*~PROLOGUE~*

Blood. Guts. Rotting bodies.

Flies swarmed around, jumping from body to body, revelling in the stench emanated from the leaking of bodily fluids onto the cement floor. Windows, tinted from the accumulation of dust and water on it, each drop leaving behind drab designs; outlines of the paths they rolled down to the dusty ledge.

It had only been two days since they had last brought in a lifeless body into the bunker. The sight of the mauled bodies in the flickering candlelight had torn her. Piece by piece, sinew to sinew, inside out. But her purpose and her resolve stood firm.

Her dry lips moved soundlessly, mouthing the words with desperation, even as she wrapped up the heartless body with trembling hands, her mind filled with desperate prayers.

She wished hard. She wished she could go out, to fight alongside her brothers and sisters. She wished she could show her devotion to the cause with a gun in her sling and a bow in her holster.

But this was a service too, right? It was believed that for a wolf to reach the Moon Goddess' Abode after death, where they could start their eternal life, they had to be enchanted over and wrapped with a holy shroud.

"You know you cannot come, my love," he had said.

"I am not weak, you know. I can-"she had begun.

"Mea dulcis amor, do you know how dangerous it can be? I already feel that this is going to be different. Since Alpha Carlisle's troops turned over this is going to be a suicide mission."

"Mea amor, that is all the more reason I should come," she had insisted desperately.

"Regine, don't make this more difficult than it-",

"Wait!" she had stopped him.

His eyes had widened with wonder as she grasped his hand and placed it on her stomach. They felt the faintest of kicks.

Her eyes had filled with tears, when she looked at her husband's teary smile. He knelt down and whispered words of love to the tiny pup inside her.

"She will be beautiful," he had said.

She smiled at her husband's childlike surety at such an uncertain thing. "What makes you think it is a 'she'? It could be a 'he', you are an Alpha after all."

He just placed a kiss on her stomach and got up. Putting his hands on the sides of head he whispered, "I just have a feeling."

She smiled wistfully at the sweet memory, At that moment, she hadn't been sure if it was the love in her husband's eyes or the love she had felt for the pup that grew within her day by day, she had stopped insisting on joining the war.

Instead, after much debate, unable to calm down her nerves, Talon had let her come to do the Transformation ritual. Deep down she knew he only gave her that duty as he was sure she would return home after her experience with her first corpse, as her hormones in her condition would not agree with the smells.

Frightening, however, how much zeal and will can do.

Now all she could do was hide and wrap corpses in a dingy war bunker with a few of the other wolves who also had their mates in the war.

The dark green shrouds were stacked neatly on the side of the table as she worked. Her trembling hands skillfully moving of their own accord, accustomed to the feel of the cold mass of flesh and bones. This was clearly not her first corpse.

The smell from the day-old corpses barely bothered her now. She had grown used to it just as the sky had, to the chaos and bloodshed below.

A sudden din began outside, men yelling, wolves grunting and growling. The clouds had not parted in 2 weeks, ever since the Alphas first howled, marking the beginning of War. And now the rays of sunlight began to peek through the thick dark clouds lighting up the corner of the room through the overhead window.

Two weeks ago, every jerking minute, the firing of a shell or a canon would have startled her. The cries of her brethren seconds before they took their last breath, echoing in her mind. Now, she was used to it.

The three women who were with her had not moved from the bunker either. Shots firing, shells exploding, all they could do was pray that their supplies didn't run out and that the next corpse that was brought in wasn't their mate, brother or father.

The wooden door banged against the wall as one of the guards yelled out instructions to two of the others bringing in a new body. Her heart squeezed with the pain of a thousand thorns as she shut her eyes in fear, a prayer for the departing soul as she waddled over to the table, her current affair forgotten.

Her two companions, having gone in for a closer look, gasped in shock as they laid eyes on the body. One of the women wailed loudly, smiting her breasts with her hands in agony, the other, still stared, tears streaming down her face, her mouth still open. She hurried forward to see what could have caused such a rise out of them.

As she neared the table, her heart pounded.

Pain.

Pain seared across her soul like a white hot branding iron.

The shock of it left her breathless.

It was him. Which would mean...

"Luna, the Dominus are chasing our guards back into the gorge and some of the other Lycans are disbanding. What should we do?" her Beta asked her, his fur splattered with blood.

Her mind was sinking rapidly, into a dark place she never knew it had to go one day. On one hand she had to consider  her people, many of whom could lose their soulmate, just like she had. The Dominus Nox are powerful, terrifyingly so.

But on the other hand, they had the truth and greater good on their side. The very cause her husband had died fighting for.

Her human side grieved as the pain threatened to cause her to break and give into the insanity. One moment her mate was excited about the arrival of his firstborn, the next his heart had been ripped out. 

Her wolf however. comforted her, calming her soul momentarily. She took in a deep breath, placing her hands on the stomach. She stood up knowing what she had to do. She lifted up her head and stepped outside her bunker, as all her soldiers gathered around their Luna and looked upto her reverantly.

On all their faces she could see the pain, the doubt, the fear. Looking around, she opened her mouth and uttered two words that changed the course of history,

"Vivat Libertatem."