And now it reaaally begins :)

Most Alphas had a suite in the packhouse, but there had been a fiery incident at New Dawn a few decades back, and they'd learned their lesson about separating work and home life. Jace's house was huge, and it had probably cost half a million to build, but for an Alpha that was pocket change, so who cared, right?

To my surprise, he unlocked the door and led us inside. We went through a corridor and into a living room that was probably bigger than the entire cabin. There were leather sofas, two massive TVs and a plush cream carpet.

"Wow," I said. "I like it. Spacious, airy, all this natural light..."

Jace caught hold of my collar and hauled me towards the sofa. "Shut up. Sit down."

I found myself sinking into the seat. My experiences with sofas were few and far between, but I wasn't entirely sure I trusted the things. It seemed to me that you could sit down and get engulfed and never be seen again.

"If you touch anything, you will regret it," Jace warned us.

"Whatever, mate," Bryn drawled. He'd already picked up a little china robin, and he was examining it in great detail.

Jace pretended not to notice to save himself the trouble of yet another argument. He turned away to rummage through a drawer for a moment. When he was done, he put a notepad and a pen in front of me. "I want a phone number for Skye, or you're not going anywhere."

So, of course, I linked Liam, and I got him to google the phone number for the NSPCC. With luck, he'd start a conversation about the children he'd just abducted and wind up in all kinds of trouble. We did want him to talk to Mam, obviously, but that didn't mean I had to make it easy for him. I pushed the phone number back towards him, trying to smother my grin.

"You think I don't recognise that number?" he demanded. "Hilarious, pup. Try again."

Dammit. Why did I have to get caught by the only smart Alpha in the entirety of Snowdonia? I linked Liam for a second time, ignoring his lazy bemusement, then I pretended to think for a moment before adding the customer support number for Sky broadband.

Jace took one look at it and shook his head. "That's not a mobile prefix."

I shrugged at him. "Course not. Mam's not stupid enough to carry a mobile, 'cause you guys can track those things, right? It's an indirect line of communication, yeah, but you'll reach her. Just ask for Skye."

He regarded me through narrowed eyes, but he did pocket the piece of paper without any more arguments. Turned out I wasn't so dumb myself.

Once Jace had made the others sit down, too, he cuffed Ellis to the arm of the sofa. It was an easy way to keep us from running — obviously, we couldn't leave the kid behind. He left Hayden to watch us while he went to open the door to the kitchen.

"We have guests," he said.

There were three women sat at the kitchen table. One was the Luna. I knew her by sight. The second looked kinda like Jace except younger, so I reckoned she might have been his sister. The third ... now, I had to look twice at her, because she looked an awful lot like my mam. They were all staring at us with total bewilderment.

"Oh, look, it's the blood traitor," I muttered under my breath. The others jeered an agreement. Mam's twin had passed information to the flockies and helped them sack the castle, so it was safe to say she wasn't invited to the annual family picnics anymore.

Aunty Kara blinked at us. "Who the hell are they, Jace? And what are they doing here?"

"That's not your concern. I just need you to watch them. I don't care if you have to make them pancakes and put Netflix on — just keep them quiet while I sort this mess out, would you?"

"Why can't you do it?" the dark-haired women asked.

He shrugged. "Because I have more important things to do."

"So do we," she complained, but Jace was already gone. That left us with Hayden and the three women, and I stared at each of them in turn, trying to decide which one was most likely to let me use the toilet.

"Uh, did I hear pancakes?" Bryn piped up. "Because we're starving over here. And, um, I think Eva needs to pee."

I was so past 'needing to pee' now. I was in the realm of complete and utter agony, where it was a constant struggle to keep the pee inside. I wasn't sure I'd ever needed the toilet this badly in my life. Sitting still didn't help. Moving certainly didn't help.

Lucky for me, the Luna noticed me squirming and came over to pull me to my feet. "Come on, then. I'm not having you wetting yourself on my sofa."

I let her herd me out of the room because, yeah, I was that desperate. And I flipped my aunt off as I went past her, much to her bewilderment. The Luna showed me to a bathroom, and then she shut me inside. I didn't hear any retreating footsteps, so it was safe to assume she was guarding the door. Sensible of her.

