Here we go, as promised. Above is a character glossary which'll be included at the top of most chapters from now on :) PS don't worry about the Vaughans because we haven't met them yet. There are also some new family trees in the Author's Note at the start of the book if you're interested in how the families originated.

We'd gotten careless, and now Mam was going to kill us slowly and painfully. Our only hope, really, was to catch the bastards before they got close enough to mind-link New Dawn, because then the flockies would come and kill us before Mam got the chance.

"They could have a ten-minute head-start, for all we know," Nia said. "Lily and Sam, take the cars onto the B road. They'll be heading to New Dawn, so they'll have to cross it. Make them stop - honestly, I don't care how. El, go check on Bryn and take the kids with you. Don't leave that cave until we get back, okay?"

I was stripping down even as she spoke, preparing for the shift as much as I could without flashing my entire family. Liam and Rhodri were doing the same beside me. My cousin's eyes were darker than usual, and he was too quiet, too still. He had a thing about people beating on his little brother.

"Okay," Ellis said, shuffling in place. Sam handed Poppy to him, and he took Jess's hand to stop her trying to follow us. Bryn was her brother, too, and she'd been happy enough to throw stones at the flockies at every opportunity even before they'd knocked him out. Her wrath would probably be worse than Rhodri's.

"You three are with me," Nia told us. She sounded calm enough, but we all knew it would be her neck on the line if they got away. She was supposed to be in charge, and we'd all been too busy screwing around to watch the flockies properly.

"I can lead?" I asked.

"Yes, you can lead," she sighed. "Let's see if you're as quick as you think you are. But ... just ... don't try fighting them, kiddo. You hear me? Rip and run."

She was scared they'd hurt me, and she was probably right to be. I didn't stand much chance of thrashing a Beta-in-waiting, let alone an Alpha, and let alone both of them at once.

"Sure, Nia. I ain't suicidal."

I turned around and shifted. There was a knack to it - you waited until the last possible second before stripping off, and if you were too late, you ended up wearing clothes in wolf form and looking like a total dumbass. I could feel my bones melting and reshaping themselves, feel the fur pushing its way through my skin ... then I landed on my forepaws.

There was no time to warm up. I just broke into a dead sprint and hit the accelerator until my muscles were burning. There was only way out of the gorge, so I didn't need to pick up the scent trail. Before long, I could see fresh pawprints in the mud anyway.

The others would be following me. Liam was the next fastest because he'd had so much practice chasing me, then Rhodri, and then Nia. By the time I cleared the gorge, they were so far behind that I just had to trust they were there.

I was going so fast that I didn't think I could have stopped if I'd wanted to. The power came from the hind legs, and it was all my forepaws could do to keep up with them most of the time. The ground was flat and firm enough to let me reach full speed. I knew I could manage somewhere in the region of forty-five miles an hour because I'd once raced a car.

The undergrowth was so dense that there was little option but to stick to the track. All the same, I lowered my muzzle to take a good whiff every now and then to make sure they hadn't pulled a fast one. I'd never been very good at tracking, in all honesty. I didn't have the patience for it.

Ten minutes had been a worst-case scenario. I reckoned they had closer to five. Before we'd gone more than a few miles, I could hear the thunder of footsteps on the path ahead of me. I should have slowed down, then. Tailed them from a safe distance and given my back-up some time to catch up.

Instead, I ducked my head and kicked off with my hind legs, preparing for one last burst of speed. And soon I was hurtling along so fast that the undergrowth was a green blur in the corners of my eyes. Hannah swung her head around to look at me, and I saw a flash of teeth. It was a polite warning to quit chasing them.

A warning I failed to heed. Before I could get any closer, they split. Hannah went left into the undergrowth, and Hayden carried on straight. Without really thinking, I plunged after Hannah. I reckoned they were just hoping one of them might be able to get away.

