So this is it. The latest update ever. I don't even have a good excuse, except that life is hectic at the moment. Are you guys all doing okay? Still alive?

ALSO, question time - because it'll cheer me up and hopefully you guys too. Tell me about your pets and how cute they are on a scale of 1 to infinity. If you don't have any, what kind of pet would you like? For example, my doggo is fast asleep on my lap. She's a big, crazy mongrel who likes eating rocks and biting people's noses. I'd probably have written this a lot faster if she would keep her muddy paws away from my keyboard.

But anyway, on with the story, that's why you're all here. As always, slay the typos :)

The car ride to Ember was the longest twenty minutes of my life, but Rhodri's heart kept thudding and those shallow breaths kept coming. He was a fighter — there was no denying that. Somewhere past Riverside, he started to wake up properly, his eyelids fluttering and his entire body twitching. I was pretty sure he was seizing, and it wasn't long before the vomiting started. Liam had to help me roll him onto his side before he choked on it.

We stopped the car on a verge that I recognised in some vague, distant way. And then I trotted behind as Seth and Liam carried him into the woods. There was a lot of panting. A lot of stumbling. And a lot of swearing.

Sam found us after a few minutes. For once, there was no flock of children at his heels, but he wasn't alone. My little sister had come too. It wasn't the welcome party I'd expected. Not even close. But on the bright side, they weren't scary enough to worry Seth, who gave them all sidelong glances but didn't start trembling when they helped carry Rhodri towards the camp.

Rhodri's mother — the resident doctor — was waiting for us inside one of the tents. It was a poor excuse for a hospital, that tent, but there was a fold-up table and rucksacks full of medical equipment. It didn't get much better than that in our camps.

Bryn was sat on the table with a needle in his arm. He was watching a blood bag fill, but he looked up quick enough when we came in. And then he jumped down to make way for them to set Rhodri down on the table. Bryn stared at his brother with wide eyes and a face drained of all colour.

"Oh, shit," he breathed. "What happened?"

His mother was a good deal calmer, even with her son at death's door. I could smell the panic on her breath, but there wasn't a trace of it on her face. She brushed the hair from his forehead while she felt for a pulse.

"Flockies," Liam said quietly, and that was really all there was to say.

Seth stepped forward, scratched at the back of his neck and offered, "I've got IV access. He's hypovolaemic and recovering from an opioid overdose. Multiple fractures. Started seizing in the car. I'm hoping that's just the naloxone — it's a common reaction in shifters."

"You're a doctor?" Aunt Cassidy asked. She was human, so she couldn't tell that he was a flockie, and that was probably for the best.

"Yes," Seth said.

"Good. You can help me put him under. We'll start the bloods, too. His brother is donating."

They cut his shirt away. I'd never seen doctors so hesitant. They didn't know where to start. They could pump blood into him all they liked — it was just going to come straight out again. And sewing up all those cuts would take hours of surgery. The broken bones were another matter. They'd had time to heal in the wrong places, and that would make their job so much harder.

"There's too much," Aunt Cassidy said, her voice breaking. "He's ... I don't think..."

Seth agreed with her, if the look on his face was any indication, but he swallowed those doubts and said instead, "We can't make it any worse."

I was surprised he was even helping. Surprised he hadn't taken the chance to get back in his car and drive home the second we'd reached the camp. Maybe his 'sympathies' for rogues weren't skin-deep, after all. I reckoned it was more likely that he was too terrified of us to try it.

They started working in eerie silence. Seth seemed happy to do the easy jobs, and my aunt had so much experience patching up raiders that she could stitch at a frightening speed. She did the hole in his wrist first.

I stood there, perfectly still, and I let the energy build within me. Every muscle, every tendon — they were taut and thrumming. My heart felt light in my chest, which was a sure sign that it was skipping along at breakneck speed. I felt like I was supposed to be doing something.

But I'd done my job, and that was a truth of it. I just wished there was a way to explain that to my body, which was drowning me in adrenaline. I'd given him a fighting chance. And even if he died, I'd made sure his last hours wouldn't be spent in agony. He wouldn't die in a cold concrete cell surrounded by flockies. Here, the walls were made of cloth and the light was tinged green and the breeze smelt like pine. His family was around him.

But he wasn't going to die. I wasn't going to let him. I might not be a doctor, but I could find the dark place where his mind should have been, and I could tug on a mind-link that led to nothing. Even asleep, maybe he could feel that, and maybe he would remember that there were people waiting for him.

I must have looked as distraught as I felt, because Sam came over to take pity on me before ten minutes was up. He put a hand on the scuff of my neck and asked quietly, "Why don't you come outside, and I'll find you some clothes?"

"Not right now," I said down the link. It was rougher than he deserved, but the idea of leaving was abhorrent.

Sam sighed, but he didn't ask again. I saw him leave out of the corner of my eye. There were too many of us in here — it had to be distracting for the doctors, but neither of them had the heart to make us leave.

Bryn was just staring at his brother. He couldn't seem to tear his eyes away, and he was frozen in place. His blood bag was now hanging from the tent pole so gravity could speed up the transfusion. It was a pint, and it was already half empty. We'd need a lot more if we were going to keep Rhodri alive. So yes, I needed to shift. It would only take a minute.

