JEOPARDY: The Cursed Soldier.

37. The sun.

1582 AD.

In a time when werewolf packs had no more than 50 members of the same race, sharing common values and traditions, Alpha Trinidad De Castillo of the Full Moon pack, together with her gamma and pack priestess, strode through the dark, cloudy but windy nights of the California forests.

Alpha Trinidad had called for a secret meeting with 11 other Alphas from some of the few remaining packs. She wasn't sure how many of them would show up, but she hoped that all of them would.

Through their mind link, Trinidad felt her gamma run a thorough scan of the entire forest for threats--Particularly, a vampire threat.

Alpha Trinidad sighed. She understood why her gamma was so alert, but it enraged her all the same.

Werewolves were the predators. Not the prey. They were the hunters, not the hunted. But for them to feel so threatened and targeted, and by a vampire at that, it made Trinidad's blood boil. Vampires were slime. They were the scours of the earth, a curse to the existing species.

They were the ones who should be terrified of Werewolves.

But this La Tueur, or whatever, had managed to drive fresh terror into every werewolf alive—even the most powerful ones like The Full Moon pack.

Trinidad had researched her enemy. It wasn't even that hard since there were a lot of rumors about him circulating the supernatural world at an alarming speed and magnitude. And after filtering through the lies, assumptions, and wild exaggerations, Trinidad had found out the following things about La Tueur.

1. Nobody knew his real name, how he looked, where he was from, how old he was, or why he was on a killing spree. It wasn't a helpful find, but it told Trinidad that this vampire was a sneaky genius. He shouldn't be fought against by might and force, but by intelligence.

2. Before he started raiding and massacring werewolf packs, he had been killing covens of vampires at an alarming rate. It was why he was aliased, 'La Tueur', a French word that translated to 'The Slayer'. Apparently, he had raided a coven in Lyon, France, and beheaded all the 30 vampires who famously inhabited a castle in the city.

3. He had already taken down 7 werewolf packs in the last 5 years. Nobody had seen him coming or leaving. All they had found were the dead bodies, beheaded by a silver weapon, his signature killing style. He had massacred an entire pack of werewolves in a matter of hours. It was supposed to be impossible, but he had done it.

"We're here." Lidinia, Trinidad's priestess, announced.

Trinidad and her gamma stopped in their tracks and opened their senses just as the other Alphas emerged from behind the surrounding trees, looking every way the fiery and menacing beasts they were with their red glowing eyes and their claws drawn.

"Trinidad." Alpha Kai tipped his head her way with a growl.

"Kai." Trinidad returned before she ran calculative eyes over the pack leaders standing before her. Their numbers were higher than she had expected. Probably because some Alphas had showed up with both their betas and gammas. "Alphas, Betas, Gammas."

Mentally, Trinidad filed their number. 35 of the most powerful werewolves were standing on that spot, waiting for her to tell them why she had called for them.

"Who is the lady in white?" Alpha Laurene Crawford asked, her eyes already sizing Lidinia up..

Trinidad had expected that question. Most packs didn't keep their non-shifting children. Some packs killed them, while others exiled them. But Full Moon Alphas had long discovered that werewolf children who didn't show any signs of shifting possessed a more vital gift. The gift of the spirit.