In reality, they were checking I was alone, and they were baiting me. Hannah knew she could kick my ass. She didn't realise I knew it, too. Instead of tackling her and trying to rip her throat out, I just reached out and snapped at the back of her leg. My teeth ripped through her pelt, severing tendon and muscle alike.

Hot, metallic blood filled my mouth. She twisted around, yelping, but I was already skipping backwards and turning tail. She could wait, now. She'd be going nowhere fast on three legs, and I had an Alpha to catch.

The idiot had stopped. I wasn't sure if he'd heard Hannah's yelp or if he'd been planning to come back and help her deal with me, but his giant of a wolf was standing in the path like a sitting duck. He started running again quickly enough when he saw me.

And he was reasonably fast for his size. I hung back at first, playing cautious. Before I could decide if it was worth the risk to bring him down or if I should just wait for Liam to catch up, the trees vanished, and I could see a vast expanse of road ahead of me. Hayden was already halfway across it.

Look left, look right, cross a busy road in broad daylight and risk exposing my entire species. What choice did I have, really? If even one of the flockies got away, Mam would tan all of our hides and hang them out to dry.

The road was hot beneath my paws. It jolted every joint in my body, and there was a horrible clattering of claws against tarmac. Hayden wasn't faring much better. By the time he reached the far bank, I was right on his heels.

I snapped at his leg. Only ... this time, I misjudged the distance. I got a mouthful of bone instead of muscle, and Hayden whipped around to seize hold of me while I was still trying to pull free. His teeth sank into the loose fur around my shoulder.

Shit.

I was flipped onto my back, and Hayden lay on me with all his considerable weight so he could move his teeth onto my neck. I didn't dare wriggle when one twitch from him could open my carotid. Instead, I went completely limp and whined a pitiful submission. If you can't beat 'em, make 'em feel sorry for you.

He should have taken a chunk out of my throat and left me to die. It would have put a stop to the pursuit, and he could have run home to New Dawn without a care in the world. Maybe even taken Hannah with him. I waited for the inevitable pain with my heart thundering.

The grip on my neck vanished, and a heartbeat later I felt his teeth close around my elbow. This time, the initial sting was followed by an awful, relentless pressure. If Hayden had known anything about anatomy, he would have bitten a few inches lower and broken my ulna instead. It would have hurt much less.

I'd often heard it said that a wolf's bite could break a thigh bone, and I'd felt that same power when I'd hunted deer. There was nothing like the feeling of bone crunching and cracking in your jaws. There was also nothing like the feeling of your own bones crunching and cracking in someone's else.

The pain came first - a hot, searing wave which sent me spiralling into unconsciousness just to escape it. I woke again all too quickly to see that Hayden had let go of me. The look he gave me was almost apologetic. The damage was done, and there wasn't a chance in hell I'd be able to chase him.

For a moment, I wished he'd just killed me. A glance at my leg showed me blood oozing and a shard of white bone poking out of my skin. I passed out again.

I kept drifting in and out of consciousness until the moment when a low growl rumbled from the trees behind me. Hayden turned around. I knew that growl, and I groaned to myself. The flockie might not want me dead, but he'd have absolutely no problem with trying to kill Liam for a clean break.

Cautiously, Liam padded around me and put himself between Hayden and me, his shoulders low and his stance defensive. He was stupid enough to risk a glance over his shoulder, and I beat my tail against the ground to tell him I was okay. Well, alive, anyway.

"You should fall back and wait for Rhodri," I told him through the link. It would have been the smart thing to do, even if it would have meant leaving me here all by myself.

Liam stayed exactly where he was. And Hayden, who couldn't risk turning his back on a fighter with actual talent, closed the distance and engaged him without a second's hesitation. Over and over they tumbled, their teeth flashing as they snapped at each other's throats.

My heart was in my mouth. Liam could look after himself - I knew that, but if he got himself killed in some unnecessary attempt to protect me... Rhodri had better hurry the hell up.