***

The clothes Sam had found me were borrowed and mismatched, but they were dry, and that was all that mattered. The trousers were too long, the t-shirt smelt like vodka, and I didn't have a bra. These were all things I noticed without particularly caring because my mind was still on Rhodri.

It had got to the point where I wasn't thinking or wondering or imagining anymore. I wasn't even feeling anything. I was just stuck.

It was probably shock. Yeah. That would make sense. But putting a name to it didn't seem to help, and it certainly didn't snap me out of it.

"We're short on clothes at the moment," Sam explained as we walked through the camp. It was silent and almost deserted, which was lucky because I smelt like a flockie. "Emmett's raiders had to come stay with us, and they lost everything when the flockies torched their camp, so we're also short on tents and sleeping bags and ... everything, really."

"Oh," I said. He was rambling, but that was alright. It was a good distraction from what was happening in the tent. "That's okay. I'm not sure if we're staying. Do you know where my parents are?"

He nodded slowly. "Some flockie scout found another camp this morning. Everyone went to help them move before Ember can kill them all."

Well, that explained the radio silence. I'd been scared that something worse had happened, but seeing everyone here being so calm and quiet and alive ... it helped. It had been a pretty awful morning.

Sam led me back past the campfires, which were almost deserted. He'd left the little kids with our hostages, apparently. Hayden was sat near the fire with Jess Llewellyn on his knee. He wasn't even handcuffed. And for once, Jess wasn't trying to bite him. She was just sat there, quiet as the grave, because she knew something was badly wrong.

I sat down to tie my laces. They weren't my shoes, and they were falling apart to the point where the soles were peeling away, but they were better than nothing. I was finding it very easy to stand around staring vacantly into space. It was a relief to have something so beautifully simple to do, even if my fingers were shaking and every movement was frantic.

"No one tells me bloody anything," Hayden said shortly. I got the impression he'd been waiting for someone to come along just so he could complain. "First everyone's running around like headless chickens and now you're back here, for whatever reason. Did something go wrong in Silver Lake?"

I didn't answer. Didn't even look at him. Tying the last knot, I wriggled into a hoodie that smelt like my little sister. The rain was still coming down, and my skin was still wet under the clothes, but I felt warmer now.

"I'm going to take that as a yes," he went on. He rubbed at the back of his neck, and a flush crept across his cheeks, and it looked a lot like he was getting embarrassed. Maybe he was starting to regret the way he'd begun this conversation. Well ... good. "We can, um, keep watching the kids, if you like. It's not a problem. Hannah took the youngest one to the toilet — she hasn't run off or anything like that."

"Well, that's good," I said, "because if you try and run off right now, I think I'll probably kill you."

Hayden's eyes widened in hurt or surprise or perhaps even a mixture of the two.

"I wouldn't even know which way to run," he muttered. "And I'm not going to leave a six-year-old on her own. That's kind of a dick move."

Sam shot him a stony look, and that was the closest he ever got to losing his temper. "D'you mind watching your language around the kids?"

Hayden shook his head wearily. "What's the point? They know more swearwords than I do."

That was probably true. Normally, Jess would be grinning away at a statement like that, but she just watched me with her big, hazel eyes and acted like she hadn't even heard.

I'd only been here a minute at most, but I was already itching to get back to Rhodri. I crouched down in front of Jess and tucked a few stray hairs behind her ear.

"Hey, sweetie," I said. "Are you cool to stay with Hayden?"

Jess started to nod. She burst into tears before she could manage it, and I took that as a no. Even the fiercest six-year-olds had a limit to their bravery. She was getting too big to be carried, really, but I picked her up anyway and tucked her against my shoulder until the tears turned into sniffles.

"Your brother's tough," I told her. "Give it a few days, and he'll be back to pissing you off, and you'll forget this ever happened. Yeah? He's going to be okay. Promise."

"Good," she said. "Because he was supposed to give me Freddos, and he never did, and he can't die before he does that. It's not fair."

I nodded along solemnly, but Jess had managed to upset herself somehow, and she started crying all over again. I rocked her in my arms, trying to soothe her with the link now, because I'd run out of words and there was a lump in my throat.

Sam caught my eye and said quietly, "It's okay, Eva. I can take her."

He was giving me the chance to go back to Rhodri, and I wouldn't forget that. It took some convincing before Jess let me hand her over. Only once she was safely in Sam's arms did I go back to the tent.

Liam and Bryn and Eira were outside now. I didn't know if they'd been kicked out or left of their own accord, but they had sat down to wait, heedless that the rain was soaking them to the skin.

There was a space between Liam and my sister that I suspected may have been left intentionally. Instead of claiming it, I sat on Eira's other side and rested my head against her shoulder, ignoring the questioning look she gave me. I didn't want to look at Liam. I didn't need a reminder of what had happened. Didn't want to think about the still-smoking ruins of our friendship.

"How did they catch him?" my sister asked no one in particular.

That was the question, wasn't it? There had been clues, but we wouldn't know for sure until Rhodri woke up. I rubbed the back of my neck and shook my head slowly. "I think he walked into the pack house and shot Mason."