Left alone at last, I scanned the room. Toilet, sink, shower, and bingo — a window wide enough to fit Rhodri's hulking ass, let alone little old me. It was locked, and the key was missing, but that wouldn't stop me. I looked at it and grinned.

Of course, there was a shadow on the glass which looked suspiciously like a pair of legs, but that wasn't surprising, really. It certainly wouldn't stop me. What a wonderful opportunity to add a touch of realism and make the flockie sweat a little.

I went to the toilet as quickly as humanly possible, and then I sacrificed the chance to wash my hands for a few extra seconds before my babysitter got suspicious. Forcing the lock wasn't difficult. Once the window was open, I climbed onto the windowsill and jumped out feet-first. The handcuffs didn't even slow me down.

My feet touched the grass, and I managed to take all of three steps before Hayden Lloyd caught my collar from behind and pulled me backwards onto my arse. He was a tad overzealous about it — what with being young and male and terrified of letting a skinny-ass girl get the better of him. So I hit the ground hard, landing on the tender bruise where the Shadowless Beta had broken my ribs

While I was still gasping for breath, he flipped me onto my stomach and pinned me in place with a knee across my back. The only reason I could breathe under all that crushing weight was that my hands were trapped beneath me. It was ... uncomfortable, to say the least.

"Lie still," Hayden snapped.

"Yeah, yeah. Cool it, flockie. I'm cooperating, ain't I?" I managed to mutter. And I was, I supposed, if only because I couldn't squirm without hurting myself even worse.

He waited a few seconds to make sure I meant it, and then the weight on my back eased a fraction. I took a series of deep and raspy breaths. I supposed I would be a hypocrite to complain, given that my cousin had nearly choked him out not twenty minutes ago, but still.

"You must think we're really stupid," he told me snidely.

And he was right. I reckoned he was dumb as a doornail, and he was only helping prove my point. Clearly it hadn't occurred to him that he'd been plainly bloody visible from inside, and clearly he thought I'd try to escape all by my lonesome and leave the others to take the consequences.

After a moment, he got to his feet, pulling me with him, and I clutched at my ribs as they tore me a new one.

"Are you okay?" he asked.

I blinked at him. Not what I'd been expecting, I'd admit. "Well, I'm not having the best day ever."

Hayden dropped his eyes to my ribs for a moment. "No, I mean... Did I hurt you?"

Goddess. He wouldn't last a minute in this world.

"You're supposed to hurt me, pup. It's in the job description," I said, trying to make it sound like I didn't give a shit.

He shook his head. "My job is to keep the pack safe. If you try and hurt them, then yes — I'll try and hurt you, but beyond that ... no."

I just stared. I didn't know what else to do, really. And just to baffle me even further, he moved the cuffs up my wrists to check that the skin underneath wasn't bruised. He even frowned when he noticed how tight they were. I found myself scowling, because I didn't want to like him, and I was still scowling as he took me back into the house and deposited me beside Rhodri.

The Luna just sighed at me. She looked closer to disappointed than angry. She was now in the process of cracking eggs into a mixing bowl, so it was safe to assume that Bryn had nagged his way into some free lunch. And that's how the Luna of New Dawn ended up making us pancakes on a cloudy Monday morning.

They were good pancakes, too — topped with Nutella and strawberries. I could see why Hayden had grown so tall if he ate like this every day. We all managed about half a dozen. Well, except Rhodri, who couldn't eat with his hands cuffed behind him. He had to sit there and watch the rest of us.

It wasn't long before Jace came back to demand a real phone number, and I gave it to him, if only because he asked nicely this time. I got a please and a thank you — the guy must have been truly desperate to get rid of us.

When we'd finished our lunches, we ended up sitting in silence, unwilling to talk in front of strangers. Hayden hadn't taken his eyes off us the entire time. He was taking his job very seriously, bless him. Once she'd cleared the table, Aunty Kara sat down heavily in the armchair opposite and peered at us.

"You're my sister's kid, aren't you?" she asked me. "I don't know what you've been told—"

"Just the truth," I assured her.

A resigned frown. "Right. I get it."

