"If you had to pick one," I said carefully, "who would it be?"

Liam scratched the back of his head and took a moment to think it over. "Felix. They're both deadly in a fight, but he's more predictable. Plus, if anyone's going to be Alpha for a few weeks, it should be him. Micah would burn this pack to the ground if he was given half a chance."

"Felix, then," I agreed. "And ... you could beat him?"

"I don't know," he said. "Maybe."

Maybe wasn't the answer I was hoping for. I wasn't sure I'd be able to stand and watch while he fought to the death on a 'maybe.' Felix was six years older than him, and he'd managed to hold the Beta position here at the age of sixteen, so he would be an exceptional fighter. Yippee.

"Well, I'm going to tell Nia we're going for Mason and Micah, if that's cool?" I sighed. "The whole deathmatch thing ... we can figure that out as we go."

Liam nodded. I could tell he wasn't really listening anymore. Instead, he was doing that thing where he just looked at me and smiled. Since we'd reached the place where our paths split, I decided to let it slide.

I caught the collar of his shirt and pulled his head down. Our foreheads were pressed together, and we were way too close. Yes, there were other people in the corridor, but it wasn't entirely for show.

"No more punching people, yeah?" I whispered.

His smile stretched into a lazy grin. "I'll do my best."

We managed a quick hug, and then we went our separate ways. I hadn't even started my shift yet, but I was already sweaty and aching. I didn't have the energy to appreciate the sight of a beautiful sunny day and the pack's famous lake as I trudged towards the pack house.

So far this morning, Liam and I had run together, and we'd done a little bit of fighting, but it hadn't been serious. Liam was too tired for that, and I was still trying to get my head around the idea of putting effort into something. But now the sun had risen, and the clocks had struck ten, so it was time for me to go to work.

I didn't remember how to get to the Alpha's quarters, so I wandered aimlessly for about fifteen minutes before it occurred to me to follow the stench of testosterone. Then it was suddenly very easy. I was approaching the door when I heard raised voices coming from within.

"It's actually quite simple, little brother. You don't authorise executions. You just don't. If I'm not around, you put the prick in a cell and wait. And you tell me about it - as a bare bloody minimum, yeah?"

The owner of that voice was pissed. I could feel their wolf even through the door. I didn't really make a conscious decision to creep closer and listen. It just ... sorta ... happened.

"You left me in charge," someone else mumbled. It sounded like Felix, but I wasn't entirely sure. "Besides, it was Micah who said-"

"I'll get to Micah soon enough. When the siren went off, I linked you, and you said it was nothing to worry about. Do you remember that, Felix?"

Well, screw me. I was flinching at every snapped word, and I had a locked door to protect me. It had to be Mason.

"Yeah," Felix said quietly. "You told me you didn't want to be disturbed unless it was an emergency. I just ... I'm sorry."

His voice was cracking like he was about to burst into tears. Poor dude. I was only feeling the overflow of Mason's anger, and it was enough to make my wolf whimper. Felix was getting his entire, undivided attention.

"And you know what's worse?" Mason demanded, heedless of his brother's misery. "He might have known something about the quarry. The timing is bloody suspect, and now we've lost the chance to interrogate him."

Felix went quiet for a moment. When he dared to speak again, it came out hesitant and breathless. "Does it matter if he knew anything, Mase? He's dead. So is that idiot with the shovel. He can't tell anyone else, and-"

Oh my word. I pressed my hands to my mouth to smother any sounds and then crept closer still. This was my kind of conversation. The kind where important people admitted to murder ... hopefully?

A bitter laugh from Mason. "Of course it matters, you halfwit. We need to know who's been talking, because the only people who knew were you, me, Micah, Adrian and Dad."

"And Liam," Felix muttered.

Jackpot.

The silence which followed those words was difficult to interpret. It ended rather abruptly when Mason let out an impatient snarl. "Yes, and Liam. But since dead men can't tell tales, that leaves me with exactly two suspects..."

Felix couldn't have failed to notice the accusation in those words, and understandably, he panicked. "Olivia might know something. Her mother's there too."

"She doesn't know shit," Mason said dismissively. I could hear his footsteps now, coming closer at an alarming speed. "Dad made sure of that."

Felix grunted. It sounded like he had started moving, too. "Well, it wasn't me. That's all I'm saying. I think you need to have this conversation with our little brother."

"Oh, believe me, I will. You'd better pray that he's even less convincing than you are."

