The room is quiet, everyone is waiting for the autopsy to end. Jared, Talia, Lincoln and me are gathered in a small room next to the morgue. Only Nate and the doctor were allowed inside. I tried to peek inside but they locked the doors.

While Leah and Steven brought back the sentinel's corpse we went to inform Nate of the situation, Cory was nowhere to be seen. He didn't take the news really well. I only had a few seconds to look at the body before they ushered it out of view. From what I could see the man was tortured and starved for a long period of time, his skin was dirty, his body bony and didn't have the time to heal entirely. His features were distorted in an ugly grimace.

He met a nasty death.

We are all listening in on the report.

"Cause of death, blunt force trauma to the head. But he was tortured long before that."

"How long ?" Nate inquires in an icy voice.

"I don't know exactly but I'd say at least two weeks, he lost a lot of muscle and seeing those marks on his ankles and wrists he was probably chained."

"What about the words ?"

"Postmortem." The doctor says in a matter-of-factly way.

We all breath a little at that.

"I also found a piece of paper stuck inside his mouth. They" She hesitates. "They broke his mouth shut afterwards."

"I'm going to kill them all." Nate threatens.

"What do you think it says ?" Talia asks beside me and I shrug.

"Might be instructions." I offer in a whisper.

"Alright, thank you Sasha. Please send me your final report as soon as you're done." Nate says and we stop talking as we hear him near the door.

"Yes sir." She answers while he opens the door.

I can see her note down a few words on her clipboard and focus back on the body.

"What does it say ?" I ask immediately.

I am not heartless okay ? We all want to know.

'Still could use some tact.'

Nate hands the paper over to Lincoln and I bend over to read it too.

You have until the next full moon to leave.

If you decide to fight you won't survive.

The time of a new era has come.

The words are sloppy and the mark of the Sun is at the bottom of the sheet.

Next moon.

'That's almost a month from now, we still have time.'

There is a lot to do but that' better than nothing.

"They aren't saying a lot." Lincoln frowns.

"On the contrary, they said more than they intended." I shake my head. "For starters they want to intimidate us. They are asking us to leave and threatening to kill us all."

"I'd say they are succeeding." Jared mumbles. "That's the third time they attack us. They even infiltrated us."

"That's true but every time they sent weak rogues and I can guess most of them are just as weak. Moreover they are giving us a month which means they aren't ready yet."

"That's true." Talia nods.

"They didn't attack us without warning us. There was no surprise attack. Which means they don't think they can actually win, or at least they can't come out of this unscathed." I continue to explain.

"We can't be sure we'll win though." Nate interjects.

"No we can't. But we know when they are coming and who they are. We know there will be wolves and vampires and probably other creatures but they might not know that we have allies too. We will learn to fight against every creature there could be."

"Most of them are rogues too, they don't know discipline and order, they won't fight together but each for their own." Lincoln adds and I agree.

"We have to assume your sentinel gave them information. I'm not saying he did for sure," I continue seeing as Nate and Jared are about to deny it, "but he spent a lot of time being tortured and he might have said things in hope of being released."

"And we can't forget Stuart was one of our fighters. He knows our tactics, how we fight, how many we are and the map of the pack house." Nate acknowledges.

"That's why we need to start over. We will use all the time we can get." I conclude.

During the next days the fighters from all the clans and packs finally arrive amounting to an incredible number. There are creatures and beasts everywhere. The vampires set up tents in the back garden, Rob came with thirty of his men and his little brother Ben and I saw Max too, the young man I gave my blood to. Daiki and Takeshi joined us last night with ten of their people and are under the order to listen to Noriko. Them and the merepeople that came with Marie were given chambers inside the pack house. The latter weren't exactly welcomed by the wolves but Marie put them in their place, they made the mistake to underestimate her because of her innocent locks and sweet eyes. They won't do it again. She beat up six of the packs fighters with one hand. That was actually a great show.

'You even applauded at the end.'

And I will do it again.

She said something about the trident not working too well.

"Oh really ?" was my only answer.

The best surprise was on the third night when Ralph barged in with the polar bears, seven of them, huge white beasts. Isanov was livid and did his best to be invisible since then. Ralph even managed to convince the Yetis to join which was no a simple task to accomplish because their clan doesn't fight, they are a bunch of hippies.

