"Eva?"

"Go to hell," I mumbled into my pillow.

A moment's silence, and then I felt the pillow beneath my head move. "Eva. Hey. You've got work in an hour."

"Then I'll get up in an hour," I told him matter-of-factly. I was determined to keep my eyes closed, because opening them meant I was awake, and that just didn't appeal.

Liam didn't give up easy. I'd give him that. He prodded me in the ribs, and then he kept prodding until I groaned. "And skip your run?"

Oh dear. There'd be no easy escape from this conversation. Relenting, I opened my eyes a crack - just far enough to glower at the sleepy, tousled boy sharing my bed. He didn't look like he was thrilled to be awake, either, so I decided to stow the grumpiness for the time being.

We were close. I could see the faint stubble on his cheeks and count every freckle on that sun-kissed skin. My head was still resting on his arm, which must have been numb at the very least, but he didn't seem to care.

"I can't go running. They're going to think it's weird," I said miserably.

I'd actually bothered to check with Hannah at the lodge, and her answer had been far from positive. Pack females didn't, as a rule, do any exercise. It shouldn't have been a big deal, but the run had been part of my morning routine for as long as I could remember. I didn't feel right when I missed it.

"If you're alone, yeah," Liam said, "but it'll be okay if I take you. Mated couples do that shit all the time. Trust me."

They ... did? Hardly daring to hope, I rolled onto my stomach and rested my weight on my elbows so I could look at him properly. "You've got to work later. You'll be tired..."

"I'll take you," he repeated steadily. "Every morning if I have to."

I made a point of avoiding his eyes because I couldn't cope when he was being nice to me. "Mm. We'll see about that. Can't have you falling asleep on duty, can we?"

He sat up in bed and reached for his pills. I'd left them on the dresser when I'd unpacked our stuff, but I'd forgotten to leave him any water, so he had to dry-swallow it. "It's cute that you're worried, Eva, but I'm fine."

He said he was fine a lot, and I'd stopped believing him when we were about twelve. I regarded him with one eyebrow cocked. "Do you swear?"

"Cross my heart and hope to die."

"Okay then. Let's go running."

***

The sun was rising over the lake, colouring it pink and yellow and every shade in between. It was five in the morning, and the only people around were the fighters heading out to patrol. We caught a ride on their ancient shuttle bus after some sweet-talking on my part.

They dropped us right at the border, and then they disappeared off into the undergrowth to start the patrol, yawning with every other breath. We watched them go with our hands stuffed into our pockets and our breaths misting in the morning air.

We were nearly standing on the bone fence. Here, it was barely more than a scattering of ribs and vertebrae. Hard to spot if it weren't for the stench of old bones and flockie piss.

I kicked at the ground beside the line, wondering why the packs thought druid customs were appropriate for the twenty-first century. There was no way humans didn't stumble across these places from time to time - it was no wonder the locals were afraid of the woods.

"Hey, Eva," Liam said. "Wanna bone?"

I turned around slowly. My eyebrows shot upwards at a rate of knots. He was crouching on the ground and holding up what looked like a deer femur, cracked and yellow with age. The grin splitting his face was full of the goofy, juvenile self-satisfaction which happened to infuriate me.

"Oh, aren't you hilarious?" I asked, accepting the bone just so I could smack him with it. Gently, of course, and not without fair warning. It was immediately tossed aside, and I rubbed my hands on my jeans to rid myself of a few ants.

Liam started sniggering then, and he couldn't seem to stop, no matter how vigorously I rolled my eyes. I'd never have admitted it, but it was good to hear him laughing, even if it was at his own joke.

The smile on my lips was grudging, but I couldn't seem to smother it. "Have you been at the vodka this morning, Kendrick?"

And that, of course, only made him break down further. Nearly a full minute passed before he managed to get himself under control. While he was doing that, I stripped down and shifted into my wolf.

I was warmer in a full coat of fur. The wind tickled my skin instead of sucking the heat from it, and the dew soaking my paws was more refreshing than chilling. When I turned back to Liam, a massive silver-grey wolf stood where he had been.

The pill was keeping his wolf quiet, so there was no smothering dominance coming off him for once. It made my wolf bolder than she should have been - made her think she could push her luck.

I padded towards him, head up and tail held high. He turned slightly and stretched his neck to snuff at me. He was using his manners, but I seemed to have forgotten mine entirely. As soon as I was close enough, I nipped at the soft place under his chin.