Eira blew out. She didn't look very surprised. "Huh. That boy's got balls ... but I reckon he might be missing a brain."

"He'll be missing more than that by the time I'm through with him," Liam murmured. "Reckless bloody idiot."

"No, thank you," I snapped. "You and him — you will not be fighting ever again. And I mean that, alright? You can put your bloody eyes down when he's being an arse. It's not going to kill you."

It was a reasonable suggestion, but the way I said it was not especially tactful. Liam flinched. Eira swung her head around to look at me in a dull, disinterested kind of way. She was probably expecting me to feel guilty and shower him with apologies, because that was what I usually did when I lost my temper with him.

I was convinced that I shouldn't have to. I was fighting tears, and I was so, so close to just breaking down right there and then, and that excused any amount of lashing out, as far as I was concerned.

Except that Liam was probably feeling the same way. And now he was going to spend the rest of the day thinking that I was angry at him, and that wasn't fair. I did feel guilty, despite my best efforts, and I knew I was going to keep feeling guilty until I apologised.

"Sorry," I mumbled.

It was so quiet that I wasn't sure Liam had even heard. And I couldn't find the willpower to repeat it. This was a big, big mess. We'd managed to ruin our friendship on the day that we needed it most.

We sat there for probably twenty minutes. I would get up every so often and stand in the entrance to the tent to check on Rhodri. The two doctors were still fighting to stabilise him, and the blood bag was empty before long. I filled up the next one because I was as close to universal as shifters could get and I'd been cross-matched with Rhodri before.

The adults arrived as I was taking the needle out of my vein. It wasn't everyone — just Rhodri's dad and my parents, actually. And they were stony-eyed and furious as they came up to the tent.

Rhodri's dad went straight to the entrance. He stopped abruptly, and I knew he must have seen Rhodri in all of his bruised, blood-soaked glory. I watched all the colour drain from his face.

It wasn't an easy thing to see. I'd gotten a good look in the car, and there were patches where his skin had been peeled away that brought bile flooding into my mouth. There were fragments of bone showing on his hands. Even his eyelids had been sliced up. What they'd done to him ... it was sick, and I wasn't going to forget it.

Uncle Rhys stood there for a long moment, just staring at his son. I couldn't really imagine how he must have been feeling. They'd only been told that he was hurt, and we all got hurt a lot. But this ... it was on a whole new level.

I climbed onto my feet as Mam and Dad came closer. Even from here, they could see Rhodri, but they seemed more worried about me. I saw them look me over, cataloguing the cuts and bruises in that way that parents loved to do.

As soon as she was close enough, Mam wrapped me in a fierce hug, squeezing tighter than she needed to. Dad wasn't far behind her. This, more than anything, made me want to start crying. I was still too numb for it, but I could feel that wearing off now, as my jumble of feelings began to thaw.

I took a series of deep, steadying breaths and scrubbed at my face. No, I was not going to cry. Not in front of Rhodri's parents.

"You're okay?" Dad asked. They hadn't let go of me yet. It had been a while since I'd seen them, and I felt like I'd aged a decade in that time. The lump in my throat was back, all of a sudden.

I nodded, not trusting myself to speak.

"And you, Liam?"

Liam looked surprised that he was being included. He didn't manage a smile. "Fine, yeah."

Finally, my parents released me. And just in time — my uncle had remembered how to breathe. He turned around very suddenly and came back towards us. It was inevitable, really, that anger had come nipping at the heels of the misery. His jaw was set, and he was looking right at me.

"Who did that?" he asked.

I pressed my lips together and swallowed and looked down at my feet. I knew I wasn't supposed to tell him, because he wasn't in the right frame of mind to be making decisions, but Goddess how I wanted to.

His eyes flashed black when I failed to answer. "I'm not playing, Eva."

Liam came to stand at my back. I could see exactly how tense he was. He knew, like I did, that this was going to turn into an argument, and he hated arguments. The fact that he thought he needed to defend me, well ... that said something. He could tell that Rhodri's dad was furious, but perhaps he couldn't tell that it wasn't directed at me.

Mam rested a hand on his arm. "Rhys..."

He ignored her and took another step towards me. "It was the Vaughan boy, wasn't it?"

That was a fair guess. Now that I thought about it ... given the reason Rhodri had run off, and my involvement, it was actually the only sensible guess. But I couldn't say yes, and I couldn't say no, so I just had to stand there and look at my feet and pretend like I hadn't heard him.

"Rhys. Leave her alone," Mam snapped.

That seemed to break the spell. He stepped back and breathed out hard, kneading his hands together. All in all, he looked about as frustrated as I felt. "I'll kill him."

My mother looked towards the tent at long last, and her eyes darkened. "Yes. We'll kill him. But right now, we're going to sit down and wait until we know that Rhodri is going to be okay. Alright?"

Rhys didn't answer. His throat bobbed, and then he went back to his son, which was must have meant he agreed. I picked at my fingernails and tried to calm down. Liam hadn't moved, and I was painstakingly aware that he was behind me. That was all it took to make my heart race.