You should listen to them sing.

'Please no. My ears are still bleeding from last time.'

Ellie came back too to help with the training and we both have a blast looking at all these different people trying to kill each other every five seconds and going crazy from it.

I didn't smile as much when the goblins arrived with Berta in the lead but Ralph couldn't stop laughing at my expense.

"You should see you face." He bellowed, bent over, hitting his knee with his hand, tears running down his face.

I put my foot down when she tried to flirt with Nate. He was more than amused by the entire situation. I even caught Noriko smirking a few times with Ellie, these two bonded quite easily. A shaman from Africa arrived an hour ago with three lions, an eagle and two cheetahs and I laughed when Lincoln made himself scarce.

'I wonder how he was able to get here though. I can't imagine the border guards letting them through that easily.'

He probably used a spell or two.

The pups are ecstatic from seeing this many monster, they keep going from one clan to the other to ask for new stories, their eyes shining brightly every time. Jared is running around trying to break the fights and at the same time attempting to accommodate everyone. I am going from one meeting to another. There are new meetings everyday and they all disagree.

"I'm telling you we should arrange our ranks with more people in the front." Marie grumbles for the second time.

"And I'm telling you we need these men inside the house to help the children flee if anything goes wrong." Ellie replies.

"But I'm telling you that if we had them upfront with us, your weaklings wouldn't need protecting because there wouldn't be any threat anymore." Marie insists exasperated

"And I'm telling you we can't know that for sure." Ellie refuses to let it go.

And I'm starting to have a headache from all this bickering.

'I'm begging you make them shut up.'

"We are already at a disadvantage since we are so far from the ocean, the situation is really not ideal, but we'll have to make do with it. It doesn't mean we dont need more man power in the battlefield." Marie claims stubbornly.

"Willow, can you see anything ?" Ellie turns to the side to question our own little oracle.

"No, I'm sorry. Everything is still blurry, they haven't taken any concrete decision yet so the future stays unclear."

"Dammit." Ellie sighs closing her eyes.

"Maybe we could let one or two yetis keep the kids safe. They are more resilient than any of us and they could run away quickly." I offer. "That way Marie gets her soldiers and the pups are still protected."

"I guess it could work." Ellie agrees.

"I'm fine with that. They didn't seem to want to fight anyway. I really don't understand what they are doing here if they don't intend to." Marie criticizes.

"They will fight if they need to. They just hope it won't come to that." I explain.

"Well, if I do my job correctly they might get their wish." She shrugs.

I leave the room before they start arguing about something new.

I spend most of my free time in the Library. The enemy is specifically targeting this pack, there is no doubt anymore that they are after the books. But for what reason ? What are they after ? What secret could they be trying to unravel ? Is there some old legend I forgot about ? From the message they left they want the supernatural world to change, but to what extent ? Do they want to destroy the magical world as we know it ? I dont understand how they would be able to rule over it, it's too vast, there are too many beasts, there is no one strong enough to control us all.

'That's what the Sun wanted though. To start all over again, a world in his image.'

Then is it someone working for him ? Is it someone wanting to destroy the reign of the Moon ?

'I could work with that.'

Not the time to have a change of heart !

But the books don't give any new information in that aspect, there isn't anything useful there, only old stories which aren't true anymore, old artefacts long gone or destroyed or already used in a one-time-only kind of way.

I'm finally starting to remember the old languages and I'm focusing on the oldest books, trying to decipher them. I actually found the curse I had long forgotten was ever written. I guess I shouldn't be surprised though that somehow the guardians of the Library found a way to write it down. But there is a part I still can't decipher and it's driving me crazy. I can understand the beginning but I think it has more to do with the fact that I know it by heart.

Nothing new here.

It's what I remember. Too proud, too strong and cursed by the jealous Moon.

The next part is harder to decipher and making me sweat. I'm almost certain I read the word "mate" in it but I can't figure it out. I've been stuck on it for two days straight and today doesn't seem do go any better.

Maybe I should just give up.

'Like hell you are ! The curse is talking about our mate.'

I'm sure it's something along the lines : You shalt not find your mate because I will never create him. Sucks to be you. -XOXO Moony.

'Sounds just like her.'