It was a fair fight, I supposed. They were both sons of Alphas. Hayden was bigger, but Liam was quicker. The rolling stopped when they crashed into a tree trunk. They were flung apart, and the tactical snapping turned to proper bites as they tested each other, each looking for an opening.

Hard to tell who was winning. Fights in wolf form were as much luck as talent, I reckoned, although talent certainly helped. Liam had just taken a chunk out of Hayden's flank when a timber wolf leapt over me and crashed into the pair of them.

Rhodri. It was about damn time. His lip was curled upwards, his chest rumbling with a snarl, and Hayden did the wise thing and retreated a few paces. Panting, he looked from Liam to Rhodri and back again. He must have realised it was over, but he didn't do the sensible thing and show his throat.

Dumbass Alpha. It could be that he was trying to buy time for poor, maimed Hannah. It could be that he was just too proud to go down without a fight. I didn't care which. I wanted this to be over so I could have some attention - both medical and some good old-fashioned sympathy.

Rhodri blocked the path ahead, and Liam came back over to stand in front of me. Before either of them could engage again, Nia arrived to join the party. She skirted around me and took up position between the boys, her hackles raised and her gaze predatory.

Hayden didn't know where to turn. He had rogues on all sides, and his blood splattered the ground every time he took a step. Eventually, he seemed to decide that Nia was not someone he should turn his back on, so she got the business end.

Three against one wasn't fair. They weren't trying to be fair, though. They were trying to subdue him before anyone else got hurt.

They all closed in at once. He didn't last more than a few seconds. Nia knocked him onto his side, Rhodri got a mouthful of scruff, and Liam fixed his jaws around the soft skin of his throat. Hayden was well and truly pinned, and he lay quietly, albeit without any signs of submission. It was about damn time.

"Hannah?" Nia asked through the link as she panted. It had been a long run by her standards, but I wasn't even winded.

"I left her a few hundred metres back," I said.

She opened the link a little wider. "Hannah, love, come and turn yourself in, or I'm going to use the pup's ears for a chew toy."

"No, you won't," Hannah said immediately.

"Why not?" Nia mused. "What could possibly make you think that us nasty criminals wouldn't abuse a prisoner? I can't think of anything."

Silence in the link.

"Unless ... unless you think we might be ... like ... decent people. But admitting it, well... Wow. That must be hard for you. Doesn't matter, anyway. You shouldn't have accepted the link."

Hannah wasn't a tapper. She was trained to defend her mind, like all high-ranking flockies, but those defences counted for jack squat when Nia was on the wrong side of the mind-link. She could knock her unconscious with half a thought, and I could only assume she'd done just that.

"Go get her, Rhodri," Nia said. "Liam, swap out with me. Eva's not looking so hot over there."

About damn time. My leg hadn't stopped hurting. If anything, it was hurting more, because the shock had worn off and there was nothing to distract me from the pain. At least while I'd been watching the fight, I'd been too busy worrying about Liam to remember that my leg was mangled.

Since Nia was the one lying on Hayden, she was the sensible choice to keep hold of his throat. Carefully, Liam eased his jaws free from the flockie's throat and let Nia take his place. Hayden tried to thrash immediately, but Nia clamped down a little tighter and made him regret it.

And finally Liam could do what he'd been itching to do since he'd first arrived. He picked himself up and came trotting over to snuff at me. My tail thumped against the ground again, but I didn't bother trying to lift my head. Even that much movement would send pain shooting through my leg.

Having anyone standing over me like that was enough to make my heart beat a little bit faster, but it was the good kind of vulnerability. The kind that distracted me from the debilitating agony for a moment. That only heightened when he pushed his nose against my throat and started licking the blood where Hayden's teeth had nicked the skin.

"Well?" Nia demanded through the link.

"Her leg is proper screwed up, and there's a lot of blood," he told her. "Someone's gonna have to get naked."

Nia looked up at him and sighed against Hayden's neck. "Are you volunteering?"

