Hello everyone! Happy Leap Day! As always, slay the typos. And thank you all for being so patient with me, both with the speed of these updates and ... the speed of other things ;) Speaking of which, I'm going to call this chapter PG 13. Don't get too excited about that. Or do. I dunno. I'm not the police.

I never stood a chance. Not really. There were a dozen people between me and Joel, and they were all chock full of adrenaline. One of the lads managed to catch a handful of my shirt, and two more of them were blocking the way with their bodies without even meaning to.

They shouted at me, demanding to know what I was doing, but I twisted and writhed and fought to escape that iron grip. The element of surprise was no small advantage. I managed to throw myself between two lumps of muscle and lash out with the blade.

The very tip of my knife snagged in Joel's sleeve, leaving a line of frayed fabric. But that was as far as I got. My collar was twisted, choking me back the way I had come, and soon there were hands on my arms, on my clothes and everywhere else. I didn't dare turn the knife against them.

I'd lost my footing. One of my ankles turned itself outwards, and I went down with a string of curses, hissing as my knee scraped the stones. I'd lost the knife. Someone had caught hold of my wrist and twisted sharply, and it was gone, somewhere under all those heavy feet.

One of the taller guys bent down to lodge a punch under my ribcage. There was no reason for it, really, given that I was disarmed and on my knees. While I was still trying to suck the air back into my poor, crumpled lungs, another fist caught me around the ear. It was probably accidental, but it made me want to throw up, and the entire world flashed white.

And that was when Liam arrived. The nearest guys were shoved back, giving me enough room to find my feet again, and I stumbled backwards. I knew when to give up. There was blood in my mouth and more dripping down my neck.

"Enough," Mason snapped. "The next person who moves will live to regret it."

The others had closed ranks around their prisoners. They were standing shoulder to shoulder, and I didn't have a hope in hell of breaking through. I stood quietly, feeling my chest heaving as I tried to catch my breath and calm myself down. The adrenaline had me all jittery and excitable.

Joel craned his neck to see the place where my knife had torn his shirt. He'd been fighting, too, trying to break free of those rough flockie hands to get that little bit closer.

Sometimes, the younger raiders got captured because they hesitated. They saw the immediate choice between fighting to the death and surrendering, and they took a second too long to choose. If that had been the case for Joel, he'd realised his mistake. I reckoned he would have jumped onto the blade, given half a chance.

Felix didn't seem to realise we were all being chill now. That, or he was just jumping at the chance to put me in handcuffs. He muscled his way through the press of bodies towards us, shoving his pack mates when they were too slow to move.

He stooped down to pick up the knife. Not for the first time, I thanked the Goddess that I'd carved E.M. into the handle and not E.L. He turned it over in his hand, doubtless noticing how smooth the wood was, worn by years of use. Maybe he saw too that the blade was crooked in places from its hundreds of meetings with the whetstone.

"The hell was that?" Felix demanded, looking at me now. "You're carrying a knife around, like a bloody rogue? And you're trying to kill our prisoners before they can tell us shit? Do you realise how that looks?"

That was a little too close for comfort. I opened my mouth to defend myself, but Mason was faster and an awful lot more annoyed. "Be quiet. She's not a sleeper, Felix. I've told you a dozen times now."

Well ... thank you for the vote of confidence? I knew it was only because of Liam — that I was above and beyond suspicion because he was flockie royalty, and there was no way on earth he would shack up with the likes of me.

But honestly ... I was just grateful they weren't hauling me off in handcuffs. That, I knew, was another thing I owed to Liam. He and Mason were still playing their game of patience, waiting to see who would blink first, and I had a feeling arresting me would put an end to that.

Just when I'd finished patting myself on the back, I felt Mason's eyes on me. "So, what was that about, if you don't mind me asking?"

Liam tensed and stepped between us before he could come closer. "She was just—"

"I asked her. Not you."

Liam glanced in my direction, visibly unhappy. He wanted to protect me from Mason — I knew that, and I got it. I squeezed his fingers, letting him know it was okay.

"The rogues ... they killed Will," I muttered by way of explanation. "He deserves to die."