I forgot that Seth was in the tent. I forgot until I heard Rhys swear at him. Something must have happened in there, because I heard a muffled thump and a good deal more swearing before Seth was dragged outside by his collar. He was holding his hands out to show they were empty, for all the good it was doing.

"What's this?" Mam demanded. She had palmed her knife at the first swearwords, and she made no attempt to put it away at the sight of a Silver Lake pack member in the middle of our camp.

"I'm trying to help him," Seth said quietly. He was doing a good job of keeping his composure, but I could see how closely he was watching that blade.

"Oh, I'm sure you are, flockie," Uncle Rhys snapped. "Less talking, more getting on your knees, yeah?"

Seth looked pale now, his breaths coming short and fast. He thought we were going to kill him. He got down onto his knees, moving with exaggerated slowness to show he wasn't a threat. His hands stayed up, and his head stayed down. My uncle had a handful of his shirt and a knife pressed up against his spine to keep him still.

My mother looked him over carefully. It didn't take her long to decide that he must belong to me, and I was soon on the receiving end of an empty-eyed stare. "Do I need to kill him?"

She was deadly serious. If I didn't sound sure of myself, Seth was going to die in these woods. And maybe in the grand scheme of things, that was a worthwhile sacrifice, but I knew I wouldn't be able to forgive myself. I met that stare, ignoring my cowering wolf, and I set my jaw. "No."

Mam looked for all the world like she wanted to believe that, but she pressed me anyway. "He knows what you are, and he has seen this camp. So that's your life and the lives of everyone else here that you're gambling with, Eva. I'll ask you again — do I need to kill him?"

"No," I repeated. "Put the bloody knives away. He's with me. And he's helping."

Mam kept staring. But it wasn't her decision, apparently. My uncle must have been convinced, because he released Seth. He did not, however, put his knife away. I understood the anger — really, I did, but taking it out on the first flockie he found wasn't going to help. Seth's only crime was being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Liam leaned down to help Seth find his feet. He didn't let go of him right away, and that was a good call, because Seth stumbled and would have fallen if not for that grip on his arm.

His face was sheet white, and he was swaying. All in all, he looked like he was going to faint. We all pretended not to notice until he got a hold of himself. I wanted to feel sorry for him. I really did. But I had been amongst my enemies for weeks under constant threat of death, and that made it difficult.

"May I ... um ... ?" Seth asked quietly, gesturing to the tent.

He still wanted to help. Even after all that. Uncle Rhys eyed him warily, but I could tell he was surprised. Slowly, cautiously, he stepped backwards to let Seth pass, and then he followed him into the tent. My parents went, too. Poor Seth would now have to do his job while they watched his every move, but I reckoned he'd survive.

He even dared talk to my uncle, which took some guts, as far as I was concerned. He'd clearly noticed that his patient and his attacker resembled each other. "Are you a relation? We'll need more blood."

"You have mine already," Rhys said.

His mate looked up from Rhodri long enough to shake her head. "No, we don't. We only have your black blood cells— Hang on. Actually ... that might just work..."

After a minute of frantic activity, she had filled a syringe with the murky black liquid Aunt Fion had shown me, and then she emptied it into Rhodri's canula. The effects were not immediate. And when they did start, they weren't exactly dramatic. You could almost see the smaller cuts closing, but it was so slow that I reckoned my eyes were playing tricks on me.

Within a minute, most of the injuries on his arm had scabbed over. And even as I watched, it began to spread further. His face, his other arm, his chest ... and eventually, it crept down his legs. There wasn't enough to go around — that much was clear, because most of the wounds were only half done. But it was a start.

"Holy shit," Seth said. His jaw had actually dropped. "What is that?"

"That was five units of concentrated healing power," she said. "And I'm going to need a lot more of it. Sit down, Rhys."

It wouldn't fix everything. A lot of his broken bones had already healed in the wrong places, and nothing except surgery could undo that now. It wouldn't help with the burns or the swelling. But it would deal with the cuts and the internal bleeding, and those would kill him quickest.

Maybe Rhodri stood a chance, after all.

***

"Shit," Seth sighed as he peeled off his gloves and flexed his cramped fingers. I leant against the trunk of a tree to watch him. He'd been in that tent for hours — hours of painstaking surgery to put Rhodri's bones back where they belonged. In all of that time, they'd only managed to fix one of his hands.

He was using a water bottle to rinse the blood from his wrists when he noticed me. He managed an unconvincing smile but didn't look up. "He's stable for now. If he makes it through the night without crashing again, I'd say we're on the right track."

I was finding it difficult to believe. I'd almost written Rhodri off in my despair, hoping that it would be less crushing if he didn't survive. I had to swallow before I found the breath to say, "Thank you, Seth. And I'm sorry about before. We're ... um, we're overly cautious here, I guess."

Seth glanced up now, and there was a twist in his lips which hinted at dry amusement. "That is understandable."

The water bottle was empty now, and he didn't seem to know what to do with it. There weren't any bins in the forest. I reached out and took it from him, tucking it into a pocket. It was then that I saw the tall young man approaching me at considerable speed.