And after five minutes, no one had yet bothered to say another word. Kara, her face like sour milk, sighed heavily. "Huh. This is somehow more awkward than I anticipated."

We answered her with blank stares and rolling eyes. If she didn't like 'awkward,' she shouldn't have chosen to live with flockies. They seemed to embrace that sort of thing to the point where I was pretty sure 'awkward' was their entire lifestyle.

Kara started tapping her fingers against the table, and she looked around the room for inspiration for nearly a full minute before her eyes landed on a stack of what looked like DVDs. "Do you kids like Mario Kart?"

Rhodri, Bryn and I looked to Ellis, who only shrugged. If he hadn't heard of it, it must be some pack tradition beyond our meagre comprehension.

"Nope," I said, popping the 'p.'

The frustrated hope in her voice dimmed. But still, she offered, "Have you tried it? I can show you."

Rhodri's lip curled in derision. I pulled a similar face, and even Ellis looked mistrustful. But Bryn, damn him, asked with the barest glint of interest, "What is it?"

"Bryn," I ground out — a reminder that we were supposed to be broody around our evil aunt. His good-nature had been known to interfere with his rogueness, this being a shining example.

He shot me a rueful look, his head down, all meek like. I wasn't fooled. "I'm bored, y'know. Or are we going to sit here silently for hours?"

He had a point. Goddess only knew how long it would take Jace to parlay with my mam.

"Fine. Show us the ... the ... whatever it's called, alright?" I sighed.

Mario Kart turned out to be some kind of video game where you raced around a virtual course and threw bananas and tortoises at each other. I wasn't sure who had come up with this, and I wasn't sure why, but my family loved anything with some healthy competitive spirit, so we played quite happily for hours straight.

Sam didn't want to join in and Rhodri couldn't, so it was just the three of us. And despite our best efforts to bait him, Hayden refused to join in. He just stood there, oh-so-serious and watching us like a bloody hawk. It unnerved me, and so Ellis won with time to spare, if only because Bryn was too busy screwing around to focus on anything as insignificant as steering.

"My dad has talked to your parents," Hayden told us after a while. He'd been frozen in a mind-link for the last five minutes. "They're trying to agree on a meeting point as we speak."

So Jace was going to hand us back. It was all he could do, really. He couldn't kill us. He could hold us hostage and demand that Mam surrendered herself, but she wasn't stupid enough to comply. Even keeping us in his prison would bring holy hellfire raining down on his pack in the form of constant, merciless raiding.

Simply letting us go was an option, of course, but Jace had never been one to turn down the opportunity for a conversation with an enemy, apparently. And that was exactly what Mam happened to want, too. I had no idea why.

"Which parents in particular?" Bryn asked. "Because we have a lot."

Here, Hayden smiled a little. "I have no idea, but they seemed inclined to let you rot here."

"On seconds thoughts, I think we'll stay," I muttered. Had to make it convincing, after all. "For a few months. Years, even. However long it takes them to forget any of this happened."

Rhodri had other thoughts. He regarded the boy with his head cocked dangerously. "You'd better not be using us for bait."

Hayden shook his head. "No. Luckily for you, Dad won't hear of it."

I snorted aloud, getting the impression that poor Hayden had suggested that repeatedly, to no avail.

"Clever guy, your dad," Sam agreed. "They'd smell a trap a mile off."

"Maybe," Hayden muttered. "On your feet, now. He'll be over soon."

Of course, we didn't jump to obey. In the time it took him to wrestle Bryn to his feet, I leant back against the sofa and tugged my link to Liam, asking for an update.

"They're heading into the Silverstones," he told me. "Are you all okay?"

"Yeah, we're doing alright," I said, thinking of the pancakes and the video games and smiling a little. "And what do you mean they? Where are you going to be?"

"Hell if I know. Your parents won't let me come, so I guess I'll sit in a bush somewhere and join you afterwards."

That was ... weird. I got why he hadn't been allowed to come to New Dawn in the first place — we'd been thrown in a cell, after all, and that would have gone poorly for Liam. But there was nothing about the negotiation that would set him off, and he was a damn good fighter. Maybe Mam was trying to keep him away from Jace.

Hayden was looking at me funny, so I closed the link and stood up. It was past time I found out why the hell we were here.