In the blink of an eye, he had knocked me over and got a mouthful of my pelt to hold me in place. I was belly-up, which made it difficult to squirm. He kept me there, waiting for an apology of some kind.

I didn't give him one. My hindlegs clawed at his underbelly, and I tried to flip myself over. Instead of trying to fight me, he just lay down. And then I was truly pinned.

Okay. I beat my tail against the ground and pinned my ears back, which was close enough to grovelling to satisfy him. Liam released me and took a cautious step away, letting his tail swing back and forth. Once again, he was just trying to say hello, and I thanked him with a rough, clumsy tackle.

We rolled over twice before crashing into a bush of wild roses. A few of the thorns pricked my paws as I scrambled free. It was a dog rose - pink and white and decidedly prickly. I sneezed to shake a few petals from my muzzle, and then I pawed at Liam as he found his feet.

This time, he wasn't so gentle. His teeth closed around my scruff, and he pulled me over. His paws were pressed firmly into my side, so wriggling was no longer an option. But then ... nothing. No growling. No teeth in my pelt.

He didn't really know what to do with me. I wouldn't have known what to do with me either. My wolf had realised she couldn't take charge by force, so she was now trying to pester her way to the top of the pecking order, and that was ... well, it just wouldn't work.

Nia would have muzzle-slammed me by now. I'd probably have deserved it, too. Realising that, I whined at him. Not because he'd hurt me, but because I wanted him to let me up.

And he did. He shouldn't have, but he did. I stood still long enough to say hello properly - with a good deal of sniffing and a few apologetic licks, and then I broke into a trot. Liam padded after me.

We were heading for the lake. The trot soon became a lope, and that lope became a sprint. All the sitting around in the lodge had gotten me worried that I'd lose my hard-earned muscles, so I was glad to stretch them now.

Liam drew level with me before long. Our growls were playful, and our snapping jaws never found skin. We jostled for lead spot, running with our shoulders pressed together and our tails lashing. I let him set the pace for the most part, if only because he didn't stand a hope in hell of catching me at full speed.

We made it halfway around the lake before we had to collapse in the grass, panting and exhausted. I could have run for another hour, but play-fighting was a different affair. We lay sprawled on our sides amongst the poppies. The morning dew soaked through my fur and helped to cool me.

"You're going to be late for work," Liam told me through the link.

"So?"

"So you'll get into trouble."

I grinned at him, letting my tongue loll out of my mouth, because trouble and I were old friends. "So?"

He rolled onto his stomach and narrowed his eyes at me. "We're supposed to be keeping our heads down, remember?"

"Yeah, well, it's too late for that," I muttered. "Boss lady hates me already. I got banished to the sinks for being shitty at cooking. Bet they won't even notice if I rock in after lunch."

"They'll notice," he assured me. He was on his feet now, and he was stretching. "Go to work, Eva. I'll see you at breakfast."

I growled at him, but it was very half-hearted, and I got up straight afterwards. My bones clicked and groaned at me. It was a mile's run back to the packhouse. I'd have to wash and find some clothes before I showed my face in Maia's shiny clean kitchen.

"Think you can behave yourself while I'm gone?" I drawled.

Liam snorted at me. "I was a flockie before I was a rogue. I know how to behave."

I started laughing, and I didn't stop until there was about a mile between us. He'd fetch our clothes from the border and then go back to sleep until his shift started, if he had any sense. He had a twelve-hour workday to look forward to, and he'd just spent what little energy he had left.

***

"What time do you call this?" one of the older girls demanded. She had told me her name yesterday, but I'd forgotten it.

My attempt to sneak in had failed miserably. Not only had I been spotted, but that question had been loud and sharp enough that the entire washing-up crew had turned around to stare at me.

"Um," I said. I'd never been very good at telling the time. At camp, you ate when you were hungry and went to bed when the sun did. If the flockies wanted to count every second of the day, they were welcome to leave me out of it. "I... Uh... Sorry."

The girl huffed and brushed past me. "Whatever. You can help me unpack the deliveries."

I trailed behind her as we headed into the sensory overload that was the kitchen. It was hot in there, and there was enough noise to make my wolf cower. It took me a moment to spot the stack of boxes on a kitchen counter.

I went to grab one. The moment my hands touched the cardboard, the other girl laughed at me. "No, no. Don't try and lift them, you idiot. One of the guys will come and do that for us."

Ignoring her, I gave the box a tug. It slid off the counter easily enough, and then I rested it against my hip while I waited for instructions.

"Or ... we could just do it ourselves..." I said quietly. The box was heavy, yeah, but it wasn't heavier than a barrel full of water or the rucksacks we had to shoulder when we moved camp. "Where am I taking this?"