Mason looked away, satisfied by that answer and already losing interest. But Joel was still staring. Just at me. Not at Liam, not at the men who would kill him. And I still didn't understand what that haunted, shell-shocked look was about. Any affection he'd ever had for me had been stamped out years ago.

Felix had pocketed my knife. I had the funniest feeling that I wouldn't be getting it back, and more was the pity. He spat on the ground now, not bothering to hide his disgust. "And he will die, you crazy bitch. Nice and slowly, so he gets enough time to tell us where his friends ran off to. He'd love to have that knife in him — believe you me. You were about to do him a favour!"

I stood there sullenly.

"We can arrest you for this, you know," Felix continued, and he watched Liam tense up all over again. "And if you don't move, I'll happily arrest you too."

Because Liam was standing in front of me, so tall and broad in the chest that I was hidden from view. I was peeking out from behind him, feeling sorry for myself, because now I was miserable and in pain, and I'd accomplished absolutely nothing. I didn't want to go to the cells and have a front-row seat while the boys were tortured.

"You can bloody well try," Liam said.

Felix's eyebrows shot upwards. He wasn't used to this kind of insolence from pack members. He glanced back at his big brother, probably hoping he'd intervene, but Mason was wearing a tiny smile. It was pride, if you asked me, and I had a feeling it was directed at Liam.

"What the hell did you just say to me?" Felix asked in a voice that was much, much too quiet. He'd realised he wouldn't get any help.

I caught hold of Liam's fingers again, hoping he might think again and back down, but it was much too late for that. He snorted at his brother. "You heard."

And that was it. Felix knew that most of the fighters were watching, so he had no choice but to throw a punch. It came hard and fast, but Liam had seen it coming. He let it land, and then he let the force of it carry him back a step.

The onlookers jeered. They loved fights in this pack, apparently. Felix seemed to absorb it all, getting his confidence back within a heartbeat. He threw another punch — this one landing on his jaw with enough force to split the skin. I saw Liam freeze, and it broke my heart. He was just taking it, knowing damn well what would happen if he fought back.

Another punch. This one slower and lazier than the last. It wasn't necessary. He'd won when Liam hadn't lifted a finger to retaliate, but Felix was pissed off, and it showed. It was enough to push Liam over the edge. This time, he closed the distance, taking the sting out of the blow, and then the two of them were fighting.

Mason looked happy enough to let them. He seemed to be finding it all very funny. And when I tried to throw myself into the middle, hoping to separate them, he came and caught a handful of my shirt. I twisted desperately, trying to free myself, but he was a lot stronger than I was. I could have struggled until judgement day and not got anywhere.

"They're going to kill each other," I snapped.

He was smiling. He didn't care. It was obvious he didn't really like his Beta, and Liam ... well, that was a complicated situation, to say the least. By the time the fight was over, he'd have one less problem. "Yeah, probably."

Felix was shifting. He'd gotten bored of trading punches, so he was swapping his fists for teeth and claws. I didn't have any time to waste, because if they really started taking chunks out of each other, it would be over in a matter of minutes. And yes, Liam might win, but that wasn't a risk I was willing to take.

I turned around to face Mason. "You need to stop them."

Behind me, I was all too aware of the snarling and the delighted roar of the crowd which meant that Liam had shifted, too. I dared to glance over my shoulder, and I could see nothing but two blood-splattered pelts tangled together, both of them going for the throat. Their wolves were so similar that I couldn't even tell them apart.

The smile grew wider. "I don't think I will."

"Stop them," I repeated, "or I'll link the entire bloody pack and tell them a story about a man called Alan Presley and a quarry full of corpses."

I got to watch the shock crawl across his face. It was slow and subtle, all things considered, making his eyes go wide and his mouth flatten. The anger followed close behind, and that was a good deal faster. Those dark eyes swirled black, and every muscle in his face tightened.

I was aware in some vague, far-off way that blackmailing an Alpha was probably not ... like ... the best idea I'd ever had. But ... it wasn't the worst, either. If I was being honest, it didn't even make the top ten.