"Eva, I can't find the—" Hayden was saying. He stopped short when he saw Seth, his big blue eyes as wide as saucers as he caught his scent. "Holy shit ... are you a flockie? You are, aren't you? Goddess, help me. Please."

Seth made a face. He looked Hayden up and down with an expression of exhausted bemusement. I was still feeling the slightest bit guilty for dragging him here against his will, so I gave Hayden a shove. "Heaven's sake. Leave him be."

He scowled at me. And as if someone had summoned her through the link, Hannah rocked up. She had a mug of tea in her hands, and she was using it to warm herself up while she waited for it to stop steaming. There were no kids in tow, so I assumed Sam had decided to relieve them from babysitting duties.

"Who's this?" she asked Hayden.

"There's a flockie here, Han."

Hannah blew on her tea and regarded Seth with new interest. "Oh, cool. Which pack?"

"Smells like Silver Lake," Hayden said. "I was just about to explain to him how we're being held prisoner."

That statement seemed to break Seth on some deep, fundamental level. "If this is some kind of joke, I don't think it's very funny. You don't look like prisoners. You're not being guarded. You're not restrained. And you did just call me a flockie. Twice."

Hayden blinked at him. "No, that's— It's not— Okay, I can see how you would think that, but they really are keeping us here against our will. We've been mistreated."

"Have you?" Seth asked shortly. He was probably thinking of the way Rhodri had been 'mistreated,' and I could see him coming to the end of his patience.

Hannah nodded along, still sipping at her tea. Hayden seemed to realise the pair of them weren't very convincing. They were walking around freely. They were unharmed. They were wearing our clothes. They even smelt like us, now.

"We have!" he insisted. "I think I've got a bruise here somewhere..."

Hayden rolled up his sleeve to show Seth a red splotch. And the look Seth gave him was nothing short of disgust. "That's ketchup."

Hayden craned his neck to look. He chewed on his lip, looking sheepish, and then he pulled the sleeve back down. "Uh, hang on. Maybe it's on the other arm."

I couldn't help sniggering at Hayden. For some reason, he didn't find it as funny as I did. And before long, I got bored of his scowl and gave him a push backwards. "Bugger off, yeah? No one likes you when you're whinging."

He looked at me furiously, and then he did indeed 'bugger off,' without even a backwards glance. That, more than anything else he'd done, told me that he was in a foul mood today.

Hannah watched him go with a glum look on her face. She took another long draught of her tea, and then regarded me with one eyebrow cocked. "What's with all the blood?"

I knew I was covered in it. The rain was washing it away, but that was by no means a quick process. Very little of it was mine. And perhaps it was because I was standing in the pouring rain with my cousin's blood all over me that I got so disproportionately irritated by that question.

"Follow me," I said, "and I'll show you."

She set her mug down on a tree stump. She must have noticed the sharpness in my voice, because she was slow to follow. Her steps were light and cautious, and the closer we got to the tent, the more she glanced over her shoulder to check that she wasn't going to get in trouble for this.

Hayden's curiosity had surpassed the anger. He'd come creeping back to see what all the fuss was about, and I pretended like I hadn't noticed to spare his pride. I wanted both of them to know. I wanted them to understand what the other packs were doing to us.

As we got closer, Liam moved into the entrance of the tent, his hands in his pockets. He was watching Hannah carefully. She could see past him, but she couldn't get inside. It took me by surprise. I'd seen Liam being protective before, obviously, but never for Rhodri's sake. Because it was usually Rhodri looking after him, not the other way around. This was unchartered territory for all of us.

Hannah spent a long time staring into the tent. All the while, I tried to avoid looking at Liam, who was a little too close for comfort. She didn't seem to recognise Rhodri, and I supposed that was understandable, given the state of his face. She had to resort to scent in the end, and then her jaw dropped. She couldn't seem to tear her eyes away.

"What happened to him?" she breathed.

"He went onto Silver Lake territory," I said. "And he got caught. Just like you wanted."

"This is not what I wanted," Hannah said with such overpowering conviction that I almost believed her. "Is he ... will he survive?"

I raised my eyebrows. "Why would you care?"

Her head swung around to stare at me, and I could see the panic in her eyes, plain as day. It was like she'd been caught with her hand in the biscuit tin. She was quick to shove down all those errant emotions, and her features went as still as a millpond.

"I don't."

And then, just to illustrate the point, Hannah stalked back towards the campfire, leaving me at the tent entrance. I watched with a furrowed brow as she sat by the fire and hugged her legs.

Well, that was weird. I'd been expecting gloating, and I'd been ready to knock her front teeth out. Now I had a lot of punching energy and no one to spend it on.

Liam sat back down. Seth was standing where I'd left him. If either of them had noticed that something was wrong with Hannah, they didn't show it. Hayden, on the other hand, was staring at his Beta with a frown on his lips. He scratched his head, pulled a face, and then went after her.

They weren't my responsibility. Not right now, anyway. And honestly, I'd had enough of them. I went back to stand beside Seth, who was looking tired and more than a little conflicted. He was my responsibility. I'd brought him here, and I'd vouched for him.

