I'm sorry this took so long. I'd almost finished writing the chapter when Word decided to be a little bitch and delete it all. So this is Version 2. Not quite the same, but perhaps ... better? Idk.

I loved hearing about all your pets last chapter! There seem to be more dog people than cat people on this werewolf book. Can't imagine why. For the next round of quarantine bonding, do you speak another language? If so, that's awesome! Teach us your favourite word. If not, what language would you like to learn?

For the first time in a long time, I went running. I left when the sun was just peeking above the horizon, and I returned when it was above the treeline. It only took a few minutes of jogging to realise I was a little out of shape, so naturally, I ran much further and faster than I usually would, pushing myself to the point of exhaustion and then a little further.

I wouldn't say I was running away from my problems. But since Rhodri was in camp, and Liam was in camp, I wouldn't say I was running towards them, either. I did large, messy circles around the perimeter, dodging the few raiders who'd come out to relieve themselves.

It was probably eight in the morning by the time I turned up at the food tent. I was freshly showered and enjoying the feeling of my muscles burning. And I was ready for a nice, big breakfast to fill the pit in my stomach.

Of course, it couldn't be that easy.

"I can give you an apple," Ellis offered me. We always left someone to guard the food in camp, and it was one of the few jobs that my little brother enjoyed. It was quiet, there was maths involved, and it didn't involve any physical activity. I wasn't surprised in the least to find him here. "And we've got leftover rice, but that's all."

I eyed the meagre pile of food. It wasn't even enough to fill a cardboard box, and I knew the children hadn't eaten yet. "No, that's okay, kiddo. I'll find something else."

He looked from me to the box and back again. "You sure? You didn't have anything yesterday, either."

"I'm sure. Make sure you put something aside for Hannah."

My stomach could growl all it liked - I had gained some weight in Silver Lake, so I would survive for a few days.

"Already have," Ellis assured me. "Nia was supposed to bring food - have you seen her yet?"

I was halfway out the door by then. That name had the power to stop me dead in my tracks and make me turn back to face him. "Nia's coming?"

Ellis picked at his nails, uncomfortable with the attention. "Um, yeah. Didn't you know? I actually think she's already here..."

"She's what?"

I didn't wait for him to answer. I was outside and striding for the med tent before he could even open his mouth. To get there, I had to pass the centre of camp, and that was a strange place at the moment.

The flockie who'd turned sleeper was tied to a tree branch. He was unharmed for the time being, but he couldn't sit down or sleep, and he had Emmett Byer staring at him all hours of the day and night. The old raider was sat there, his head in his hands, so still that I wasn't sure he was breathing.

As usual, Ryker wasn't far away. And there were a few other ashen-faced, shell-shocked men and women behind them. They were the survivors. They had lost their families when Silver Lake had stormed the camp. The flockie had betrayed its location, and sleeper or not, enemy or not, that had not been necessary. It would have been enough to thwart the raid without offering up little kids for the slaughter.

So I didn't feel sorry for him. He could stand there for weeks, as far as I was concerned. Emmett and the others weren't hurting him. All they did was stare. And I doubted it was making them feel any better.

I spat in his direction as I passed - for Finn and Joel and all the dead kids. He would have to die sooner or later, and after what had happened to Rhodri, I reckoned it would probably be sooner. We were all baying for a few drops of flockie blood at the moment.

"Come a little closer, bitch," he jeered at me. "Untie me - we'll see how brave you are then."

Well, he had guts. I'd give him that. I swerved towards him, stopping with barely an inch of space between us. His hands might have been bound, but his legs weren't, and that was why it was safer to stand close. He didn't have enough room to kick me hard.

I was in a volatile mood today. Normally, I would have ignored it, but I met his stare and held it. And now that I was nice and close, and he couldn't accuse me of cowardice, I spat at him again.

He snarled deep in his chest. He wasn't sure what to do now - he hadn't been expecting me to take him up on his offer. Once the surprise cleared, the flockie snarled again and tried to slam his head into mine. I stepped back quickly, and then I grinned at his frustration. We were still close together. I studied him with lazy interest.

"Eva," Emmett warned, his voice low and rough. "He belongs to us."

"I know," I said, but I kept staring anyway.

His eyes were blue, his hair was muddy-brown, and his face was pinched like a weasel. He didn't look familiar. But he was tall, and I could feel his wolf leaning against mine with considerable strength, and there was something about his jawline that gave me pause.

Who would Mason choose as a sleeper? Someone strong and clever and brave, but more importantly, someone he didn't mind losing. And I could think of a dozen perfect fits for those criteria.