Mason leaned closer. His wolf came down on me like a ton of bricks, stealing the air from my lungs and crushing what little resolve I'd managed to find. For a moment, I thought he was going to hit me, but he just put his mouth very close to my ear. His voice was dangerously quiet. "What you just did? That was a mistake."

I was pretty sure my heart had stopped dead in my chest. It was lucky, really, that he didn't wait around long enough to smell the fear on my breath. He'd already pushed past me to reach the place where Felix and Liam were fighting.

It was a really stupid thing to do — getting between two sets of teeth in human form. Mason didn't even hesitate. He caught hold of a tail and a hind leg and pulled hard. It was Felix, and he lost his balance, tumbling over backwards and landing heavily on his side.

And then Mason was between them. He got a handful of Liam's scruff and pulled him over, too. It wasn't an easy thing to do — we weighed as much in wolf form as we did in human, and four legs added an element of stability. Mason had to take one of those legs out from under him.

Once Liam was on his side, it was easy to pin him down. Mason had a knee behind his shoulder and a hand around his throat. I doubted he could breathe. And without hands, all he could do was snap at Mason, who knocked his muzzle away like he was a cub.

I bit down on my lip. I wasn't sure if I'd just pulled Liam out of the frying pan and into the fire, because Mason wasn't letting go. I could probably have pushed him off from behind, but I had a feeling the retaliation might be ... extreme.

I found myself looking to Joel, of all people, for some help. It wasn't like he could do anything, beaten and handcuffed as he was, but it made me feel a tiny bit less alone. He moved his eyes to Liam and back again, and then he shook his head ever-so-slightly. I did see his point. Every time I tried to help, I only made things worse.

Mason had tightened his grip around Liam's throat. He pinned his muzzle down, too, holding it against the cold stone to keep him from snapping. "Calm down."

He made it sound like a command, and I reckoned he'd given it once or twice before, because Liam reacted almost reflexively. His entire body went limp, and he lay there, hardly daring to breathe.

Slowly, he moved his gaze onto the stones beneath him. He licked his lips. It was a tiny movement, unnoticeable unless you were looking for it, and Mason certainly was. He knew how to speak that other language — of tails and ears and the slightest of movements — as we all did.

It meant submission. I could only stand there, staring at them both, relieved and worried in equal measures. I hadn't seen Liam do that before. Not for anyone. And I had no idea what it meant — whether it was a grudging appeasement or a proper acknowledgement that his brother outranked him.

Now Mason let him up. It wasn't done cautiously, as it should have been, but rather with a grin and a scratch behind the ear. Liam rolled onto his stomach, and from there he got up slowly and stiffy. One of his legs wasn't taking his weight.

The whole scrap had probably taken seconds, however much it had felt like a lifetime. I took a moment to breathe and enjoy the relief which came flooding in. I hadn't gotten him killed, after all. Felix had got in a few bites, but none of them were serious.

Liam came padding over to me. He rubbed his bloodied pelt against my legs and pressed his wet nose into the palm of my hand. I took the hint and tangled my fingers into his fur, trying to calm him down.

Felix had long since found his feet. He stood a few feet away, panting and waiting for his brother to get out of the way so he could have another go. He padded forwards now, baring his teeth at both us. Mason intercepted him with a boot. The kick caught him in the ribs, and he yelped — more out of surprise than pain.

"Leave it," Mason said.

Instead, Felix lowered his head, ears flat against his skull, and he snarled in Liam's direction. I thought that was a pretty clear answer. The hierarchy was not something that could be fiddled with, and in stopping the fight, Mason had overreached. He'd also embarrassed Felix, who was the Beta and should really be allowed to deal with challenges without any help from his big brother.

The crowd knew that, and they'd gone quiet out of sheer awkwardness. The silence was hard to bear. This was not something that should have happened in front of the entire garrison, but it was too late now.

"I said leave it. In fact, you can clear off, Felix," Mason said. "Go back inside. And you two — you'll stay and wait. I'll deal with you when I'm done here."

I didn't like the sound of that. But I did like watching Felix turn tail and trot back towards the pack house. He kept glancing over his shoulder, but he didn't dare drag his feet. Not while Mason was watching him.