***

The meet-up site was a stretch of abandoned railway in the foothills of the Silverstones. It led back up to the mines at Llechi, I'd wager, and it had probably been used to move the slate to Porthmadog back in the day. Today, it was covered in wild grass and brambles.

The boys had been left in the car, only to be released contingent upon a rational discussion taking place, but Jace had brought me with him. His motives, as far as I could tell, was that he thought I was Mam's heir just because I was her oldest kid, and he wanted me to hear the talks. He couldn't have been more wrong. I didn't have the temperament or the motivation to lead anyone.

Mam was on the other side of the tracks. She'd got here first to scout and make sure Jace wasn't just trying to kill her. She had my dad at her right shoulder and Uncle Ollie at her left. That was a fairly standard arrangement for meeting with raiders. Less standard — Fion was stood behind them. Jace was a tapper and a bloody strong one at that, so she would shield them mentally.

No other raiders. Not even Uncle Rhys and Nia, who were off doing Goddess only knew what. The numbers were even, though. Jace had only brought his Beta, his dark-haired little sister and a Delta. The female who'd tear gassed us in the prison was guarding the car, and she had a Glock in case the boys tried anything.

And that was it. Four flockies, four rogues and little old me standing on either side of some very overgrown tracks. Jace's Beta had a death grip on my shirt collar to stop me wandering off. I might have disliked him for that, but he'd been cracking non-stop train puns the whole way here, so he couldn't be all bad.

"It's been a while," Jace began quietly. "You look ... older."

"Yes," Mam said. "Almost like I've aged. Isn't that weird?"

Jace looked skyward and didn't deign to reply.

In the silence, Mam turned to me and looked me up and down, doubtless checking for injuries. "Hello, Eva. I've got a bone to pick with you later."

"Whatever," I muttered.

She raised her eyebrows sharply. "Whatever? Careful, pup. You nearly got yourself killed today, and worse — you made me trek halfway across Snowdonia and play at being friendly with this sanctimonious prick."

Jace took that very well, all things considered. His eyes narrowed a fraction, and he took a deep breath as though he was trying to inhale some patience, but he didn't cuss her out or even snap a retort. My own answer was a helpless shrug.

"Take the cuffs off her, Jace, and then we can talk," Mam said after a while.

"The cuffs stay on," he countered with a shake of his head. "She hasn't been the most compliant of prisoners."

Actually, I thought I'd been quite good, all things considered. If you discounted the threat against his son's life and the minor escape attempt, I had just sat there and done what I was told all afternoon, and that was no easy feat for someone raised to cause trouble.

Mam kicked at the gravel, sending it rattling onto the track. "Oh, fine then. I'm listening. Let's get this horseshit over with."

"I was just going to ask if you're ready to surrender yet," he said.

Oh, he had a nerve. I would have thought he was joking if he had possessed a sense of humour. Mam clearly shared the sentiment — she choked on thin air and exchanged a bewildered, disbelieving look with my dad.

"Don't you think this has gone far enough?" Jace pressed. "You've lost three-quarters of your fighters. Your kind are on the verge of extinction. How many more people need to die before you admit that you've lost, Skye?"

Mam laughed aloud. "You say that like I could just call a halt to the war. Like I could surrender and we'd all just live happily ever after, no more questions asked. There's no way out for us except into the ground — you and your colleagues have made quite certain of that."

"Not true," he said without hesitation. "You could go to Anglesey. Kaeden would take you in — I know he would."

Mam went very still. She actually stopped breathing for a moment, I reckoned. "How the hell do you know Kai?"

"Wouldn't you like to know?" Jace asked, visibly amused. "It doesn't matter. Go there. Go anywhere. I don't care as long as you stop pretending you're fighting for your life here. At the end of the day, you're the ones who are choosing to stay, and you're the ones who are choosing to cross the borders every damn week."

"Is that how it works? You guys slaughter our friends without provocation, and we're supposed to just piss off and leave you to it?"

The Alpha raised his eyebrows. "You and I have very different definitions of 'without provocation,' Skye. Your father kidnapped my mother and held her to ransom. He killed two of Silver Lake's Alphas personally, and you killed a third."

