Magnus had spent a few decades looking for a certain witch who might have been of some use in helping him locate the whereabouts of a hybrid.

He was looking for a creature that was both a werewolf and a vampire, and sometimes he doubted something like that could ever exist. It was not a natural occurrence after all, but he needed that hybrid to exist because it was the only way he could break a curse.

Yeah, a curse that he had somehow earned for his entire race, which was now the root cause of all his problems, including his near-death encounter.

Magnus had done many bad things, but the curse was the one thing that had caused his people to turn against him. His pack had taken him off his throne and replaced him with his half-brother, Nicholas Hyde.

Magnus had never really liked Nicholas' guts because of his ability to get on his nerves with simply his appearance, and now he was on the run because Nicholas was hunting him down, probably to capture him and torture him with a righteous excuse that he was only punishing him for past crimes.

Magnus knew he could fight Nicholas on his own because he was stronger than him since he was the most purebred werewolf in existence. He also had the closest bloodline to the first and original werewolves and being the firstborn to their late father, he had an added advantage. But there was one problem, he couldn't attack Jonathon since he was ruling over all the other werewolves, and that meant that he was almost untouchable.

Jonathon had taken his place as the supreme Alpha, and he wanted it back.

His dark emerald eyes glimmered with determination as he looked up at the full moon that was slowly getting covered by the dark clouds. He increased his pace as he ran further south, taking the route that led to the Southern territory.

The South was a territory belonging to a race that was his nemesis.

It belonged to the vampires. The only reason he was heading South was to follow the trail of the witch whose only hope was to head south since she couldn't stay in the North, mainly because there was a witch hunt going on. So any wise witch could keep to the South unless they wanted to be captured and burnt or worse, tortured.

Magnus planned to find this witch and get out of the South because it was not a place he desired to be in. The moon patterns were shifting and Magnus and his pack had to reach their destination before they shifted back to their human forms. Luckily, Magnus had been to the South before and had made a few acquaintances with the humans that lived among the vampires there. He only hoped that they could offer some meaningful information about the situation in the south and whether they knew of any witches that had made an appearance in the region. They could either choose to help him or he could kill them. His rules were so simple.

They arrived at a small town that was at the borders of the South or vampire territory just as the moon got covered by dark clouds, and they returned to their human forms. Magnus covered his completely naked body with clothes and a cloak that one of his men offered, and the rest also covered themselves as well. Justus, who was one of Magnus' trusted men, walked ahead with him after signaling the rest of the men to stay where they were for a while. They walked for a distance until they reached the house of one of the humans that Magnus considered one of his earlier mentioned acquaintances.

Justus knocked at the door, and moments later, a middle-aged woman opened the door, and Magnus watched as her face paled when her eyes landed on him. Of course, she wasn't happy to see him because they had their fair share of history that she couldn't forget, and that was a story for another time, but in summary, Magnus had terrified her pretty well just like he did to everyone, and that had been about twenty years ago. She was obviously shocked to see him standing at her doorstep, looking less than a year older than he was when she had last seen him.

"Are you just going to stand there and stare?" Justus asked, snapping the woman out of her haze. "No…of course not, my Lord. Please come…come in." She stammered as she stood away from the door and let them in. The poor thing was literally shaking in fear as she locked the door behind her.

"We intend to do no harm to you. All we need is your help," Justus spoke on his behalf because Magnus did not fancy saying things that he did not mean. As long as he got what he wanted, then the woman could live, and that was all he could promise.