Quiet. All of a sudden. It was much appreciated. I stood there, letting the adrenaline sweat its way out of my system. And the fighters seemed to remember what they'd been doing before my untimely interruption. Half of them kept an eye on me and Liam. The other half dragged the two boys towards their Alpha.

Joel was awake, so he looked like the more impressive prize. He was shoved forwards and forced onto his knees in front of Mason. There was a rough hand on the back of his neck, holding his head down, but he was still trying to look at me.

"So, who wants to explain," Mason said, "why my prisoners are out here and not in the cells where they belong?"

The men shuffled uneasily and look at each other, none of them willing to face his anger. They'd thought that if they brought their prisoners here and dropped them at Mason's feet, they would get all the praise and glory. Instead, they got a generous helping of annoyance.

"Nobody? Oh well. You can all spend your evening scrubbing the barracks from floor to ceiling," he drawled. The men winced, muttering amongst themselves, and that seemed to satisfy him. He ran a finger down Joel's throat, pausing at the swirl of ink which peeked out from his collar. "You and I will be getting acquainted very soon, my friend."

Joel spat a mouthful of blood at Mason's feet. It was all he could do.

Mason just smiled. He took his finger away, and he let his eyes settle on Finn's lifeless body. The flockies hadn't even bothered to cuff him.

"Is that one alive?" Mason asked dryly.

One of the men kicked him and shrugged. "We think so."

"Good. That makes three. Not bad for a day's work. We'll see if our adventurers had any luck."

And what the hell was that supposed to mean? Something was badly wrong. That much I knew. Because where was Micah, who should have been in the thick of this? There were another dozen fighters missing from this gathering, and I didn't want to think about where they might be.

I tried to link Nia. But wherever she'd been moved to, it was too far away for my panicking mind to manage. I tried Rhodri, who deflected the link with more force than strictly necessary. I even tried my mother, who must have been on the other side of the Silverstones, because our link was stretched as thin as fishing line.

There were cars coming down the road. I could hear their engines rumbling from half a mile away. The whole yard fell silent as we waited. It would have helped if I'd known what we were waiting for. As it was, my imagination was running wild.

Seven trucks ground to a halt in the middle of the courtyard. The men who climbed out of them were not ones I recognised. They were dressed more sharply than their flockie counterparts, although those clothes were stained with blood. And they smelt ... off. It was not a scent I recognised. It was salt and samphire and gorse.

Westerners. They came from Pembrokeshire and Carmarthenshire and Ceredigion, where there were so few wild places left that the shifters were forced to live alongside humans. I knew very little about them, except that they kept to themselves and had a fondness for blood-sports.

"Gentlemen," Mason said, smirking in that infuriating way of his. "Welcome to Snowdonia."

They just stood there, silent and cold, all of them staring at him. One of the men gave a very slight nod, acknowledging the greeting but making it clear that it wouldn't be returned.

The flockies got out of the cars behind them, Micah in their midst. And once they were all unloaded onto the paving stones, they began hauling their prisoners out. There were five of them. Three little ones, none older than five or six, a toddler being held like a sack of potatoes, and a screaming baby.

The world seemed to just ... stop for me. One minute I was there, present and alert, and the next I was gazing into space without really seeing anything. Those were kids. Those were little bloody kids who'd done nothing to no one.

They'd found one of our camps. I didn't know how, and I didn't know which one, but I did know that I couldn't just stand here and watch this. There were times when I could bite my tongue and swallow my hatred and blink away the tears. And there were times when I couldn't.

Kids.

Even handcuffed and surrounded, Joel started to thrash. He knew it was hopeless, but he did it anyway, because he was just as furious and miserable as we were. I watched him with vacant eyes as he tried to shift. He nearly knocked himself out in the attempt, because his shoulders were in the wrong position and his muscles were tearing themselves apart.

The flockies were content to watch and laugh. There were enough bodies around him that the thrashing was harmless. One of them clouted him around the head, and another added a kick for good measure, and I saw him go limp.