He paused his licking for a heartbeat. "Well ... we can't just let her bleed out."

That enthusiasm... My, my. How touching.

Rhodri was returning with a mouthful of Hannah's scruff. She looked dazed, and she was limping horribly, her blood-soaked hindleg held tight against her body. He dropped her beside Hayden and lay on top of her.

"You're right. Maybe we should make this jackass shift. He's the one who gnawed on her," Rhodri muttered as he shook leaves from his pelt.

Cautiously, Hayden joined the link. I could feel Nia slamming walls into place to protect the rest of us just in case he was planning something nefarious, but he only wanted to complain, "I feel like making me get naked in the middle of the woods would be abusive on some level."

"I feel like breaking someone's arm is abusive on some level," Nia retorted.

"Excuse me," I cut in. "Have you all forgotten Lily's close, first-aid trained and fully dressed?"

She grinned at me. "Well, look at you using your brain, Eva. This is a rare day indeed. I'll link her."

It didn't take Lily long to rock up with a very rudimentary first-aid kit and an armful of clothes. At least, not long in an objective sense. It felt like a lifetime to me, because my blood was oozing into the dirt in time with my heartbeat, the corners of my mind were tinged black with dizziness, and - oh, yeah. The constant excruciating pain.

"Okay dokey, what have we here, then?" Lily asked cheerfully. No sooner had she nudged Liam out of the way and crouched down beside me than she winced. "Ooh. Eva, that looks painful. And I'm really sorry, but I'm going to have to make it more painful."

What?

Why?

"Someone will need to hold her down," she went on.

Um? No thanks? I tried to get my legs beneath me so I could stand, but the injured leg didn't like that one bit. Liam came closer again, probably with the intention to make me lie still. I growled at him.

I didn't really mean to. He could have kicked my ass for that, but instead he dropped onto his belly and waited there, his eyes wide and apologetic. It didn't matter that I felt bad about it - my wolf was injured and very on edge, and she didn't appreciate anyone trying to pin her down. She would have growled at Lily, too, if she hadn't been so deathly afraid of Nia.

"Eva, there's a bone out of place. If I don't put it back, it's going to heal wrong and you won't be able to walk."

Yeah, I'd seen the bone. The next sound that came out of my mouth was an exhausted, miserable whimper. If my leg didn't heal properly and I ended up lame - unable to run - what was even the point in living?

Liam edged forwards to nip at my ear. He was asking for permission, and he was asking very politely, so I did let him put his weight on my shoulders. If I bit him by accident, it wouldn't matter much. If I bit Lily, I was dead.

It was easier, almost, to be restrained. Trying to hold yourself still was exhausting. This way I could cave to my instincts and thrash all I liked. I was breathing hard before Lily even touched my leg. When her fingers did eventually probe that bloody mess, my panting turned to strangled whimpers.

Her fingers went deeper still. I heard a slow count - one, two, three, and then I felt the bones grating together in my arm. I didn't stand a chance really. I was unconscious before I could even yelp.

I spent nearly a minute floating in the nice dark place just below my body. By the time I woke up again, Lily had manoeuvred the bone into position and taped copious amounts of gauze around the joint to stop the bleeding. Liam was lying beside me. He licked beneath my chin and wagged his tail the moment my eyes opened. Somehow, I found the energy to return the greeting.

"Don't shift until the bones set," Lily told me.

Great. The others had all shifted and dressed themselves. Lily was working on Hannah, now, who would be absolutely fine as soon as those tendons healed over. Unlike some people, I knew how to disable someone without splintering one of their joints.

Lily had also brought handcuffs. Nia slapped one pair between Hannah and Rhodri, and she used to the other to cuff herself to Hayden. He was a few inches taller than her, an awful lot broader in the shoulders, and he had absolutely perfected the art of glowering. I was just glad it wasn't me this time. He could be quite intimidating when he was sulking.