Somehow, I had failed to register the fact that I was about to get caught eavesdropping. And they were getting closer by the second. Shit. There was nowhere to hide in that long, narrow corridor, so I could only raise my hand to knock when the door was thrown open.

I was face to face with a young man. He was twenty-five, but he looked enough like Liam that I forgot to breathe for a moment. He had a slimmer build than any Alpha I'd seen, but there was a glint of sharp intellect lurking in those dark eyes that made up for it.

"What do you want?" Mason demanded.

He was looking right at me. I wondered if the word 'rogue' was written on my forehead. It certainly felt that way. I could feel the full force of his wolf now, and it was like nothing I'd ever felt before. Stronger than Liam's, stronger than Nia's, stronger than Hayden's. He may as well have hit me with a steamroller.

By the time I'd realised I was staring, it was too late. I edged backwards until my back hit the wall, and then I just ducked my head and tried to look as non-threatening as possible. It wasn't difficult. He was looking at me like I was an insect under his boot. Annoying, but not worth the effort it would take to crush me.

Felix was stood behind him. He looked ... in a word, awful - with dark circles under his eyes and a smear of blood on his lip like someone had punched him already this morning. I gave him a pleading look, hoping he might offer some assistance, but he just seemed relieved that Mason's attention was on someone else.

"I'm, um ... I'm here to clean the rooms, I think," I mumbled.

Mason took a step closer. His eyes flickered up and then down, pausing at the clumsy mark on my neck and the faint scar where the tattoo had been. "Really? Then why are you so nervous?"

Why? WHY? As if he didn't know how intimidating he was. Shit almighty. For once, I was speechless, so I just shook my head and cowered a bit more and hoped he'd take pity on me. It didn't work. He just stood there. Staring and waiting.

"It's not... No. I just wasn't expecting..." I stammered. My voice was getting quieter with each new word. "Gave me a fright..."

He cocked an eyebrow and came closer still. I'd never felt so small in my life. "Were you listening?"

Ah, shit. I shook my head vigorously, but in the wake of that question, his mind started pushing at mine, feeling for a way inside. The moment I felt that prickly intrusion, I slammed my walls up, and that made him pause. Those cold dark eyes blinked at me, no doubt wondering where I might have learnt to defend myself.

"Quit screwing with her, Mase," Felix murmured, finding his balls at long last. "She's the new girl - you know, the one from New Dawn."

Mason's lips twitched into a smile. His thoughts had spread out to surround my mind. They licked at the walls like waves against a cliff face, probing gently for weaknesses and then retreating again just as quickly. Either he wasn't very strong or he wasn't really trying.

After what felt like the longest minute of my life, he stepped backward. He'd lost interest. Maybe Felix had it right - maybe he'd been playing with me, finding some vicious amusement in scaring the timid little female. I let out the breath I'd been holding as quietly and discretely as possible.

"You said you were here to clean," Mason said.

It wasn't a question, but I nodded anyway.

"Then I suppose you'd better come in, hadn't you?" he sighed. "I want the full report by twelve, little brother. And this time, I'd appreciate if you included some punctuation."

Felix looked between us and then scratched his head. "Yeah. Sure. I'll see you at lunch."

He disappeared off down the corridor, leaving me alone with Mason, much to my horror. It wasn't that I was scared of him. Not really. If I'd been here raiding, I would have spat in his face and called him a whore without thinking twice.

But right now I wasn't a rogue, though, was I? I was one of his pack members, and he could do whatever the hell he liked to me. On Silver Lake territory, he was king. He could have ordered my execution on a whim and no one would have lifted a finger to stop him.

It wouldn't have been the brave, heroic death I'd have got as a raider. It would have been just ... pointless. I was beginning to understand flockies. Why they did what they were told. Because when push came to shove, they had everything to lose and absolutely nothing to gain from defiance. And that was what men like Mason were counting on.

He gestured for me to follow him, and then he led me into the Alpha suite. Now that the game was up and his audience was gone, I was beneath his notice, it seemed. Good.

"The mop's in there," he told me, nodding towards a closed door. "Keep the noise down."

And with that, he left me standing by the cupboard and headed towards the living room. His daughter was in there, crawling across the floor and unattended. Had he really left her alone to have an argument with his brother? The kid was only like two years old. For heaven's sake.

I watched as he scooped her up and set her on the sofa beside him. He then proceeded to ignore her in favour of his laptop, which was balanced haphazardly on his knees. I stared at them a moment longer, and then I opened the cupboard door.