"I didn't actually think you were a sleeper," Seth said, so quietly that I nearly didn't hear. There was a sense of urgency in the words which made me think this had been eating at him for a while. "If I had, I never would have confronted you. I thought maybe you had been a rogue before you found Alex. But here you are, and here he is, and clearly I was wrong."

I shrugged at him. Normally, I would have been denying it until the cows came home, but what was the point? If he told the pack that I had talked to rogues, they would kill me. If he told them I had been a rogue once, they would kill me. If he told them I was a sleeper, they would kill me. And honestly, if I was going to die, I would rather thoroughly earn it.

"Technically, yeah, we're sleepers. But that doesn't mean we're trying to hurt your pack. It's not like that. We're there to kill the Vaughans — no one else."

He looked like he wanted to believe me. I was trying to hold his gaze, because I'd done so much lying that he would need to see the truth in my eyes. But Seth's eyes flitted around nervously, landing on my mother more often than not, and I knew that he would need time to calm down and process all of this before he could decide either way.

"Right. So you're not passing information for raids? And you had nothing to do with the attempt on Mason's life that ended with two dead pack members?" Seth asked. It was not as sharp as it could have been, but I avoided his eyes anyway. "I know you didn't start this war, but you're far from innocent."

I shrugged at him. I didn't think anyone was innocent anymore. Not even him. He was still working for the Vaughans, after all this time. But I didn't say any of that, not wanting an argument, and he was probably satisfied by my silence. I watched as he crouched down to pack the remains of his medical supplies back into their bag.

"I know who that woman is. I've seen pictures of her," he said, without looking up.

It wasn't difficult to guess who he was talking about. And I winced. Mam was out of earshot, but Liam was not, and he was looking at us. I knew he was listening. He couldn't have been happy that I was actively blowing our cover, but he hadn't tried to stop me.

"Um," I said. "Yeah. I wouldn't shout that too loudly, if I was you."

Seth nodded, lowering his voice even further. "The way you spoke to her ... I'd have thought you were in charge. I guess... I suppose what I'm asking is — who are you?"

"Oh, I'm not in charge of anything," I said slowly. "But I am her daughter."

He looked up at me, and there was a crease between his eyes that meant he didn't believe me. He looked like he was hoping it was all some big, dumb joke.

"Yeah," I sighed. "We're stupid, ain't we?"

Seth was spared having to answer that by Bryn, who had been walking past. He stopped beside Liam and held out a carrier bag full of his own clothes. There were jeans and a hoodie, from what I could see, and they smelt like they hadn't been washed for a while. It wasn't hard to guess what they were for.

Liam was still wearing his patrol jacket, with the words Silver Lake and the pack's crest embroidered on the front. His hair was cut very short, and it made him stick out here as much as it let him blend in amongst the flockies. And like me, he smelt like a pack wolf now.

It was alright amongst our family, because they all knew, but the rest of the camp didn't. If they saw him, they were going to start asking questions.

"Hey, Liam," Bryn said. It was lacking all his normal raw enthusiasm and cheer. "I'm s'posed to give you these."

Liam took the bag. He knew as well as I did why it was necessary. "Right. Cheers, Bryn."

I didn't even notice the slip. Not at first. It was only when Seth turned his head sharply in their direction that I realised. It was inevitable, I supposed, because no one at camp was in the habit of calling him Alex, and because we were all too distracted by Rhodri to care about that kind of stuff right now. Bryn hadn't even stuck around long enough to notice his mistake.

"Liam?" Seth asked quietly. I chewed on my lip, not bothering to deny it, because I could see that he'd already made the connection. "As in Liam Vaughan?"

Liam didn't deny it either. He stood there, staring, and I marvelled, not for the first time, that he didn't really have to do anything except look at someone to make them uneasy. "I don't use that surname anymore."

It would have been better if he'd said nothing. Seth blinked at him, probably seeing the resemblance now, all at once, and beating himself up for not guessing a long time ago. "I've walked past your gravestone on my way to work every day for the last decade."

Liam just kept staring at him, saying nothing, because there wasn't much he could say. I nodded towards the woods — a subtle suggestion that he should go and change into the new clothes, if only to escape this conversation, and he was quick to take my advice. He had to walk past us to get there, though.

"Do your brothers know you're alive?" Seth tried next. It didn't seem to matter to him that Liam's back was turned. He clearly hadn't taken the hint.

That wasn't well-received either. Liam looked over his shoulder and snorted. "What do you think?"

Seth just sighed. I could see exactly how fast his thoughts were moving behind those steady, clever eyes, but they seemed to have reached a roadblock. "I have no idea. That's why I'm asking."

But Liam was already out of earshot. In the end, I answered for him, if only to fill the silence. "Charlie does. Mason does. The others don't."

Seth was fiddling with his car-keys now. His attention was back on me, unfortunately. "You're mated to him. A Llewellyn and a Vaughan. Mated?"

I eyed him. "Mm-hmm."

I could keep some secrets. Just in case.

"Goddess save us all. I think I'm starting to understand," Seth mused. "He's going to kill Mason."

I shrugged one shoulder. "That's the plan."

"And then what? Lead the pack to ruin?" he asked, straightening up.