But then again, so could Nia. Only problem was - she was too busy making doe eyes at her mate to care much what Hayden was doing. As soon as Lily had finished bandaging Hannah, she closed the distance and put an arm around her waist.

"Watch the flockie a second," she told Rhodri, a smirk on her lips.

She turned around and kissed Lily hard to make her squeal and blush. It was pretty mild by their standards, but there must have been some tongue involved. Hayden was awfully close to a display of affection which would have got them both exiled from his pack if they were lucky ... and beaten if they weren't.

"Well?" Nia demanded. "How uncomfortable did he look on a scale of one to Putin?"

Rhodri scratched at the back of his neck. "Eh, I'd say about a three."

"Really?" Nia asked next, cocking an eyebrow. "Shit, please tell me he wasn't getting off on it?"

"Nah. I mean, it's hard to tell, but I don't think so."

Nia looked back to Hayden and frowned. He rolled his eyes skyward. "I told you. I'm not homophobic."

"Okay, fine, I guess," she sighed.

"Would you rather I was?" the flockie demanded, utterly exasperated.

"Nah. Just finding it hard to believe," Nia said. "I look forward to seeing things change when you take over."

It was nothing less than a threat. Prove it, she was saying. Packs were still so intolerant because all the tolerant people kept their heads down and their mouths shut. We needed to flip the scales, and an Alpha was an excellent place to start.

Hayden didn't rise to it. He just stared at her, entirely miserable for a moment, and he muttered, "So do I."

***

I stumbled for the third time and swore under my breath. I'd lost enough blood to make me woozy, and even Liam's arm beneath my shoulders wasn't enough to make my legs function correctly. It didn't help that I hadn't been able to put my injured arm through my shirt, so it was tucked tight against my body and useless for balance.

The others were taking the cars back, but I couldn't jump with broken bones, so Liam and I were making the long trek through the woods. I was wearing a shirt that was big enough to reach my knees, a pair of cargo shorts and some boxers, so I was a little chilly. Car-boot emergency clothing stashes weren't incredibly comprehensive.

"Next time, Eva, how about you wait for me to catch up before you try and fight an Alpha and a Beta all by yourself?" Liam was saying. His tone was breezy enough, but his jaw was tighter than I'd seen it in a while.

"Pft," I said. "I can handle myself."

It was very much false bravado. There'd been enough pain to make me skittish around Hayden for the rest of my miserable life, and I could still feel the pinch of his teeth around my throat. I imagined I'd have a nice necklace of little white scars to join the existing ones.

"Oh yeah?" he asked, squeezing my side. "I'm curious - how long did it take him to put you on the floor? Five seconds? Three?"

"Shut up."

"If you need some private lessons, I'd be happy to-"

"Why would I bother fighting anyone when I can just run away?" I laughed. "You're a hypocrite, anyway. You didn't wait for Rhodri."

And now he was wearing the consequences. A dozen bites littered his body, none of them particularly deep or serious, but they were leaving spots of blood on his nice clean clothes. It was comforting to know that Hayden was bleeding worse.

"No," Liam agreed. "The flockie's just a pup, though, ain't he?"

"So are you."

He avoided my eyes. "Maybe. Maybe not."

For all he knew, Hayden was older than him, but I wasn't hearing much doubt in that tone. More ... evasiveness. I fiddled with the hem of my shirt and avoided looking at him. "If you found your mate, you'd tell me, right?"

He stopped walking and stared at me. He was frowning like he wasn't sure why I'd even ask such a thing, and his eyes were as earnest as I'd ever seen them. "Yes."

Shit. There went the chance he'd just been keeping his mouth shut all this time. He could have been lying, I supposed, but it would be the first time he'd ever lied to me, so I doubted it, somehow.

"At least then we'll finally know your birthday," I muttered.

"Nah," Liam sighed. "Fion says that it doesn't happen like that. Back in the day, people would find their mates when they hit puberty. She reckons it's when you think you're ready on some subconscious level, not a biological clock counting out eighteen years."