The girl was staring at me like I'd grown another head. She didn't reply. There was now a young man standing behind her. He had a fighter's build, like every other young man in the pack, and he was staring at me. His brow was furrowed.

"Hey, sweetheart," he said. There wasn't a drop of patronisation in his voice - he sounded like he was genuinely concerned about me. "Why don't you let me take that for you? We wouldn't want you to hurt yourself."

"Where am I taking this?" I repeated.

He and the girl exchanged a wary look. "You can... Uh, the store room."

So that was where I went. I thumped the box down on the counter and started unpacking the contents. It was jars, mostly, with a few tins scattered throughout. The girl had followed me, and she was hovering at my shoulder with wide eyes.

"You're strong," she marvelled.

I thought of the time I'd tried to arm-wrestle Liam and shook my head vehemently. "Thanks, but I'm really not-"

"Nonsense. You're wasted in here. I'm going to have a word with Maia."

And she ploughed her way through the crowds, disappearing in a few seconds. I turned back to the box and continued to unpack it. There were foods inside that I'd never even heard of, so it took longer than it should have to work out where they were supposed to go.

I hoped she wasn't going to get me in trouble. Maybe I should have just let the big strong man do all the heavy lifting. Less attention, that way. But ... surely they couldn't tell me off for being physically capable ... could they?

When she returned with the old woman in tow, I was fully prepared to grovel. But they were both ... smiling?

"Right this way, young lady," Maia said. She sounded like she was in a good mood, and the motherly hand on my shoulder was far from hostile, but I wasn't going to let my guard down.

See, I still had trouble telling when flockies were being nice. They had this passive-aggressive way of showing their anger, and in my experience, it could be incredibly subtle. As subtle as a single sarcastic comment lost in translation, because flockies couldn't do sarcasm properly.

She led me out of the kitchen and across the hall. We ended up in some kind of storage facility with boxes stacked from floor to ceiling. A greying woman stood in the middle of that cardboard fortress, scribbling something on a clipboard.

This was where Lin worked, if I remembered rightly. I wasn't going to argue if Maia wanted to offload me to this strange woman. Better to sit in literal hell with a friend than wander through heaven's doors alone.

"Susan, this is..." Maia trailed off, probably having realised that she'd forgotten my name. "This is the new girl. She's strong, I'm told, so maybe you can find a use for her, because I certainly can't."

Ouch. Stick and stones, right? I tried not to bridle as the other woman looked me over. It wasn't much of an assessment - two seconds and she nodded briskly. "I can always use another pair of hands. Honey, grab that bag and follow the other girls, would you?"

I did what I was told. The bag seemed to be full of fabric. Bedsheets, maybe. The 'other girls' in question were halfway down the corridor already. Two of them were armed with cleaning supplies and the third with a tray of fruit and biscuits. I caught up with them easily enough, lagging at their heels. They didn't seem to realise I was there.

"Sasha says the new guy is hot," the tallest girl sighed. "But she also said he's mated."

I debated whether I should relay this conversation to Liam through the link. He'd certainly enjoy it, but I wasn't sure I wanted his ego to get any bigger.

"And..?" another scoffed. "That doesn't stop most guys."

"Yeah, just get him drunk. He'll forget about that other bitch quick enough."

Hm. Okay.

The girl allowed herself a sly little smile. "Worth a try, I suppose."

"Nah," I interjected. "It's not. He's actually a sad drunk. Two sips and he's bawling. I find it ruins the mood, but if you're into that ... knock yourselves out. I don't mind."

All three of them turned around fast enough to crick their necks. The looks on their faces - confusion turning to horror as they guessed who I might be.

The tallest one bit her lip and "Oh. Sorry. We didn't mean to ... um..."

"No, it's cool," I told her, grinning. "We have an open relationship."

Yes. So open, in fact, that a shrewd person might question its existence.

The girl looked almost ... hopeful. "Really?"

"No."

She chewed on her lip. The other two girls looked down at their feet and shuffled in place, suddenly the epitome of embarrassment. Great. Now it was awkward, and I really couldn't cope with awkward.

"Tell you what..." I murmured. "Give him a nice, wide berth and I'll forget this happened."

Was this allowed? Could I keep them away from him? I didn't know. Technically, there was no reason Liam couldn't get laid while he was here. Infidelity was discouraged but tolerated, so ... why not?