Here, Mam had the nerve to smile. She was very proud of tearing Keith Vaughan's throat out, and rightly so. He'd done more than anyone to sack the castle.

"And have you forgotten the hundreds of times you went raiding in your teenage years?" he continued. "Have you forgotten how many pack fighters you must have killed during that time? Hell, you murdered three hundred people in the Silverstones alone."

"I'm not debating the ferals with you right now. It's bloody pointless," she said firmly. "Now, is there anything you wanted beyond my unconditional surrender, or are we free to go?"

"I do have some requests," Jace agreed, scuffing the dirt with his heel. "I'm sure you've heard about the amendment by now. I'm going to need you to stop raiding Zach and Jaden for a few weeks if I'm going to stand a chance of convincing them to vote it down."

Mam waited for a nod from Ollie before saying, "We can do that. Yeah. I'll want all five of the kids here before I make any promises, but it's definitely possible."

"Secondly, I'm sure you're aware that I'm breaking pack law by talking to you right now, so you will need to keep your mouth shut about all of this."

"You think I'm going to broadcast this here situation? No, of course not. What else?"

"Leave the line of communication open," he finished. "I'm not saying we need a hotline or anything that drastic, but if I were to mind-link Fion, you could then pick up the phone when I call."

"You still think we can talk this out, don't you?" Mam asked. Her lips were smiling, but her eyes were not. "After all this time, everything that's happened ... and you think you can end the war with a few pretty words."

Jace sighed quietly. For a split moment, all the cold indifference slipped away to reveal the bone-deep weariness beneath. "I have to try."

"Looks like we're getting a little off track," the Beta muttered from behind me.

He was thoroughly ignored, but Jace did accept that the conversation wasn't going anywhere. "You agree to the requests, then? I'll take your word on this occasion."

Mam nodded absently. "You have it."

Satisfied, Jace sent his Delta towards the car, and we had to stand there and wait for ten minutes while he brought the boys back with him. The Beta unlocked my handcuffs and let me walk over to my parents. Mam was still pretending to be annoyed at me, and I ignored Dad's worried questions because I really was annoyed at him.

It didn't make much difference standing on the other side of the tracks. If anything, I was more uncomfortable because Jace could stare at me, and there was something very unnerving about those cold, calculating eyes. I did get a good view of the boys being herded towards us like so many ducklings, though.

And, one by one, they were released. Jace left Rhodri for last, of course. He was helped on his way with a none-too-gentle shove, and I had to catch his arm and yank to stop him doing anything stupid in retaliation. Aside from that, the whole exchange had gone smoothly. Almost too smoothly...

Mam looked them over carefully, too. Like me, they were physically unharmed, so it didn't take her long.

"Go and wait in the car, kiddo," she told my brother. "We won't be long."

Ellis went, and Sam followed after a discreet nod. That should have been my first clue. She sent them away because they weren't raiders. We outnumbered the flockies seven to four now, and we could all look after ourselves should it come to violence. And Mam clearly thought it might.

"I think this whole conversation was a train-wreck," the Beta blurted without warning. He shuffled awkwardly from foot to foot, probably hoping one of us would laugh. "That one was quite engine-ious, don't you think?"

"Shut up, Tyler," Jace snapped.

"Where's Rhys?" he demanded. "He'd appreciate me."

And, at long last, Mam started grinning. "Yeah, that's a good question. One you should have been asking yourself a long time ago, Jace. Where is Rhys?"

I wanted to know, too. If Rhys and Nia weren't here, they were up to something, and I could take a wild guess that it might be something diabolical.

"He's not dead," Jace said slowly, almost like he was asking for confirmation. "I would have heard by now."

Mam let out a snort of laughter. "Dead? No. Not even close."

And now Jace was frowning.

"He's not far," Ollie offered. "Try again, and this time think a little harder."

The frown deepened until the Alpha went very, very still. He was hardly even daring to breathe, and his eyes fixed on my Mam with a brand-new emotion burning within their depths. Fear.

"I think you might want to try mind-linking home," Mam told him.

He did. Without argument or a second's hesitation, he closed his eyes and reached out towards his family. While I waited for the verdict, I picked at my fingernails. Surely Mam wouldn't have ordered them to kill the Luna or the pup, right? Not after he'd returned us without a scratch?