"No. Make it better. You and the Crochet Club could help us, if you wanted to."

Seth nodded slowly to show he understood me. I doubted very much that he was agreeing. Maybe, given enough time to think about it, he'd come around, but this ... it was a lot. He zipped up his first-aid bag and swung it over his shoulder.

"I need to get back," he said stiffly. "The Alpha gave me permission for a trip to Wyst, not a sleepover. And you, Eva ... I don't think you have permission at all, do you? Maybe you should come with me."

It was too late for us, though. Mason would have realised hours ago that we'd skipped town. And he'd think, quite sensibly, that it was because of him. That we were just running away from the conversation he'd wanted so desperately. He'd be angry. Livid, probably. But he wouldn't connect us to his missing corpse and he wouldn't execute us for desertion, and that was all that mattered.

"You can leave," I said, folding my arms. "No one is going to stop you. I'm staying here until I know that Rhodri will be okay."

He nodded. And then he headed towards the verge where his car was parked. I watched him go with my hands in my pockets, knowing damn well that he held my life in his hands. One word to Mason — one single word, and we'd return to a welcome even more vicious than Rhodri's had been.

"Eva," Mam said.

It was a summons. I was willing to bet she'd been waiting for me to finish talking to Seth this whole time. I sighed loudly, not bothering to hide my reluctance as I ambled in her direction. I stopped in front of her, my eyes on the ground and my hands still in my pockets.

"I want to retaliate for this," Mam told me. "We all do. But I think it goes without saying that no one will be doing anything to put you in danger. I'm guessing you blew your cover when you got Rhodri out?"

I couldn't help smiling then. "We didn't, actually."

It was a good opportunity to feel smug, because I knew damn well that getting Rhodri out of Silver Lake alive was something that should have been impossible. Let alone without being seen.

Sure enough, my mother blinked at me, first with astonishment and then with a hint of disbelief. "Shit, kiddo. Well done. That can't have been easy. Are you still willing to go back once Rhodri is stable?"

"I'm going to wait until he's better," I snapped. She shouldn't have asked so soon. I understood why and all, but it grated against my last nerve. "And even then, I'm not so sure I want to. You left us high and dry in that pack. You know that, right? You moved Nia away, and today you didn't answer the bloody phone."

"You know perfectly well why I had to move Nia away, pup," she said quietly. "That little stunt of yours nearly got her killed."

"That little stunt of ours nearly worked. If you'd been helping, it would have. And then Rhodri wouldn't have gotten carved up like a Sunday roast."

She looked bemused, more than anything. "How was I supposed to help? You didn't give me the option, Eva. I didn't even know it was happening."

That was rich, wasn't it? I took my hands out of my pockets at long last, and I used one to wipe the drizzle from my face. It came away sodden, and I wiped it on a trouser leg that was just as damp.

"Mm, well, I'll share my plans when you start sharing yours," I told her matter-of-factly. "Are you still hoping you can flip the packmeet? Because I don't think you've got one vote, let alone four. Jace is clearly playing both sides."

Mam folded her arms across her chest and regarded me with thinly-veiled amusement. "You'll just have to wait and see, won't you?"

As it turned out, that was my breaking point.

"No, you'll tell me," I said. "Because I'm going to be a Luna soon enough. That'll be your doing, but it'll be my power. And if you want my cooperation, you'll have to earn it."

A Luna didn't really have any power. But an Alpha did. Liam would have an entire pack to command — and that meant dozens of fighters and millions of pounds and even influence over the other packs. And Liam listened to me. He always had.

I thought, quite sensibly, that my mother would get pissed off. I'd never been so insolent in my life. But when I finally dared to meet her eyes, I found that she was smiling.

"What?" I demanded.

Mam reached over to muss my hair up, heedless of my growls. "Nothing, kiddo. I just missed you."

"That's all?"

"Well ... and I guess I was wondering — how long has your wolf been acting up?"

Oh. Oh. This explained ... a lot. And it had never even crossed my mind, because I'd had so much else to think about. Liam's must have been starting, too. I thought of the way he'd snapped at Mason. The fights. Maybe we'd inadvertently set each other off.

"A while," I said.

Mam's smile was fast turning into a grin. She was finding this funny, for some reason. "Yeah. That checks out."

I rubbed the back of my neck, suddenly more embarrassed than anything else. I'd watched Rhodri and Nia go through the same thing with puzzlement and a little disgust. "How do I, um, make it stop?"

She shrugged at me. "It's not that simple, Eva. You're growing up, and you're ready to move away from home and get your own space. And you're realising nobody has any right to be telling you what to do. I did the same thing to Rhodric. It'll settle down eventually — just as soon as we all start treating you like a person instead of a cub."

"Mm," I agreed. "Okay. Why don't you start right now?"

And to my astonishment, my mother obliged. "Jace has never supported the amendment, and he's not about to start now. You don't need to worry about him. It's the last vote we're fighting for at the moment. He's trying to convince his cousin to switch sides. So that's Jace, Zach, the Fletchers, once we reinstate them ... and Liam. Four votes. A majority."

