0: Prologue

Blood splattered as her fist made contact with skin, flesh and bone. It stained the white wall in a deep, dark coating of scarlet. Another blow, and another splatter of blood. Her fists were unrelenting and violent. Then again, she enjoyed nothing more than the electric surge of pure, dark, chaotic violence, pulsing through her veins. To her, the feeling was nothing short of euphoric, feeding into her raging darkness.

"Attention!" She heard, when the motionless body of one of her many poor victims slumped to the ground, spilling more deep scarlet onto the floor and creating a fresh pool of blood on the shiny marble surface. Immediately, she stepped away from the body, straightened and lifted her eyes up, meeting the curious gaze of the man before her.

He was a tall, strong man, fortified in large, heavy, well defined muscles and had quite sharp, handsome features. His steady, hazel eyes watched her curiously, carefully, and then fell in their usually neutral gaze.

"At ease, soldier." It left his mouth in a little mutter, and the young woman relaxed her stance slightly, before asking, in quite a monotonous tone, "Have I completed my task well? Father."

The man whom she'd come to know as 'father' throughout their years of shared company and nothing more, smiled, and nodded. "You did well, soldier." He then paused for a moment, searched in his breast pocket and then retrieved from it a well-pressed, grey handkerchief. He tossed the piece of cloth to the young woman, a sign of mutual respect more than anything else. She caught it and wiped her hands on the fabric carefully before stuffing it into the pocket of her long, black trousers. She'd get it dry-cleaned in the morning and have it returned to her adoptive father promptly in the early hours of the morning.

"Now, if you wouldn't mind, I'd like to discuss an important matter with you. Would you please follow me to my study?" The young woman's father asked gently. Her ears perked up at the sound of him needing to speak to her. In fact, it was all she'd been waiting for, for the past year.

She nodded curtly, not one to show excitement too well, and then proceeded to follow the retreating back of her father, deeper into the grand foyer, passed it, and then towards his study. It was quite a bland room consisting of a perfectly varnished wooden desk, stray pens and pencils here and there and a stack of neatly piled paperwork. Placed strategically underneath his desk was a soft, reclinable black chair, which the large man tugged at before sitting.

"I'm sure you are aware of what it is I have to tell you. Am I correct?"

"I am hoping so, father." She replied, placing her green eyes on his hazel ones in a cool, but intensely locked gaze.

The man smirked softly and chuckled before continuing. "I know you are eager to become an Alpha, Tristan. However, before I can truly make you Alpha of this band of rogues, I have a task for you to complete. Once you have been successful, I will bestow onto you the title which you desire."

She tilted her head to the side, pondered and then asked, "What task, father?". There was nothing Tristan would not do to get her hands on the treasured title of 'Alpha'. In fact, her obsession with it ran far deeper than anything anyone could have imagined, driving her to the point of monstrosity.

Her father smirked deeply and then began pulling out something from his drawers- a large, brown folder. He then handed it to Tristan, and she took it carefully from him, making sure not to smudge any blood residue from the skin of her fingers onto the paper folder.

From the folder, she retrieved a photograph and a few pieces of paper stapled neatly together. She set the paper down on the table and proceeded to look at the photograph. On it was a fairly young man, perhaps a few years older than her. He was strikingly handsome with deep, stern hazel eyes and very dark, raven hair. He was tall and well-built, and his posture was rigid and unapproachable. However, as she gazed more closely at the handsome man, she could not help but notice a few striking similarities between the man in the photograph and the man sitting before her. And so, she gazed up at her father with a questioning look.

"Who is this man, and what would you have me do to him? Kill him, perhaps?" She questioned, always taking a strange, devilish inclination to violence.

"No, no Goddess no. The little runt doesn't deserve so much as death. I'd like for you to befriend this man. Your job, soldier, is to gather intel. I want to know everything about this man, his family and his pack. How many pack members does he have, how many guards protect his pack borders, how many Alpha wolves does his pack house. By the end of it all, I want to know the exact number of grains of sand in that place. In addition to this, I want you to find their weaknesses. The problem areas regarding the dynamics and relationships within the pack, more especially, within the Alpha family itself. I then want you to exploit these problems and weaknesses, be it doubts between the Alpha and his mate or even petty dislikes of the Alpha's mate within the pack. Anything you can do to disrupt the natural order of how the pack runs. It will eventually give us a good advantage over them. They will be at their weakest when they are divided socially, and that, my dear is when you and I will attack."

Tristan stayed silent for a moment, pondering. It was an unusual task to be asked of her, especially since she was usually given those delectable tasks which involved more bloodshed than this one promised. It was, however, the only thing left standing between herself and the title she so desperately craved and seemed to be a simple enough task: to gather information and stir up chaos within the pack relationships. Nothing could have been easier.

And so, she nodded curtly and said, "Consider it done, sir."

She was just about to take the photograph, the stack of papers and the folder, when her father's hand shot out and gently gripped at her wrist.

"What is it, father?" It was not like him to ever truly make physical contact with her. They had a mutual agreement of something stretching beyond just respecting their personal space, and so it was odd that he felt the need to go against the unspoken agreement.

He sighed for a moment before staring up into Tristan's deep green eyes, and then said, "There is something you should know about this mission I am giving you. Despite you not being my real, biological daughter, Tristan, you and I share a bond no different than father and daughter, which is why you need to know the reason for me giving you this mission. The man in the photograph, that man is Damon Michaels."

Just the name 'Damon Michaels' was information enough for her and she now knew exactly why her adoptive father wanted her to befriend him.

"So," he began, taking his hand off of her wrist, "now that you understand this potential game of revenge and the crucial role you must play in it, I ask you sincerely: do you accept this mission soldier?". With that, he held out a hand for her.

She stared at the outstretched hand for a moment, pondering over her given mission. It was one which she knew was based on a deeply rooted sense of revenge, one which aimed to rot the Michaels family from the inside out and take from them what was stolen from her adoptive father, the man who once took her in and gave her a home. It was her duty to give back to him after everything he’d given to her. But most importantly, it was the only thing in the way of her becoming the notorious and powerful Alpha of the Rogues. And so, she grasped her father's hand in hers and shook it firmly, deep, dark determination glinting in her green eyes, "Yes sir. I will destroy the Michaels family. I will break them apart and crush their pack... by any means necessary."

If only she'd known then, the price of ' by any means necessary'.