The mop was in there, along with a hoover and a broom and every other piece of cleaning equipment I could ever hope for. The only problem was ... I didn't have the faintest idea how to use them. My flockie education hadn't been incredibly comprehensive, as it turned out.

I was comforted by the fact that Mason probably had no idea how to use a mop either. That thought brought a smile to my face as I stepped into the cupboard to grab the thing.

When I turned to leave, something on the skirting board caught my eye. There were scratch marks gouged into the paint. They came in sets of two or three, and they extended around two of the walls and the bottom half of the door. My stomach was free-falling as I crouched down to examine them.

They weren't very deep, but some of them were painted brown with long-dried blood. It wasn't like someone had been trying to claw their way out of this cramped, dark little room. It was more like someone had got bored and frustrated enough that they'd torn their fingertips on the wood splinters just for something to do.

"Hey, Eva," a voice chirped from behind me. I jumped out of my skin, smacked my head against the wall and then swore softly. It was Lin, of course, and she was looking as chirpy as ever. "Sorry I'm so late. Will and I were... Mm, maybe I'll spare you the details."

Oh. Ew. Who cared?

"Come and have a look at this," I told her, nodding towards the scratch marks. "Weird, isn't it?"

Lin frowned at me. "Rats, I guess."

I caught her eye and held it. "Or fingernails."

"Seriously? I think that's reaching," she muttered.

My eyebrows were making their way upwards at a rate of knots. I stepped out of the cupboard and began examining the door instead. There wasn't a lock on the outside, but there was a set of tiny little holes like there had been a bolt screwed on at some point. Oh, Liam. If I was right, this would certainly explain the claustrophobia.

"Look at this shit," I murmured. "Doesn't it bother you?"

I wanted to see what she'd do when confronted with such blatant evidence of abuse. I wanted to see what all these pack members had been doing all these years. Everyone who had turned their back, everyone who had looked the other way, everyone who had covered for these pieces of shit.

I understood in some ways. Everything to lose. Nothing to gain. And yet I kinda hoped I would have done something differently if it had been me - that I'd have tried, at the very least. I wanted to think I would have drawn my line in the sand and decided that this is not okay.

Lin glanced at those holes, and then she chewed on her lip. "What do you want me to do, Eva? Should I go and confront him right now? Do you think that'll help, somehow?"

We were using hushed voices, barely louder than whispers, but Mason looked up anyway. I scowled at her, trying to ignore the way my skin was crawling under the weight of that stare. "And how will ignoring it help?"

"I don't know, okay?" she hissed "But at least I won't make anything worse."

I just stared at her. She stared right back. Mason stared at both of us, his laptop and his daughter forgotten for the time being. I got the sense that his patience was slipping away, inch by inch, and we wouldn't like what happened when it ran out.

"I'll start in the bedroom," I muttered, my hand closing around the mop.

It was her turn to raise her eyebrows. Smugly, she took it off me and pressed the hoover into my hands instead. "Maybe you should start minding your own business, Eva, or I'll stop minding mine. I get the weirdest feeling you might have a few secrets of your own."

Shit. Did she know? Had I given myself away, somehow? I was gaping like a fish, which made Lin smile all the wider. Should I just bugger off and pretend like I hadn't heard her, or I should I confront her and see the extent of the damage?

Normally, I'd have picked running away over confrontation in a heartbeat, but I'd spent so long getting over my shock that it was now too late to make an exit.

"What...?" I stammered out. "I don't- What are you talking about?"

She leant in closer and squeezed my shoulder. "Let's just say I've connected the dots, honey."

"What dots?" I asked, hardly daring to breathe.

"Oh, come on," Lin drawled. "It's pretty obvious. Your 'mate' is walking around stinking like an Alpha. In three days, I haven't seen you kiss him once. And then there's the fact you're absolutely shit at cooking and cleaning and everything else domestic. You aren't just some average girl from New Dawn, are you?"

My heart stopped in my chest. I thought I'd been pretty discrete. I spent a good few seconds just blinking at her before I managed to spit out, "I'm... You're not-"

Lin stepped closer again. She had me backed up against the wall, and she was smirking at me. "So here's what I think, Eva. I think your boy smells like Jace Lloyd's kid because the two of them were ... close, shall we say? I think his Dad found out and sent him here to keep them apart. I think he hired you, a 'working' girl with a particular skill set, so he could pass as straight."

I ... um...

Come again?