One of the little boys had seen Joel. He burst into tears, reaching out for him. The flockie who was holding him yanked him back by his collar and smacked him around the head to make him shut up. It didn't work. He'd just watched his parents die, in all likelihood, and he knew exactly what the flockies would do to him now.

"Easy now, boys," Mason said, but he was grinning away like this was all very funny. I didn't know why I was surprised.

"I'll kill him," Liam murmured through the link. "I will. If he even touches them—"

I turned my head to look at him properly. "Yeah, and that'll make us feel better, but it ain't going to help them, is it?"

Liam just winced. He knew I was right, but that didn't mean he had to like it. His ears were pulled back, and his teeth were showing. I rested my hand on the scruff of his neck, ready to grab him if he decided to do something stupid.

Like I had.

Goddess, this was such a mess.

Joel was cussing them out for all he was worth, but he was one voice amongst dozens, and the flockies knocked the wind out of him with a great deal of laughter. I knew that boy was his nephew, and the baby was Finn's little sister, so I was almost glad he wasn't awake to see this.

Soon enough, Joel was looking at me again. This time, it was almost accusing. Do something, that stare said, and I found it hard to argue.

Except that I'd just tried something, hadn't I? And I'd only made things worse. In a way, we were already doing something. If those kids could hang on for a few weeks, and if we could take control of the pack, they'd be safe. I wished it didn't feel so much like an excuse to stand there, doing jack shit.

Mason paced forwards. He looked over the children one by one with a scowl creeping across his face. His mood had clearly not improved. "Is this it, then? Did the women get the better of you?"

There was a chorus of sniggering from the rest of the courtyard. Micah choked back a growl before it could escape his throat. And lucky for him, because Mason had lost a fair amount of blood by then, and his mood was getting fouler by the second.

Another of the flockies shuffled nervously in place, his eyes fixed on the ground. "There was ... resistance, Alpha. We lost four men, and the westerners lost another three."

Resistance indeed. Our raiders didn't forget how to use their teeth just because they had pups in their bellies. The older ones were left behind because they were too slow to outrun the flockies, not because they couldn't still kill one. Our pups were trained before they even learnt to shift.

There was no such thing as a civilian amongst rogues. And perhaps that was the problem. The flockies thought they were fair game if they fought back. No matter that they were defending their homes and their families from people who'd come to kill them.

I wondered how many of them had paid the price for that today. I wondered how many kids and mothers and grandparents were lying dead in the woods.

"Well, Micah?" Mason asked. "Where are the rest of my prisoners?"

Micah shrugged sullenly. "Wasn't my fault, was it? They fought us. You got five — isn't that enough?"

"No, because they're no bloody use to me, are they?" he said, gesturing at the toddlers. "Find a foster mum for the baby and keep a guard with them in case the rogues come looking for it. The others can go downstairs."

I knew how this would end. Pack law hadn't changed where these kids were concerned. Mason couldn't execute them, and he could hardly torture them, because they were too small to know anything. So instead he would lock them up and treat them so poorly that they would all die of malnutrition or dysentery within a few months, and that was still murder, but it was the legal kind of murder.

"Cowards," Joel snapped. "They're toddlers, and you want to lock them up?"

"They're rogues," Mason corrected, not bothering to hide his amusement. "But we will have plenty of time to discuss morals later, won't we? Once you're nicely settled in..."

He snapped his fingers at the fighters, and they hauled Joel to his feet again. He would go into the cells and die down there. These were his last few seconds of daylight, and he could have used them to look at the sky above us or the lush green forest behind, but he was still staring at me.

They shoved him along, laughing when he stumbled and taking any excuse to be rough. I ran my hand down Liam's back, tangling my fingers in the coarse summer coat, and I tried to shove down all the frustration and the hatred as they took the children in the same direction.

Finn was half-dragged, half-carried. I saw him stirring and hoped to the Goddess he wasn't waking up. I hoped whatever damage the flockies had done to him was permanent. It was better to go quietly now than recover and be tortured.

***

I borrowed Seth's phone. It was a reckless thing to do, and I knew that, but I was so tired of doing everything by the book. I sat on the paving stones, my back against a wall, and I called Nia with the Alpha of the pack standing ten metres away.