I know right ?

'You still have to make sure. There might be a way to break the curse.' My wolf insists.

Do you really want to become mortal again ? Us gods are made to rule civilizations, create worlds and destroy others.

'Just try decoding it already.'

Don't come crying when I get to say "I told you so".

I concentrate back on the crumbling yellowed paper, I'm afraid to hold it too tight or to sneeze and for it to disintegrate. There is the word wolf, and mate. And I can hear the Moon cackling in anticipation through the window. Those are no soothing words that's for sure. Again the word alone.

After an hour going back and forth from page to page I finally gather the next phrase. At this pace I'll still be here next century, the book is hundreds of pages thick. I'm at page two.

.

Well then. I'm. Doomed.

I should have known. I really should have known better. Not only am I supposed to be alone for the rest of my life but even if I find my mate he won't know it. Great. Just. Great.

'But you know what this means ! Nate's your mate ! OH THE GRACIOUS ME ! I knew it !'

We already went through this. He might be my mate, maybe, possibly, perhaps, in a one-in-a-million king of chance but it doesn't mean I am his mate.

'But it says right here that your mate can't feel the bond because of the curse !'

Then that's even worse !

'You just have to tell him !'

Sure. I'll tell him "Hey, you know what you're my mate. It says so in that smelly dusty old book I read." I'm sure he will believe me and we'll live happily ever after. The end.

'Well not like that no. But maybe you could tell him you think he is.'

And the moment he rejects me because he can't feel the bond I'm going to be just fine.

"Let's stop talking about this, it's depressing." I sigh and close the book before returning it to its shelf.

I start looking up the books with my mark on them again, the history books to see what it was used for during the centuries. I finds stories of fanatics that worshiped me as I remembered, but they seemed to disappear a long time ago. A few of them even claimed to be the reincarnation of the beast of the Sun along the way but since I never died I don't see how that could be possible. And I never heard about a new beast, one failure was enough, he didn't take the time to create another.

The more I hid myself the less people remembered me and at some point they forgot about the Bogeyman. So I don't understand what my mark is doing here, now. I have to be careful though, hide it more carefully than ever. I can't even explain it by pretending to be a spy because I don't know anything more than the pack does. And fabricating information could be dangerous if I get it wrong. Also they would never believe me. There are at least two persons that would gladly kick me out the first chance they'd get. So I'm stuck and they are stuck, without new input on the situation and the foggy predictions of Willow aren't helping either.

The thing is I don't understand what the enemy's purpose is. Unless they want to take the library and use this as leverage to control the packs with its knowledge it's of no use to them. But I doubt rogues would be smart enough to talk all these languages especially the old ones. However if they joined forces with old creatures like vampires for example, that would explain a lot. Still I have a hard time believing that the rogues from all these species will be able to live together for much longer. Their minds and ways of thinking are way too different, their needs and habits of life opposing each other. It's too complicated to work well in the long run.

And yet I'm surprised at how well the coalition is working, despite the small bickering going on here and there the clans are working hand in hand. I wouldn't put it past Isanov to go back to his war against the polar bears as soon as this war ends but since he might unexpectedly fall down a flight of stairs before then we're all good.

I say goodbye to Marcus still siting behind his desk as always and go back outside to survey the training groups led by Marie, Ellie, Jared and Takeshi.

I don't know who put them in charge but they are crazy.

'You did.'

Right. Then I'm smarter than that ! Why do they keep contradicting each other and roadblocking one another ? They should be able to work together.

On cue Marie throws a shiny plate at the back of Ellie's head and Jared starts to argue with Takeshi.

Where is Nate in times like these ?!

'In his office, arguing with Isanov and Rob.'

Why me ?

The wind blows in my hair and I start to shudder as I hear an irksome laughter getting nearer and nearer. It seems to echo all around us.

This is what they should add in horror movies, that'd scare people alright.

The fighters around us all stop talking and even the four-most-stubborn-people-I've-ever-met stop quarreling. Marie is already in a fighting stance.

"What is that sound ? Someone trembles next to me.

"We are all going to die." Another one whispers.

Ellie and Jared get closer to a group of young werewolves that started training this week. We can only hear the high pitch laughter approaching.

"Who the hell invited the unicorns ?" I ask.