A darkness cascaded across Snake's Canyon in an eerily fashion. Howls of pain resounded across the land, letting all know that things were changing.

There was a familiar stench of blood in the air, irritating the noses of the wolves.

Utopia was about to become a dystopia in a clash of teeth and claws.

The enemy had caught them by surprise.

Teeth barred, Alisa looked up at her downfall, breathing in their scent of doubt.

"Aren't you a pretty little wolf," taunted the figure hovering above her.

There was another familiar smell that touched her nose, terrifying her.

The witches had come to tear apart Snake's Canyon and all of those who hold loyalty to the Sabor Tooth pack.

With a growl, Alisa went to stand up but the figure held out a hand, stopping her. She only growled in response, knowing she had to stay hidden in her wolf form.

These witches were not strangers.

"Speak," Alpha Ryker commanded as he approached the circle of Witches.

Each of them had halted his fighters, the protectors of his sacred land, and he had to be quick before they were surely outnumbered.

"Let us know your demands."

A young man approached the circle with a cunning smirk across his face.

"We are looking for someone," he said, speaking slowly causing a chill across the wolves.

His purple eyes seemed hollow and empty, and the dark circles around his eyes only made him look paler in the light.

"We have searched far and wide. Our searches have led us here. You have a rogue amongst you - the tales do not lie."

The fair features of the young man turned cold.

Ryder stepped forward, ignoring his dads look of horror.

'Ryder stop. He is a man looking for vengeance.'

Ryder paid his father's concerns no mind.

"There is no rogue amongst us - only family. Has a rogue broken the laws of your kind? Is this why you have entered a land you know you will be killed on sight for. If a rogue has broken one of your laws, our council will right the error."

"I am not scared of a pup," the response came back with a hollow laugh.

"Then why is the heir to the Witches Clan here without permission."

Ryder wasn't stupid and Alisa knew that. He knew exactly who this guy was. Alisa hoped that Ace wasn't stupid enough to be here looking for her.

Alisa was no longer a rogue - she was family to the wolves and she felt that sense of family too. The witches had casted her out more than a year ago, and in that time, her loyalties had shifted.

Opinions had been forged anew.

Family did not abandon one another.

"How dare you assume my father knows not of what I am doing," Ace replied with hostility, raising a single eyebrow.

"It is obvious. You've come with not enough to handle yourself among many wolves that outnumber you from two to one," Ryder smirked, attempting to play ball.

He disagreed with his father that they were stronger despite the small numbers.

"Now, tell us why you've come."

"There is a prophecy. It spreads across the land like poison. This not an act of war, or a ceasefire for that matter - this is an act of warning," Ace began, nodding to the five witches that make up the circle.

"We can handle ourselves among an entire pack of wolves but that is not the intention here today."

Alpha Ryker looked around at the five witches that could harm his pack in a split second, knowing far more what they're capable of than his son ever could.

Ryder was young and naive, believing that they could defeat any foe if they just gave it their all.

Alpha Ryker couldn't risk the loss of a single member, let alone his own son and sole heir.

"I will speak only to the Alpha heir," Ace said once more, smirking over at Ryder before looking back at Alpha Ryker.

"This is our fight not yours, old beast."

Ace's words were a warning for Alpha Ryker to stay, for any sudden movement and he would begin executing on sight.

Terror chilled Alisa's bones into silence. Her chance to join her old kind had come and gone long ago; for Ace looked like a mad man in search of a bone.

He no longer resembled the friend she'd left behind.

The young Aryan had become a formidable opponent on the battle field, leaving death and destruction in his wake.

The stench of blood covered him from head to toe and Alisa could barely stomach it.

"Then let us talk of this prophecy," Ryder said after a moment of deliberation.

'Father, I will protect us. The heir is right - it is our turn to protect our own.'

'Be careful, the witches do not play by our rules but by their own.'

The witches did not have the same sense of beliefs they did nor their compassion for those that are different.

Ace pulled out a scroll, "The truth lay among the thorns. It is our turn to shape the world into what it must become."

As he walked closer to Ryder, nobody moved a muscle.

For both creatures, their heirs were right in the crossfire.

One wrong move, and one would be without a future leader.

"Come," Ryder spoke after a moment, before directing Ace into his father's chambers.

Once they were both inside, Ryder closed the bear skin and directed his attention to the witch before him.

"Speak. You will not get the same curtesy again."

"Big words for a pup," Ace taunted with a smirk.

He knew he had them cornered. But his plan was never to kill, only to deliver the news.

Desperation quaked in his veins.

He placed the scroll down, nodding as a gesture to it.

"This was found on our travels. I have come alone with few allies, to show that it is only a message I wish to deliver."

"Then why the fight?"

"To assert our clear power above you. With few, we can still harm but that is not what is important right now."

Ryder gritted his teeth; riddles were not his speciality.

His entire pack was at stake and it was his job alone to make sure there would be a pack to be the Alpha to when the time came.

His next moves would determine if he understood what it truly meant to have the lives of many awaiting your orders.

"You are young, not yet ready to take over but it will take more than your father's leadership skills to win this war."

"We have kept our distance," Ryder gritted in untapped anger, a deep rumble threatening to escape beneath clipped teeth.

"To stop any potential war between our species. Why must you come to taint that unspoken agreement between our fathers?"

"I have not come for him or to violate the past agreement. But for this," Ace said, urgency finally betraying him, plastered clear as day on his tired features.

He was a mad man on a mission to fix the wrongs of his father.

"Explain."

"There is a prophecy being whispered between our nations - it is bigger than the both of us. My father is far too proud to come but I am not," Ace began, taking a deep breath.

With a nod in response, he continued.

"The half breed shall unite us as one - to fight the enemies that we know not of."

"Half breed?" Ryder asked, his curiosity peaking.

"Half breed of what?"

Ace shook his head as if unsure, "We must stop the half breed from finding out the truth. The moment the truth becomes apparent, all will be lost."

Ryder growled, "What does that mean?"

"It means the end of all of us."