Liam smelt like Hayden because he was wearing his clothes. That was all. That was the extent of ... that. And yet ... she'd managed to construct an elaborate scandal from that one fact. I would have been impressed if I hadn't been so stunned.

"So Liam and Hayden Lloyd are in a gay relationship and I'm a prostitute?" I whispered.

She folded her arms and nodded smugly.

"Huh."

Footsteps behind me. "Who's in a gay relationship?"

Oh, for heaven's sake. I'd been so engrossed that I'd failed to notice that Mason was coming over. He looked somewhat pissed - probably a mixture of casual homophobia and annoyance that we weren't doing our jobs.

Lin jumped to attention. "Oh, no one. We were just talking about a TV programme."

"Stevens," I blurted. "Stevens and ... um, Ed."

I wasn't going to miss such an easy opportunity to throw that prick under the bus. Ed was a name I remembered from that god-awful group chat, so he could burn too for all I cared.

"You're supposed to report that shit, not gossip about it," Mason told us flatly.

"Yes, Alpha," Lin chimed without a second's hesitation.

He looked at me and raised his eyebrows.

I winced. "Yes ... Alpha..."

The words had a bitter aftertaste.

"Good," Mason said, while his eyes told us it was anything but. "Now, I'm trying to work. I suggest you ladies do the same, because I'm getting really tired of listening to all this yapping. Do I make myself understood?"

Something about his voice was getting on my nerves. It was probably the drawling, condescending undertone that did it, and so I didn't stop and think before I muttered, "We were just-"

Lin smacked me, and I was surprised enough to fall silent. It was already too late. Mason closed the distance in a heartbeat, and his hand closed around my arm. I was slammed backwards into the wall and pinned there. His grip was like iron, squeezing hard enough to leave a bruise.

Apparently, he wasn't accustomed to pack members talking back. His wolf was flattening mine. For once in my life, I didn't roll over on the spot. Instead, my fingers inched towards my pocket-knife.

I was about to do something really, really stupid when Mason's daughter burst into tears. She'd fallen off the sofa, by the look of it. He gave me one last derisive look, his lip curling, and then he went to go and help her.

That easily, I was forgotten. Unlike his brothers, Mason didn't have a temper. He didn't see red. He saw people who weren't doing what he wanted them to do, and he acted to remedy that situation. No more, no less. I wasn't sure if that made him better than Felix and Micah ... or much, much worse.

I hated him.

"Where does it hurt?" Mason asked his daughter. When she only cried louder, he sighed and picked her up. It was jarring - the sight of him walking back and forth with the kid, behaving like an actual parent all of a sudden. "Hey, you're okay. Shh, baby."

I wanted out. This was all too much all at once, and so I took hold of the hoover and started dragging it towards the bedroom. Lin caught my wrist before I could get very far.

"I was talking about Alex," she said. "Who the hell is Liam?"

I froze. Everything stopped - my attempt to wriggle free, my breathing ... and even my heart. Because surely I hadn't been that stupid. Surely I hadn't screwed up and not even realised it. Or had I...?

I couldn't remember what I'd said. It had all happened so fast, and I'd been so terrified that she knew we were rogues, and I'd just ... I'd panicked. Shit. Now what?

"Oh," I blurted. "Oh, um, Liam's just a friend from back home. Slip of the tongue, I guess. I meant to say Alex."

She looked at me long and hard before nodding. The knot in my chest didn't go away, because I was still terrified. That plan might have worked better had we not been standing in these particular rooms. Had we not been in the company of Liam's brother.

Lin had lived here her entire life. There was no way she hadn't known who Liam was, and there was no way she didn't make that tentative connection on the spot. It didn't matter if she had dismissed it straight off - it was there now. It wasn't going away. We would have to be very, very careful.

"So I'm right?" Lin demanded. "You admit it?"

Heaven's sake. I looked pointedly in Mason's direction and then tapped the side of my head. We should have switched to the mind-link a long time ago. It was almost too late now, but if she wanted to rekindle the argument ... well, I wasn't going to stop her.

"I'm sorry, Lin," I said through the link. My irritation was making the connection splutter and fizz. "But it's not true. None of it is true."

Lin cocked an eyebrow. "I'm going to pretend like I believe you."

"I literally don't give a shit what you believe," I sighed. And with that, I shook her off and went into the bedroom. It didn't matter that I didn't know how to use the hoover because I'd had seventeen years to perfect the art of pretending to work.