I wasn't sure I could put it past her. Jace must have felt the same way — he ran a hand through his hair and swore viciously. He hadn't looked afraid when Rhodri had put his arm around Hayden's neck, but he'd known Rhodri wouldn't do it. This was ... in another league.

"How does betrayal feel, Jace?" she asked. "Not great, huh? You do a nice thing for someone, and they turn around and bury a knife in your back for no reason whatsoever. That must be ... wow. I can't even imagine."

"He's mind-linking his mate now," Bryn told us cheerfully. "Huh, that's weird. They're actually quite frosty with each other. And now he's talking to his third, and now ... ooh, he's trying to link Dad, but he ain't picking up."

As if Uncle Rhys would answer him and open a highway straight into his mind. It could be that Jace really was just trying to talk, but I doubted it, somehow. Tappers couldn't help themselves. At least Nia was there to mount a defence if necessary.

Jace stared at Bryn with open uncertainty. His brow was furrowed and his eyes were wide and wary, because it shouldn't have been possible. Not really. Bryn's talent for overhearing mind-links came from his Shadowcat great-grandfather, and our two species weren't supposed to mix.

"You leave Rhys alone," Fion said matter-of-factly, "or I'm going to pick a fight."

"I didn't do anything to him, alright?" Jace replied shortly. And that was probably true, if only because he wasn't now frozen in some mental pissing contest with Nia. "Why don't you just skip to the part where you explain what you're doing and why?"

Mam cocked her head to one side. "Alright. Believe it or not, you're quite predictable. I knew you wouldn't kill the puppies, and I knew you wouldn't bring your only son to this little tête-à-tête in case I killed you both and left New Dawn without an heir. So poor little Hayden was left home alone."

Great. It was the pup, then. Dead or kidnapped, though? I wasn't fond of either option. He hadn't been horrible to me, so I didn't want him to get his neck snapped, but I didn't want to spend any more time with him, either.

"So, Rhys and Nia..." Mam continued. "Hey, you remember Nia, don't you? The baby? She's grown a bit since you saw her last. Anyway, they crossed the border nearly an hour ago, and they just recently came back out again. Only now they've got a guest..."

"What the hell have you done, Skye?" Jace demanded. There was a sharp edge to his voice which made it sound like his shock was finally giving way to anger.

"Huh. I'm getting tingles. We've been here before, haven't we?" Mam laughed. She cocked her head to one side again as Jace growled at her.

"He's alive," she told him. "For now, anyway."

Jace took a step forwards like he might take a swing at her, and the rest of us surged forwards to get between him and Mam. It didn't matter in the end. His Beta and his sister got a good grip on his shirt and dragged him back into line.

"Like I said — I knew you wouldn't kill my kids. I have no such inhibitions about killing yours. So you're going to sit tight, and you're going to do exactly as you're told for the next few months, or we'll start mailing you body parts."

Jace blew out hard. He was visibly wrestling with his wolf now — those blue eyes were streaked with black. Another growl slipped out. It was quieter this time.

"Shh," Mam sighed. "Cool it. He'll be safe as long as you behave yourself. And no clever ideas about springing him, alright? We have sleepers in your pack, and they'll be keeping a close eye on you — never fear."

We had no sleepers in New Dawn whatsoever, but he was welcome to spend the next few months accusing his own pack members of spying on him if he wanted. Less heat for us.

"You've gone too far this time," Jace said. I believed him. His cold blue eyes were frozen solid now, and I could smell the hatred coming off him in disconcerting waves. He'd been trying to help us. I would have probably felt the same way in his position.

"You went too far at Lle o Dristwch," Ollie replied. He was wearing a smile that didn't reach his eyes, which was very unlike him, but I knew he'd been held at Corwen with the other prisoners-of-war. And I'd heard they'd put ferals in with the rogues just to keep them under control.

Jace just stared at him. The conversation, it seemed, was over.

"We'll be in touch," Mam said finally, and then she turned to leave. The rest of us followed dutifully. Jace was left standing on the tracks, his thunderous scowl so at odds with the fear in his eyes.