It occurred to me that it would be very difficult for him to sleep with anyone without them seeing those damning burn scars on his ribcage. Yeah. That worked. We'd go with that, and my conscience was clean.

"Deal," the girl said. "And again ... very sorry."

"No worries. So, um, where are we going?"

She adjusted the weight of the box in her arms. "Alpha's rooms."

Oh.

Hang on. No. That did not sound like something I wanted to do. Was it too late to go back to my mountain of washing-up? I didn't feel like running into Mason Vaughan before I'd even had breakfast.

We climbed a flight of stairs and turned into a long, sparse corridor. It reeked of testosterone, which made me think that Felix and Micah might live down this way, too. There was too much to belong to any single person, Alpha or not.

The walls looked like they'd been repainted recently, but every now and then I noticed a slight dent at shoulder-height. The sort of dent that might be left when knuckles met plasterboard.

The girl at the front had reached a door. It was ajar, but she knocked anyway. We had to wait almost a full minute before she was satisfied no one was home, and even then she went cautiously. I dared to hope that I might be able to avoid running into any of the Vaughans.

We were in another corridor. Only now there were doors on both sides, and some of them were open. I could see four-poster beds and clothes strewn across carpets. At the end of the corridor was a room full of sofas, and the blare of a TV came from within.

It was like a house ... inside another house. I was willing to bet this was where Liam had lived, and that was a strange thought. Which one of these bedrooms had been his?

"Down there," the girl told me, pointing at the furthest door. "Change the sheets, and be quick about it."

Didn't really want to leave the herd, but what the hell, right? She was already applying a wet cloth to the layer of grime and dust in the living room, and she didn't look like she had the patience to babysit me.

I crept to the door in question and made a pitiful attempt to knock before I nudged it open. This was the Alpha's bedroom for sure. It was massive, for starters, and although there was no one in sight, the hairs on the back of my neck stood on end.

There was a crib in one corner. I didn't remember Liam saying anything about a kid, but I supposed he was a little out of touch with his family these days. If he had a niece or nephew, it would be news to him.

I crossed the room, dragging the bag of bedsheets behind me. I had to move a MacBook off the bed. There was a distinctive smell clogging up my nostrils now, and it was strong enough to make me dry wretch.

Ew, ew, ew. I tried not to inhale as I stripped off the sheets. It was lucky that Hannah had taken the time to teach me how to make a bed. I'd paid attention ... well, tried to, but I'd forgotten most of what I'd learnt already. My brain did that a lot. Straight in, straight out again.

The first thing I did was try and stuff the mattress into the duvet cover. It was lucky that it didn't fit, or I might have done the entire bloody thing. Take two was a little more promising, but I did realise about halfway through that I had the sheet upside down.

Before I could muster the energy to fix that mistake, my eyes snagged on the dresser. There were a few photos in battered wooden frames, and my curiosity got the better of me. With a wary glance at the door, I padded over. The bedsheets lay twisted and abandoned.

There was a baby photo front and centre. A little girl in a pink cap, with one of those puffy newborn faces. I assumed she was the owner of the crib and moved on. The other photos were older and much, much more interesting. One of them showed a blonde woman in her thirties who could easily have been Mason's mother.

In the last photo, which was caked in dust, five boys stood beside the lake. They'd just been swimming - their hair soaked and tousled. Half-brothers or not, it was hard to tell them apart, but I'd have to try anyway.

The guy at the back was full-grown and stony-eyed. I was going to assume that was the dead brother - the oldest of the Vaughan kids. His arms were slung around a pair of boys, both about the same height. Felix and Micah, probably.

Behind them stood another young man who couldn't be far off eighteen. His grin was cocksure and easy-going all at once in that way only Alphas could pull off. Mason? I wasn't sure, because I'd never seen him before, but I didn't know who else it could be. There was nothing in his appearance that gave me the impression of 'evil.' Quite the opposite, actually. He had one of those faces you couldn't help but trust.

And finally, on the far left, there was a boy much smaller than the others. Nine years old or thereabouts. Liam was dark-haired and handsome, even then. He was smiling. It threw me off, that smile, because it looked as genuine as any I'd seen.

Mason's hands were resting on his shoulders. And yes, there was a smudge beneath his eye which might have been a bruise, but it would have been easy to believe that he was happy. That they were all happy.

"Can I help you?"

I jumped out of my bloody skin. Not least because I was in the den of a man who wanted to exterminate my entire family, but also because I was doing something I shouldn't be.