"Oh," I said. So ... he'd asked, then. He must have started to wonder, too. There was a little part of me which had been counting the days, weighing the odds that he could've been younger than we'd first thought. It had been looking bleak before I'd been exiled and positively hopeless by the time I'd returned.

We were staring at each other. No sooner had I realised that than his eyes snapped to the trees behind me, and they widened in surprise. Before I could even guess at the cause, he had a hand over my mouth, and he was dragging me down into a shallow, muddy ditch.

He was right to do it. I would have frozen or squealed. As it was, all I could do was let out a muffled groan against Liam's hand as pain exploded in my injured arm, which had been crushed underneath me. The groan didn't help, so I tried to pant through it.

"I know, I know. I'm sorry," he said through the link.

Slowly, cautiously, he took his hand away from my mouth, and his weight eased away from my back. The arm that had been wrapped around my waist was carefully withdrawn. I sat on my haunches to peek over the top and get a glimpse of whatever had spooked him. There were four lupine-shaped silhouettes snuffing at the end of the trees.

Flockies. Could this day get any worse?

I ducked back down and whispered curses. Either Hayden had managed to mind-link someone or this was one of the anti-rogue patrols which now roamed Snowdonia on weekends and Bank holidays. It didn't really matter which. We couldn't stay here. I sent a quick mind-link to Nia to warn her.

"Are you okay?" Liam breathed.

I closed my eyes and tried to ignore my poor, abused elbow. Some of the damage had healed, but most hadn't, and the flesh was still shredded. Jostling it hurt, moving it hurt more, and falling onto it felt like someone had set my entire arm on fire and then run it through a woodchipper.

"Oh, yeah. Never been better," I drawled.

It came out quieter than I'd intended. Liam looked at the flockies, then he looked me up and down and decided very quickly that I wasn't going to be any use whatsoever.

"Right, stay here. I'll be back in a-"

I yanked on his shirt with my good hand and laughed at him. "No."

Liam cocked an eyebrow. "You're not in charge of me."

He was just teasing, but my wolf cowered away, the spineless little mutt that she was. Any glimpse of a bigger, tougher wolf and she was rolling onto her back. I had to wrestle with her before she'd let me answer back.

"They're called flockies for a reason. How much do you wanna bet they have friends nearby? Your life? Mine?" I asked him.

"That's our scent trail, Eva," Liam told me patiently, nodding towards the path. "If they follow it, they're going to find the kids. Those are odds I like even less."

"Only if they pick the right direction," I said.

Grinning, I handed him a rock and found another for myself. There were two scent trails on that path, both so fresh that it would be hard to tell which one had come first. I lifted my arm and pitched the rock with all my strength, sending it sailing into the bushes behind the flockies.

Liam did the same, and then we rinsed and repeated until one of the wolves cocked his head like he'd heard something. Off he went into the trees, tail held high and nose to the ground. His friends followed him in a loose pack, all jostling for position. That was hunting behaviour.

Easy peasy. We'd bought ourselves a few minutes while they followed the trail over the road, at least. Less if they looked back and spotted the smudge of smoke that was rising from our barbeque.

Another handful of wolves came trotting down the path a minute later, summoned by the mind-link to join the hunt. I looked at Liam, not bothering to hide my smugness. He'd have died for sure. He flicked my good arm and helped me stand up the moment they were out of sight.

We stole back to the pool on silent feet. Everyone had converged on the cave, except for Sam, who'd clearly been entrusted with the task of making sure Jess Llewellyn didn't murder our hostages on sight. He had the little girl tucked against his shoulder, and he was ignoring her constant, merciless attempts to bite him. I offered him a pitying smile as I passed.

The inside of the cave was crowded. Bryn was lying on his side, curled up and looking ... well, absolutely fine. I took that to mean he'd recovered from the head injury already and had stayed down to make himself look pathetic and hopefully deflect Nia's wrath. It seemed to be working.

