Hello Iceland and South Africa! I still think it's really awesome that I can hit some keys and people thousands of miles away can see some black and white lines and ... just ... understand what I was thinking. The human race sucks ass, but we did manage to make that possible, so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

ALSO I fell down some stairs and landed on my laptop, so that's out of commission for a few weeks :( but I saw that LOR had reached 300k reads (!!! nice works my peeps !!!) and I've spent most of today wrangling with my ancient prehistoric laptop to finish this chapter for y'all to say thank you!

And seconds later, the door rattled in its hinges. One of them must have kicked it. They weren't the brightest of souls, so it took them a full minute of kicking and swearing before they realised the front door wasn't a viable option. A muttered conversation followed, and I could hear just enough to know that the guy in charge had dispatched five men to check the back door and another five to check the windows.

"They're here," I shouted to no one in particular. We had to maintain the illusion that Lily and Devin were still in the house, after all. They would only make it to the border if nobody was looking for them, and that depended entirely on how dramatic we could be about the situation. After all, why would they bother sniffing around for a trail when they had a pair of real live rogues right here?

The fighters outside must have heard me — it went very quiet for a moment. They must have been mind-linking amongst themselves. Soon, one of them shouted in a deep, rumbling voice which could have easily belonged to an Alpha, "Surrender and we'll let you live."

Liar. No rogue caught by Ember had lived to tell the tale for ten years or more. Alpha Jackson might have been approaching his sixties, but he hadn't gotten the hang of mercy yet.

"And what if I don't want to live?" I shouted back. "Huh? Do you cater for that?"

Silence fell outside.

"We... Sure ... we can kill you, I guess. Whatever you like. Just open this door and show us your hands."

"You leave my hands out of this, you pervert," I spat. "It's a fungal infection, I'll have you know, and my GP said it happens all the time."

The Alpha went strangely quiet for a second time. I would've loved to see the look on his face — to be honest, I would've risked getting caught for even the briefest of glimpses.

"Stop teasing them, Eva," Nia scolded as she came back with a dozen Molotov cocktails. She paused and frowned at the door, noticing maybe that no one was trying to kick it in anymore. "Scratch that. Do whatever the hell you like as long as you keep them talking. Buy as much time as you can, then get your ass upstairs."

The second part of that came through the mind-link — the packling was listening. 'Do whatever the hell you like' was an order I didn't get very often, because I tended to interpret it to the absolute extremes, so I couldn't help getting a little bit excited as Nia climbed the stairs and lost her ability to supervise me.

"This is your last chance," the Alpha said. "Let us in."

"I don't see why I should," I scoffed. "I've lived in this house for twenty-five years, and I don't remember inviting you here."

"What the hell are you—" he began, only to trail off into Sudden Doubt.

"Is this the right house? Are we at the right house?" someone demanded quietly.

That was followed with a chorus of muttering which ended with, "I dunno, dude. Can you see the house number anywhere? It's supposed to be fourteen."

"I can't see shit. We passed thirteen on the way, though. Maybe this is twelve?"

"No, this is definitely the right place. The Burrows live here — I've been before."

"I thought they were up Berksley way..."

"It's the right place, you bloody halfwits," the man tied to the radiator shouted, and the men outside fell silent again. I scowled at him, but it was hardly worth the effort. He looked and sounded about a hundred times more annoyed at his packmates than I was.

Somewhere around the back of the house, I heard glass smashing and the crunching, splintering sounds of someone taking an axe to the back door. They would have reached me in about thirty seconds, but I'd bought enough time for Nia to start throwing her cocktails at the group which had been gathered so helpfully by the front door to talk to me. She hit the back door team half a minute later.

I got a front row seat to the screaming and panic that followed. I even risked going to the dining room window so I could watch them run and frantically beat at their burning clothing. Wounds caused by fire and heat took a long time to mend — like bruises, it was nearly as slow as human healing.

The Alpha — well, the tallest guy there, who was in his fifties and had a face like a pig's backside — had managed to duck into the porch and shelter there. He was doing nothing to help his packmates while they rolled on the ground and shrieked. After a minute, he spotted me peeking out of the window. He looked like he was debating making a break for the trees.

I cracked open the window, risky as it was, because I couldn't bloody resist. He stared at me like a rabbit in the headlights — ready to bolt at a moment's notice.

"Hold on, buddy. Not so fast. We're done — no more fire, I swear," I called. "You got time to talk? I have some demands. You know, for the release of the hostages, who you love very much and want to see again?"

"Yeah?" the Alpha asked, now breathless and one hundred percent done with my shit.

"Helicopter. Fifty thousand in cash. A pair of Nikes. And maybe some of those little crab cakes you get at parties."

His mouth twisted into a sneer. "Counter offer — you release them right now and I'll give you a quick death, rogue," he laughed. "Because that's all you've got to look forward to."

Tempting as that sounded, I would have to pass. My death wasn't going to be this lame. It was going to be something for the history books. They'd tell my death story around campfires in a hundred years like they told Bryn and Rhodric Llewellyn's.

"Can I think about it?" I asked, trying to sound like I was actually considering it.

The Alpha threw up his hands in exasperation. "Sure. Whatever. You have one minute."