"Hey," I said quietly.

"Eva," Nia sighed, the relief in her voice evident. "Are you two safe?"

"For now. What happened?"

"They knew about the raid," she said quietly. "Most of them got away, but the guys who were supposed to run the distraction are all dead or captured. And the flockies found their camp, Eva. Emmett's not talking to anyone right now, but I don't think there were any survivors."

Her voice broke a little at that last part. And I felt the lump coming to my throat. Of course Finn and Joel had been the distraction. They were both young and fast, and it was supposed to be the safer job. No doubt the rogues who'd died in the woods had been teenagers, too, and that meant I'd known all of them.

That was fine — or to be expected, at least. Raiders didn't have much in the way of life expectancy. But the camp ... Goddess above. It wasn't the first time it had happened in my lifetime, and I doubted it would be the last, but I still wanted to be sick.

"Yeah," I said quietly. "They've ... um ... they've got some kids here."

"Alive or dead?"

"Alive. For now."

I heard Nia sigh again. This time, it was heavier and tinged with frustration, because she knew as well as I did that Mason wouldn't tolerate them for long. "Well, that's some good news, at least. I'll tell Em when he gets his head on straight. We're still trying to work out how they found out. You have been keeping your walls up, haven't you?"

"Of course I have," I snapped. "You think I'd put you all in danger like that?"

"Okay, Eva," she said carefully. "I know. I'm sorry. But I don't see how else they could have—"

I cut her off mid-sentence with a low growl. "It wasn't me. Bloody hell. Put Hayden on the phone."

"Hayden? Why?" she demanded.

"Just do it."

It was one sentence nagging at me. Something Felix had said, right before. He's made contact. It didn't sound right. It wasn't a scout who'd stumbled on a camp, it wasn't an intercepted message — no, it sounded a lot like the kind of talk Liam and I had been using with the guys back home.

Nia sighed at me. There was a long pause, ending with a crackling sound and a confused, "Hello?"

"Hayden," I began as pleasantly as I could manage, "why don't you guys send sleepers into our raiding teams?"

Another pause. This one felt sullen to me. And when he did finally answer me, his voice was rougher than normal. "Maybe we do."

I shook my head, unwilling to take such obvious bait. It took me a minute to remember he couldn't see me, at which time I added a disgusted noise from the back of my throat.

"Okay," he sighed. "We genuinely can't. Think of it like this. It's illegal to even hold a conversation with a rogue outside of an interrogation. If we send a pack wolf to join rogues, they have to break the law. There's no way around it. They'd have to break it again when they get roped into raids. And then we have to execute them. It's a stupid, stupid system, but that system is all that separates us from you."

"That's all," I repeated slowly. "Not morality, not the fact that we're evil. You just admitted that your dumb laws—"

He made a grunting sound, which I took as a polite request to quit teasing him. I decided to obey, because I still had questions for him.

"And how come you're not breaking those laws right now?" I asked.

"Well ... I am," Hayden said shortly. "But it's not like I'm ever going to get caught."

"Well, shit, flockie," I drawled. "We could make you an honorary rogue."

He snorted at me, the noise muffled and distorted through the phone. "I'm pretty sure that's a compliment in your eyes, but I'll have to pass."

I actually managed a smile then, albeit half-hearted and quick to fade. "Back to ... like ... the point. If Mason wanted to send a spy into our camps, he'd need ... what? Extra special permission? A free pass for that guy? How would he do that?"

"Well ... I guess you could issue some kind of pre-emptive pardon, but you'd need all seven Alphas to agree. Get the signatures on an E-Doc or something."

"Signatures," I repeated. "Bloody hell. Put Nia back on."

I didn't even wait to hear her voice. I just heard a series of scuffling sounds, and then I said, "Emmett's got a flockie sleeper in his raiding team. And Jace signed off on it — so you'd better tell Mam that he's being a slippery little prick."

I heard Nia's sharp intake of breath. "Are you sure about this?"

"No," I said honestly. It was an educated guess. "But I think it's worth looking into."