"Bryn, care to explain why our prisoners were roaming the woods?" Nia asked him. Her tone was even and reasonable, and her eyes were their usual shade of hazel.

"It wasn't his fault," Eira protested. "If I hadn't been asleep-"

"Did I ask you?" Nia demanded. "No? Then shut up. You're allowed to sleep whenever you damn please, Eira."

"I only took my eyes off them for a second, alright?" Bryn blurted out before my sister could pick a fight. "I gave Hannah the insulin, 'cause she said she needed it before she ate, and that seemed ... reasonable, like. Only she picked the lock with the needle. One of them clonked me over the head with... I dunno what they used, actually, but it hurt."

I looked at the needle in question. It was a tiny little thing - literally, the smallest needle I'd ever seen. Why would a flockie have learnt to pick locks, anyway? To break into the biscuit cupboard? Clearly, Hannah had participated in some extra-curricular activities at New Dawn.

As it stood, she was too busy eating a Mars Bar to pay any attention to us. Her hands were visibly shaking with every bite, and I had to assume that taking insulin and then skipping lunch to run through the forest was not a very good idea. She would never have made it to New Dawn, and honestly I wasn't sure what she'd been thinking.

"Which one did the clonking?" Rhodri demanded, looking between the flockies.

"Oh, right, yeah, I'll just rat on command," Bryn sniggered. "I'm feeling a little betrayed, not gonna lie, but I don't want someone murdered, big brother."

Rhodri nodded sharply. He stepped up to Hayden and stared at him, his fingers curling at his sides like he wanted to make a fist. "If you don't tell me, I'm just going to assume it was him."

I saw Hannah avert her eyes and stuff her hands into her pockets, and I assumed she was the actual guilty party. I wasn't going to snitch on her. She and Hayden had probably grown up together. We'd abducted the closest thing she'd ever had to a brother, and now she was powerless to protect him. If the roles were reversed, I didn't think Rhodri would care how many sixteen-year-olds he clouted to get Bryn out.

"We need him alive," Nia reminded him in the bored, lazy sort of tone which usually meant she was losing patience.

Rhodri swung his head to look at his brother pointedly before fixing his eyes back on Hayden. "I ain't thinking of killing him."

"He could have done a lot worse, Rhodri," she told him, slowly and deliberately, like she was speaking to a little kid. "To Eva as well. Let's not punish people for not killing our family members."

"It was me, anyway," Hannah said matter-of-factly, because apparently she was just that dumb. "And I'd do it again."

Stupid, stupid girl. She was cuffed to him, for Goddess' sake. Rhodri turned sharply, and he rounded on her like he might throw a punch, but she just stared at him. It was almost like she was daring him to do it.

"Touch her and I'll cuff her to your brother instead," Nia warned him. It was really the only thing she could say. "We don't beat prisoners. Not even when they deserve it."

Rhodri made a sound of disgust and turned away. He ended up facing Liam and me, noticing us at last. He looked us over, doubtless noting that we were both muddy from the ditch and my arm was still tight against my chest. Some of the breaks had healed. Some hadn't.

"The flockies - how close are they?" he asked.

"Close," Liam said.

Nia looked from the gorge entrance to the plume of smoke rising from our barbeque. "Time to go, you think?"

We both nodded. Llechi had supposed to be our last day of fun and games before we had to decide if we were going to Silver Lake. And now the food was burnt to a crisp, the burgers were sat forlorn and forgotten on the grass, and we would have to go home when we'd only just got here. I was tempted to smack the pup-Alpha myself.

"I don't want to go yet. I'm hungry," Matty whined.

"Me too," Ahmed threw in. His stomach rumbled on cue, and the others soon murmured a chorus of agreement. Since all the food we had needed cooking, our spending money was currently going up in smoke with the barbeque meat, and Hannah was scoffing down every snack bar we owned, we were left with one option. There was only one place we could get free food between here and the camp.

It looked like we were going to see our great-grandma.