"Sick," I said. "Except you're still betting that Liam can take Silver Lake, and that's not looking super hopeful at the moment. "

She inclined her head. "Liam will have help. I'll find a way to get rid of Mason Vaughan, and then we'll pit him against one of the younger brothers. The Beta, maybe."

She was going to do it for us. A week ago, I'd have leapt at that chance. Now, I wasn't so sure. I'd seen first-hand what Mason had done to Rhodri, and there was a part of me that wanted to kill him myself. Or at least watch him die.

"Don't," I said. "Not yet, anyway. If we don't manage it by the end of the week, you're welcome to have a go."

Mam's eyebrows flew upwards. It wasn't hard to understand why. It had been a very long time since I'd volunteered for work of any kind — let alone something as massive as killing an Alpha on his own territory.

"Really?" she asked.

"Yeah."

"Okay then."

It was that easy. I wasn't entirely sure what I'd just signed up for, but a week would be long enough to figure it out.

***

We didn't go to bed that night. Not really. The entire family camped out in front of the med tent. It wasn't an agreed-upon, definitive thing, but it happened anyway. I sat curled up in a camp chair outside because there wasn't room inside the tent itself. Bryn was on one side of me, eerily quiet and still, and my dad was on the other.

The rain hadn't stopped, so they slung a tarpaulin between two trees to cover us, and they lit a fire when the sun set. It never ceased to amaze me how fast the air cooled at dusk, and after weeks living indoors, I found myself shivering. It didn't go unnoticed, and it wasn't long before my mother arrived to drape a blanket around my shoulders and drag my chair closer to the fire.

Most of the others had something to occupy themselves with — whittling, mostly, because it didn't need much light or brainpower. But I was just sat there, staring into the flames and savouring everything. The smell of smoke, the wind on my cheeks, and even the midges. Yes, these were horrible circumstances, but I was still home, and Goddess only knew how long it would be before I got to come back here.

It was past midnight when the sound of muffled footsteps jolted me from a state of drowsy to mildly concerned. They were coming from inside the tent. I lifted my head from the chair and frowned in that direction while I tried to work out if it was just one of the adults checking on Rhodri.

It wasn't. I could hear voices now, and that was even more alarming. I kicked my blanket away and got up. One of my legs had gone to sleep. I had to hobble towards the tent, and that made it much harder to be quiet. I saw Bryn stirring as I went past him.

Liam was already wide awake. And he was ahead of me — stood in the entrance of the tent, not daring to go inside. His dark eyes were fixed on the interior so intently that he didn't notice me until my arm brushed against his.

The tent was lit by an orangey lantern. Rhodri was still lying on the table. He had a pillow and a mess of blankets now. And his parents were crowded around him. At first, I thought he was seizing again, but the movements were too weak, too sporadic...

He was awake. I stopped beside Liam because I didn't want to get in the way. And I watched from there, arms folded across my chest and heart thundering in my chest.

Rhodri was trying to shift. He didn't know where he was, I realised — the last time he'd been properly conscious had been at Silver Lake. He was too weak to do much, but he was tearing his wounds open, and I could see his parents growing more desperate by the second.

His mother was murmuring, "It's okay, baby. It's okay. Just lie still for me."

They clearly hadn't been ready for him. His mother was torn between drawing up a syringe of something and holding his hand. His father was trying to hold him down without pressing on any of the broken bones.

"You're here with us, Rhodri," his father said. "You're safe."

It took a few seconds more for the words to hit their mark. Slowly, warily, Rhodri stopped trying to move and just lay there, listless and exhausted. He was out of it — that much was obvious. He was struggling to keep his eyes open, and there was confusion washing across the link in choppy, dizzying waves.

"Dad?" Rhodri asked. It was barely more than a whisper, but I heard it, because it came across the link, too. That was a mistake most people made when they were drunk, not hurt. I hoped it was an effect of the pain and not brain-damage.

His father loosed a long, relieved breath. "Yeah. Don't try talking."

"Are you in pain?" his mam asked. She was back in doctor mode now. "Can you blink at me?"

He did — and even that was a miserable, hard-won effort.

"Okay. I'm going to give you more painkillers, and then I'm going to put you back to sleep. Is that alright?"

If Rhodri answered her, I didn't hear it. He'd closed his eyes again, and he didn't react when she put the needle in his arm. In the space of a minute, he was still again, his breathing slow and even.

Liam swore quietly. Bryn was standing behind me, gazing at his brother over my shoulder. He looked like he was about to cry, and I wasn't ashamed to admit that my own throat felt tight. It was hard to see Rhodri like that. It was hard to see anyone like that.

I should have let Seth kill him. Why hadn't I? He would be like this for weeks, and I was beginning to doubt that he would recover fully. And Rhodri would hate being an invalid as much as Eira did. He wasn't built for sitting quietly and watching other people work.

His parents were still bent over him. They seemed past the point of desperation now, and they had reached the quiet, hopeless place beyond where the seconds passed like hours and nothing felt real anymore. And even as I watched, his mother started crying. Rhodri's dad put his arm around her, but it wasn't hard to see that his eyes were red, too.

I turned away from the tent entrance. I went back to my chair. And I waited for the sun to come up, as if that was going to change anything.