The present

A blue BMW raced down a dark stretch of road with a pack of lycans in hot pursuit. One of the lycans leaped onto the car and smashed the windshield with its massive claws. The driver of the car slammed on the breaks and brought the car to a screeching halt, throwing the lycan onto the ground. The driver then stomped on the gas pedal and sped forward crushing the beast under the tires. As other the lycans closed in, the driver brought the car to a stop again and stepped out and pulled two fully loaded Barettas from their holsters, opening fire, killing two of the lycans. Four more appeared from behind the trees, snarling as they approached. One of them jumped on the driver, teeth bared and ready to deliver the death bite when a silver dagger was thrust into its skull. The driver rolled out from under the dead lycan and advanced on the other three, emptying the Barettas of the silver bullets inside their magazines. The guns were turned upside down and the magazines ejected and two more loaded in a matter of seconds. The driver was careful to aim for their vital organs so that they couldn't dig them out and heal themselves as they had in the past.

Belle was a Death Dealer; part of an elite group of vampires charged with finding and exterminating the lycan scrounge. There were two types of lycans: progressives and primitives. The progressives were humans that were turned into lycans through the bite of another and could Change at will. The primitives were either humans that could only Change when the moon was full or their animalistic impulses were so strong that they could not take human form again. Of the two, the primitives were the easiest to kill since they never took human form. Progressives were much more difficult to spot since they could conceal themselves among humans. For this Death Dealer, the hunt was personal. The lycans had killed her lover and made her lose their child, torn him apart and feasted on his remains like the filthy animals they were, not caring that he had been one of them. In their minds Rumplestiltskin was a traitor to his kind by loving her, his natural enemy and she would kill every last one of them to make certain no one else endured the centuries of heartache over losing a loved one as she had.

She and Rumplestiltskin had kept their love a secret, difficult to do when she was the daughter of Maurice, one of the three Elders, the first born vampires who ruled over the coven for one hundred years at a time. Her father was in hibernation along with Malcolm and Cora now served as ruling elder. In two weeks' time Cora would awaken Malcolm and it would be his turn to rule, her father's to follow in one hundred years. When the last lycan fell to the ground Belle returned her guns to their holsters got back in her car and drove back to the mansion where her branch of the coven lived under the command of Gaston, the man chosen by Maurice to rule their branch of the coven until he was awakened from hibernation. Belle despised Gaston. She found him crude and conceited and his constant harassment of her wore on her nerves. He was an ambitious vampire who believed that making the daughter of one of the Elders his bride would increase his own chances for advancement in the hierarchy but she knew it would never happen. The Elders wouldn't stand for a fledgling usurping their authority and would gladly bleed him dry or expose him to the sun if they learned of it.

"Belle, Gaston's looking for you," said Ella as Belle walked past her.

"Tell him to take a number!" Belle threw over her shoulder and headed for the armory. She wasn't in the mood for him now or any other day but knew she would have to face him sooner or later. The best trick she had for avoiding him was keeping busy and there was plenty to keep her busy in the armory…conversing with Marco about new weapons they could use or shooting the hell out of the targets lined up along the stone walls, pretending they had either Gaston's face or the faces of the lycans who'd killed her Rumple. She wished she'd known who they were…if she had, she would find them and tear them apart; make them suffer before they died.

Miles away, beneath the city streets a large crowd was gathered in a circle in a room cheering while two lycans engaged in combat, attacking each other with their massive claws and biting.

"What the hell is going on in here?!" a voice boomed from the doorway. The crowd broke up as a man walked up to the two combatants and glared at them while they transformed from lycans back into men. They both bowed their heads in shame and turned to face their furious leader. "Well?" he pressured.

"We were…sparring sir."

"That is not sparring. That is carrying on for the sake of entertainment. How do you expect our species to earn respectability when you behave like the animals we are thought to be? We are not animals! Now clean yourselves up. As for the rest of you, get out on patrol!" he hollered.

The men ran out of the room without any arguments. It was wiser not to argue with their leader. Unlike the rest of them, he was a pureblood, the child of two lycans, a primitive and a progressive and in a sense the father of them all. It was his bite, given centuries ago, that transformed them from humans into lycans. The purpose was to create a race of slaves that would guard and protect the vampires during the daylight hours from the primitives. For many years the lycans labored in silence until he decided it was time for them to assert their independence. They escaped their prison and fled into the woods. He however, would return to the vampire fortress for the one thing that had been forbidden to him; his lover, the vampire Belle who was condemned to death by sunlight exposure for loving him.

He could still hear her screams as the sun's rays burned her flesh while he lay chained on the floor in a prison cell nearby, being beaten repeatedly with silver coated whips, her screams fueling his rage and giving him the strength to free himself from his chains but it was too late. His beloved Belle was gone…as was the child she carried. That day the lycans stormed the vampire fortress and nearly eradicated the entire species. The ones that survived relocated to another land but the hunt was on and for the lycan leader Rumplestiltskin it was personal. He and his brothers would hunt down and make every last vampire suffer as they'd made his Belle suffer before they died.

He was sitting outside enjoying the night air when he heard a noise behind him. He turned his head and smiled when he saw Bae standing there. Bae was his right hand, the first lycan he'd created and the one he trusted above all others. His smile turned to a frown when he noticed a silver throwing star protruding from the young man's side and yanked it out.

"I'm sorry Papa….I couldn't get it," Bae said sadly.

"It's no matter. We'll try again. It seems that the strength in this particular vampire coven comes from its women. Did you happen to catch the name of the Death Dealer you faced before she made you her dart board?"

"Emma. She's a vicious one but I heard her leader's even worse."

"Then her leader is whose blood I will need."

"Not the blood of an elder like Cora? Isn't that what we made that deal with Gaston for?"

"No. The strongest hybrid must be created from the strongest vampire and this mysterious female Death Dealer is exactly what I need. I will have her blood….and I will have my revenge," Rumple vowed.