"I think it is, too," she agreed, and then she hung up the phone.

Liam was looking at me. He'd heard most of that, and he looked furious, if not very surprised. While I'd been on the phone, he'd shifted back and found himself some clothes. I could see his blood soaking through in several places.

I sighed at him. "Since we both did stupid things, can they ... like ... cancel out?"

He turned to face me, a little smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. "I'm cool with that."

"Good," I murmured. "Because I don't want to fight."

"Me neither."

It was the last thing we needed right now. We were supposed to be waiting for Mason to finish talking to his Deltas. And I had the strangest feeling he was going to tear us a new one. I'd told Liam what I'd done to deserve this, because it wasn't fair on him to go into it blind. And he'd taken it surprisingly well, all things considered, but it wasn't going to stop me feeling guilty.

"Joel's going to tell them," I said, because he hated both of us. "Or Finn will. Either way, we're screwed, and it's over."

"Yeah," he said. I found that strangely calming. It was out of our hands now. We would have to spend the next few days on the edges of our seats, ready to run at a moment's notice, knowing all the while that all the work and the effort had been for nothing.

Liam must have been feeling the same way. He came a little closer, reaching out to wipe a fleck of blood from my cheek. It was probably his. I was quickly proved wrong when his fingers moved to my ear next, and he winced as he took note of some scratch from the fight earlier.

"Can I stay with you tonight?" he asked in a low voice.

I was still technically in heat, but I thought about it for all of two seconds before nodding. The truth was, since we'd started sleeping apart, I'd spent most of the nights tossing and turning. I hadn't told him that, of course, and I had no idea if the same was true for him, because neither of us wanted to admit how utterly co-dependent we were becoming. But ... he had been yawning an awful lot.

"Why not?" I said. "It's not like we're going to get any sleep."

"No," he agreed. "Is it even worth staying?"

I knew what he meant. As soon as Joel opened his mouth, we'd have to run for our lives, and leaving now would avoid all of that. It would also mean we'd get to go home and see everyone. But it felt like giving up.

I shrugged at him. "No idea. But if we leave now, we won't get to see the look on Mason's face when he realises you've been running around with rogues all these years."

"Every now and then, Eva, you make a half-decent point," he teased. "We'll stay."

I couldn't help grinning. And he grinned back, and for a moment all of our problems felt a little bit more distant. Liam was very close. I was suddenly aware that I could hear his heart beating.

And I was staring at him. And he was staring back.

When he tilted his head down, he took me by surprise. I could have moved back, or turned away, or broken that eye contact, but I just stood there. Liam closed what little distance we had left.

And he pressed his lips against mine. It was the barest, gentlest of touches, and he pulled away again so quickly that I didn't have time to respond. It was enough, somehow, to make me feel breathless.

Liam looked as surprised as I was — wide-eyed and frozen. I didn't think he'd meant to do it. He knew as well as I did that we only had to wait a few more weeks. But there was no taking it back now, no second chances and no way to pretend it hadn't happened.

"Eva..." he murmured.

It was an apology and a question — one I didn't have the faintest clue how to answer. I stared at him for a heartbeat too long, because I was panicking and in shock and incredibly flustered.

And then I stood on my tiptoes and kissed him fiercely. I didn't care that half the pack could see us, his brothers amongst them. This time, we weren't in a hurry to pull back again. My hands found his shirt collar and pulled him even closer.

I'd kissed a lot of boys over the years. Some of them had been more experienced than others, and it showed in the way Liam was following my example that he probably hadn't done this before.

But ... all those kisses, all those years, and none of them had ever really meant anything. In that, I was even more uncertain than he was. I didn't think I'd ever felt so completely and utterly vulnerable in my entire life. There was this feeling in the pit of my stomach, almost like I was falling, and that had never happened before.

I realised I needed to breathe, eventually. I leant back and sucked in a lungful of cool air, feeling for all the world like I'd just surfaced from an ocean. It was only when I opened my eyes that it hit me. We were barely an inch apart, and there was a pair of wide dark eyes watching me.

I'd known it was a mistake, and I'd known it was just the stress getting to us, and I'd done it anyway. And the worst part was ... I wanted to do it again.