"Got any more fire bombs?" I linked Nia.

"One or two. Why?"

"Angle one against the side of the house for me."

She tossed another bottle, and half of it splashed into the porch and onto the Alpha. He tried to jump out of the way and smacked his head against a hanging basket of pansies. The sleeve of his jacket had caught fire, so I got a front seat to the display of cursing and rolling on the ground which followed. When he was quite done making an arse of himself, he scarpered back to the trees to hide with his friends, his pride in tatters.

Nia was waiting expectantly on the other end of the link. "How was that?"

"Perfect."

And that was it — that was all the time I could buy. I closed the window and limped back into the hallway, where the packling was trying to free himself from the radiator. I stepped over him and headed for the stairs.

"You'll get her back in a few days," I told him. "We ain't gonna hurt her, I swear."

It was possible to pinpoint the exact moment he realised — terror and despair dripping from his entire body and the link besides. "What do you mean, I'll get her back?"

"Sorry," I said, because it was all I could say. "I really am, you know. Not that it counts for shit these days..."

He thrashed against the bindings, closing his eyes to link the men outside as he tugged and tugged and made the radiator clang against the wall. I started climbing the stairs as fast as I could manage. Every step made it feel like my thigh was tearing in half.

Nia was waiting for me on the landing. There was a nasty gash on her left cheek, and it was starting to swell. She mussed up my hair. "Nice job, pup. Lil and Dev reached the border, so we'll give them another minute and then we'll scram. Can you run on that leg?"

No. Not very far, anyway.

"Yeah," I said. "Definitely."

She nodded. One glimpse of my mind and she'd know I was lying, but she didn't do that to family. It was the ultimate invasion of privacy, and besides, we all knew how to shield. She could still push her way in, of course, but I'd know what she'd done.

"Careful of the windows," she said. "The dipshits out front are throwing rocks."

Well, that explained her cheek, at least. Even as she said it, I heard glass shatter to our right and a chunk of masonry dented the plasterboard. It was large enough to have cracked my skull.

"Not even close!" I shouted at the trees.

There was a bang and the wall at my back trembled, because some idiot had been too busy aiming for my voice to remember he couldn't smash through a solid brick wall. At this point, they would have done much better storming the house, but they didn't know we'd run out of firebombs.

Nia led the way to the side of the house. She, too, had found the bedroom with the drainpipe and the cleanest chance at a getaway. It seemed an awful lot smaller when I had to share it with my six-foot cousin. We weren't like, completely sure how she'd grown so big. Her mam was five-five and her dad was average height and wiry.

"You first," she said.

I took a hasty step backwards. "This was your bloody idea. You're going first."

Nia crooked a smile. "Scared of heights, Eva?"

"Not scared of heights. Love heights. Scared of falling and breaking my pretty neck."

"Well, we ain't falling. We're jumping. You jump at Llechi just fine, don't you?" she asked slowly and deliberately, like she was speaking to a pup.

"There's water at Llechi," I muttered. "That's solid ground down there, that is."

She sighed. We were running out of time — I could hear the packlings thumping on the door again, and then came glass shattering as they tried the windows instead. "Alright, I'll go, but you'd better bloody follow..."

"I'll take falling over flockies any day," I assured her.

"Last one," she told me, handing over a bottle of liquor and her lighter. "Make it count, yeah?"

We could hear the packlings talking in low voices. They were definitely inside now. I gave the staircase a pointed look. "Duh."

Nia took out her knife and used the hilt to smash the bedroom window. She knocked out all the jagged shards, then used the girl's bedclothes to cover the rest. Once that was done, she eased herself onto the sill and lowered herself out of the window. I didn't wait to see her land. Instead, I crept back onto the landing and braced the cocktail in my hand.

Footsteps on the stairs. They were quiet and slow, like the packlings were trying a sneak attack. Lucky for me, they were about as sneaky as buffalos in a china shop. The wood was creaking beneath their boots, and I could hear muffled coughs from smoke-filled lungs.

I waited painstakingly until they were halfway up. Then I flicked the lighter catch and held it to the shred of tea-towel hanging out of the bottle. It took a second to catch, and I waited another second before I hurled it down the stairs. The explosion of heat and flames was ... satisfying. The screaming which followed ... less so. I didn't enjoy hurting people — not even packlings — but they did want me dead.

A wave of scorching heat washed over my skin, searing it even from such a distance. I backed away — slowly at first, then faster once I'd reached the bedroom. Nia was nowhere to be seen, so she must have landed just fine, but she was taller than me. Not so far to fall. I didn't lower myself out of the window and drop from there. Instead, I clambered onto the guttering and began easing myself down.

I had made it a few feet before I heard a series of cracks, each closer than the last. The gutter began to peel away from the wall, and I had less than a second to throw myself to the ground before I got no choice in the matter. I landed hard on my back and hip, but Nia darted out from the undergrowth to nudge me to my feet.

And then I shifted. Nothing was broken — that became clear. My paws touched leaves and dirt, and I could feel the wind on my pelt and pick out the sharp stench of smoke in the air. Nia took off as soon as I was wearing my fur, and I paused just long enough to pick up my knife in my jaws before ploughing after her.

It was time to run.