In the corner of my eye, I could see Mason. He'd managed to distract his kid with an iPad and a bowl of crisps, so he was back on the laptop. Every now and then he'd look up and I'd start 'working' even harder.

The little girl's laughter pealed out loudly and often, and it was making me homesick. She was the same age as Poppy. I wanted to be back in camp. I wanted it so badly that I felt like crying there and then.

Lilah wasn't even here. All I'd managed to achieve today was getting Mason's attention for all the wrong reasons and then falling out with the only friend I'd made. On the other hand, the story she'd concocted was amusing and I was definitely going to relay it all to Liam when he got home later. If I was really lucky, it might even cheer him up.

***

Liam and I met outside our dorm room. Since we couldn't go to lunch, we were living off cold baked beans and cereal bars. It wasn't ideal, but it was better than putting him in the same room as Mason.

I had been waiting anxiously, picking at my nails and shuffling from foot to foot. I'd thought it might all go away when I saw him, but instead I found myself choking on a sob. And then another sob. And another. Liam's grin fell away in a heartbeat,

He came and wrapped me in a fierce hug. And suddenly I was warm and safe, and I could hear the steady thud of his heartbeat.

It was a lot, I knew. This was the pinnacle of physical contact, and I smelt like Mason, and it couldn't have been easy for him. In fact, I could feel exactly how tense he was. It only made me feel worse - he was trying so hard, and I'd nearly got him killed today.

"I screwed up," I mumbled. "I really screwed up."

He pulled me even closer, his hand rubbing circles on my back. "I'm sure it's not that bad."

I hid my face in his shirt and made a pitiful whimpering sound as I tried to get the tears under control. "It is, actually. Lin thinks you're in love with Hayden, and I don't know how to use a mop, and ... what about me screams prostitute, exactly?"

"Okay," Liam said slowly. "I have questions, but that all sounds ... okay."

"No, you don't understand. I said your name, Liam, and Mason was right there. I don't think he heard me, but what if-"

He released me. The muscles in his jaw rippled, and he looked up and down the corridor carefully. "You saw Mason?"

Maybe he hadn't noticed the scent after all. Whoops.

"Well, yeah," I said. "My job is cleaning up after him."

Liam's eyes were wide and worried. "Then you need a different job, Eva."

"It's kinda useful, though. They don't see me as a person, so I hear all kinds of things," I told him, stuffing my hands into my pockets. "And that reminds me. What do you know about a quarry?"

"A quarry? You don't mean Llechi, do you?"

"No."

He rubbed the back of his neck. "Then ... I don't know. I'm sorry. And if there's a quarry here, I've never seen it."

Shit. I'd really thought he might know something. His brothers had certainly thought so. They must have been mistaken, because the alternative was that Liam was lying to me, and ... well, he wouldn't do that.

"Look," Liam said once I'd gone quiet. "It was an honest mistake, the name thing, and it sounds like we got away with it. Don't beat yourself up, okay?"

I chewed on my lip. Of course I was going to beat myself up, but I didn't really want to talk about it anymore. Liam was being nice to me, as usual, and I couldn't handle nice. "Okay. We should probably get started on lunch."

"I'll just puke first, if you don't mind."

I winced on his behalf. It wouldn't be the first time today, and I doubted it would be the last. "No, go right ahead."

He didn't make it to the bathroom. He did, however, manage to get the majority of it into our rubbish bin. That was a blessing, because it meant that the cream carpet was saved, but it did mean that the bin needed a good scrub. One of the many problems of living indoors - the wind couldn't wash the less pleasant smells away.

Liam seemed to realise that before I did. "Shit, Eva. I'm sorry, I'll-"

"You'll sit down," I told him. "I've got this."

I began the process of dragging the bin towards the bathtub. Liam went to get himself a drink to wash the taste of acid away. I was starting to wonder how much longer he could keep this up. He needed to gain weight, not lose it.

Someone cleared their throat, and I heard a series of tentative knocks. We'd left the door open in our hurry. I set the bin down and turned sharply, expecting to see Lin with more accusations.

Instead, there was a man standing in the doorway. He was fairly tall, dark-haired and chubby, and I didn't recognise him. A pair of wire-rimmed glasses rested on his nose. He didn't look like a fighter.

"Is everything alright in here?" he asked hesitantly. "I thought I heard-"

He fell silent. That silence stretched to breaking point as he stared at us and we stared back at him.

"Holy shit," the man breathed. "Liam?"