"Uh oh," Liam breathed.

I added a few fouler words for good measure. It had been a team effort, but together we'd managed to screw up a perfectly good thing, and now what? Friends didn't kiss each other.

"It's ... no, it's okay," I said. "It's fine. We'll— Um— Shit."

There was a solution ... of sorts. A way to make sure it didn't mean anything ... but it would involve going even further. I knew it wasn't fair on Liam. I knew I was being a coward. It didn't make the slightest bit of difference in the end, because I would have done much, much worse to protect our friendship.

Plus ... seeing Joel had messed me up. I hadn't liked the way he'd been looking at me — not because it was outwardly hostile, but because I hadn't understood it. That had started off this reckless impulse, and the stress let it run its course.

There was too much nervous energy, too much adrenaline, and too much tension coursing through my blood. It drowned the sensible part of my brain, which had been quiet to begin with.

"Wait here a second," I said. He was too stunned to answer me.

I went over to the place where Felix's clothes were lying discarded on the paving stones. He hadn't been given time to shift back, so they would stay there until Mason let him outside again. I shook the jacket until my knife fell out.

I stood up again and bit back a smile. The knife went back into my pocket. Even in those few minutes, I'd missed the familiar weight of it against my hip. No one was paying me the slightest bit of attention — not Mason, not the little crowd of fighters who'd gathered around him. And that meant no one would notice if we did a runner.

"Right," I told Liam. "Let's go."

"Go where?"

I gave him a look. And that was enough, luckily, to make him follow me as quietly as a lamb. We went into the pack house, we climbed the stairs, and then I led him right into our room before I kissed him again.

He seemed to get the idea. His hands were on my waist, slipping beneath my shirt, and mine were tangled in his hair. There was a decisiveness to it all now — a feeling that it was inevitable where this would end — but we were still going slow, because we had all the time in the world.

I tugged at the hem of his shirt, and he took the hint, pulling it over his head. Most of his injuries seemed to have scabbed over, so I didn't have to worry about hurting him. My fingers explored every ridge of muscle in lazy, teasing arcs.

The problems started when I took my own shirt off. He didn't freeze up or do anything else that would have worried me, but he did make a point of keeping his eyes fixed on mine. I was aware that I'd have to be careful with him. The link made that easy, because I could feel the hesitation long before it was visible.

"You're allowed to look, you know," I told him, gentle and teasing. "It's okay."

Liam nodded, his throat bobbing, because we both knew this would be another line we couldn't uncross. Slowly, deliberately, he moved his eyes downwards. They came straight back up again, but I wasn't too fussed, because they were a shade darker than they had been.

More kissing. Our hands were going wherever they liked, now, and it wasn't long before Liam's fingers found the button of my jeans. He paused there. "Is this okay, too?"

"Yes," I said. "That's okay."

He kissed me again, and I could feel him grinning against my lips. And once I'd lost the jeans, I started edging backwards towards the bed, pulling him with me. My hands got as far as his belt buckle before I did any real thinking.

"Shit," I said suddenly. "I just realised I don't have anything. Do you?"

I knew it was a long shot, but he nodded. "Yeah, we're good."

I raised my eyebrows, making a face that was worth a thousand words, because I was astonished. "So you planned on getting laid, did you?"

It was teasing, really, and I wasn't expecting an answer. But Liam looked at me sheepishly and said by way of explanation, "Rhodri's always throwing them at me."

I snorted. His lips were moving down my neck and leaving a trail of fire in their wake. And when they reached my mark, nipping and teasing, I swore softly. It was too sensitive. Even the slightest touch could make me squirm, and he knew that, damn him.

Somehow, he was still half-dressed. My fingers found his belt again. And all the while I was looking at him with a lop-sided grin, enjoying the look on his face.

"If you're going to be on top, you'll have to do all the work," I warned him.

Liam looked at me with that unmistakable gleam of mischief. "Don't I always, Eva?"

That made me laugh. And I kept laughing until his lips found my mark again. And soon I was lying on my back, and he was on top of me, and the rest was inevitable, really.