It was a woman. She was in her twenties and had a cascade of white-blonde hair which was twisted into an elaborate knot. A toddler rested on her hip, and that was some comfort, because it meant she wouldn't be in a hurry to attack me.

"Sorry," I spluttered. "I was just- I, uh, I got dizzy changing the sheets and I needed to take a minute. I swear I don't usually stare into space."

Her eyes flicked from the photographs to me and back again. "Finish up, and then get out."

Was this the Luna? Her wolf was out for blood, and mine was all too happy to play dead, so it seemed likely. I crossed to the bed and began fixing the mess I'd made. My hands were shaking a little as the adrenaline burnt itself out.

The Luna set the toddler down in the crib, and then she busied herself with collecting her mate's clothes from the floor and throwing them into the laundry basket, which was starting to overflow.

I studied her while I worked. She wasn't naturally pretty, I didn't think, but she was doing a brilliant job of hiding that with make-up. Yes - flockies used that stuff, apparently. And not just a little dusting of powder - a face-full of the stuff.

Not that there was anything wrong with make-up, of course. Humans could do whatever the hell they liked, but for our kind...? If you had to shift in a hurry, the stuff didn't just vanish into thin air. Few things in this world amused me more than the sight of lipstick on a wolf.

But I was going to try not to be judgemental. Every friend I made in this hellhole was one less person who wanted me dead. And making friends with the Luna ... well, that was some top-tier strategy.

I made an effort to smile at her when I was done, but she didn't return the sentiment. Instead, she was eyeing the crumpled sheets with one eyebrow raised. "I don't recognise you."

"No," I agreed. "I'm new."

Another pointed glance at her bed. "Evidently. To the pack or to this job?"

"Pack."

"Oh," she said, somehow managing to convey a generous helping of disdain and boredom within that word. "Are you settling in okay?"

I nodded, trying to muster up some fake enthusiasm. "Everyone's been so friendly."

Huh. Maybe I wasn't so bad at passive-aggressive myself. But the Luna seemed to sense it, and her eyes narrowed ever-so-slightly.

"Glad to hear it. I'm Lilah, by the way. If you ever need anything, come and find me. I have more power than I know what to do with these days, and a Luna's duty is much more than just disciplining the unruly females."

Damn. Goosebumps. Her wolf was coming down on me like a ton of bricks. I was aware that I was staring at her, all of a sudden, and I dropped my eyes onto the ground. She'd won this round. Her flex had been subtle and terrifying.

Satisfied, she nodded towards the door. I didn't need to be told twice. I bundled the dirty sheets into my arms and made myself scarce. The corridor had gone very quiet.

I trod lightly, aware that I wasn't out of the woods yet. The other girls were gone. It didn't take me long to see the reason why. Felix Vaughan was sat on the sofa, his head in his hands.

His pupils looked larger than normal, and I didn't think it was related to his wolf, somehow. He tracked me with his eyes as I crossed the room in an automatic, disinterested sort of way. I was glad to be rid of the weight of that stare when I reached the door. There was a deadbolt on the inside that I hadn't noticed before.

The other girls were waiting for me outside. Perhaps they'd realised I didn't stand a chance of finding my way back to the storeroom, or perhaps they were just grateful for a minute's break from work.

"There you are," the girl said. She still hadn't told me her name, and at this point, I was too afraid to ask. "Did you meet the Luna?"

"Sorta, yeah. Is she always so ... y'know...?"

She nodded, the tiniest of smirks on her lips. "Oh, yes. Always."

I frowned. "What does she do here, exactly?"

"Nothing, as far as I can tell. She sits in her room all day."

"She organised a picnic once, I'm pretty sure," the shortest girl volunteered. "But yeah, that's about it."

"Then what's the point in having a Luna?" I demanded. I wasn't sure if I was going too far now, but they all seemed eager enough to spread their gossip.

The last girl wrinkled up her nose. "Every pack needs a Luna. Not to keep the females in line or to organise bloody picnics. No, she keeps the Alpha under control. He was a real hardass before she arrived."

I thought that was stupid. If someone couldn't control themselves, they shouldn't be in charge. They shouldn't even be walking free. For all we knew, Mason was taking out his frustrations on her. He hadn't shirked from beating his baby brother - why not his mate, too?

I looked back towards the door, my eyes lingering on that deadbolt. I shouldn't have been so quick to judge Lilah. Not with zero knowledge about her living circumstances.

And I was going to befriend her. I'd made Hayden Lloyd like me while I was holding him hostage - this wasn't so much of a stretch after that. Plus, if I could flip the freaking Luna, my job here was already halfway done.