Maybe the flockie didn't belong to Emmett, after all.

I gave him one last, cursive look, and then I kept walking. The med tent was quiet this morning. Half of my family had gone to wash, and the other half were collecting firewood, which was a constant, never-ending chore.

But Rhodri's parents were still there, sitting beside him and fighting to keep their eyes open. It had been a long night. They looked up as I neared, and Aunty Cassidy managed a tired smile. She beckoned me inside.

I had to enter the tent properly before I saw Nia. She was kneeling beside our cousin, and she'd taken his hand. I could tell by the vacant expression on her face that she was trying to reach him through the link. I knew better than to disturb her.

Eventually, she dropped his hand and rose to her feet, wincing as her knees groaned a complaint. "It's all dark. I can try pulling, if you want, but it might-"

She had to stop talking then, because I'd collided with her back and thrown my arms around her, squeezing tighter than I needed to. I hadn't been expecting to see her. It took Nia a little while to work out who was accosting her - I hadn't exactly introduced myself. When she did, I heard her laugh. "Hey, pup."

"Hey," I mumbled into her shoulder. She smelt like sweat, and I reckoned she'd run straight here when she'd heard about Rhodri. She didn't have any of her raiders with her. She didn't even have Lily with her.

"I was gonna say it might do more harm than good," Nia finished. She had somehow managed to mess my hair up while we'd been hugging, and I ran my fingers through it the second her attention was back on Rhodri.

His parents were having a conversation with their eyes. It ended when his mother folded her arms across her chest. "Do it. I can't do a proper neurological exam until he's awake, and it's the only way we'll know ... if..."

If his body wasn't the only thing that was damaged. Seth had saved his life with the overdose, but there was still a price to pay. Rhodri hadn't been breathing properly for a long time, and his brain had been starved of oxygen. Our healing could fix that sort of damage ... but only to a point.

Nia nodded, although she didn't look sure, and then she took his hand again. The contact helped her. She closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and reached for Rhodri. I couldn't feel it, of course. That was between the two of them. But I did feel Rhodri waking up through my own link to him.

And I could feel the pain wake with him - white-hot and relentless. Even the backwash that came across the link was enough to make me flinch and grit my teeth. Rhodri was a tapper, whether he liked it or not, and this overspill was a common side-effect. It began to fade as Nia nudged him with her mind, showing him what he was doing and helping him damp down the pain.

His eyes opened. Already, that was an improvement on last night, when he had barely even tried to look at us. But the confusion was back again - I could see it in the crease in his forehead and the tension in his jaw.

"Rhodri," his mother said. "Do you know where you are?"

He didn't. Not really. But he looked around himself and said hoarsely, "Camp."

"Yes. We're near Ember. This is going to sound like a silly question, but can you tell me where Ember is?"

Rhodri chewed on that for a moment. "South-west, I think. It's up in the mountains - hard to reach. How did I ... get here? I don't remember."

It was a pretty coherent answer, all things considered. And he'd managed to keep his eyes open this long - another good sign. He hadn't tried to move, I noticed, but that was understandable. He'd learnt that lesson in the night.

His mother leaned down to brush a few stray hairs from his forehead. Her tentative smile told me that she, too, was daring to hope. "Eva and Liam brought you."

A frown crossed Rhodri's lips. The link between us went taut, all of a sudden. He slammed his walls up, hard enough to make Nia flinch, and then he eyed his mother with a sudden wariness. "I don't know anyone with those names."

My heart stopped. He seemed to recognise his parents, and he hadn't blinked at Nia, but he was making a conscious effort not to look at me. I wasn't sure what that meant. We all exchanged a series of worried glances over his head, but no one said anything.

Rhodri didn't notice the sudden quiet. He shifted his weight ever so slightly and spat out a few filthy curses. He must have felt the weight of our concern, because he swallowed and offered by way of explanation, "Bloody hurts. Everything. I mean shit. It don't stop, not even for a second. Feels like I can't hardly breathe."

"I know, sweetie," his mother sighed. "If I could give you more painkillers, I would, but you've had too much already. What's hurting?"

He closed his eyes and made a face. "I think ... it'd be quicker to tell you ... what isn't."

His mother nodded gravely. She made Rhodri do a lot of things. He had to swallow and track her finger with his eyes and move his jaw before she was satisfied that everything seemed to be working properly. The results got less encouraging when she tried his arms and legs, but nothing was completely paralysed.

And then it was our turn. His mam had retreated to fuss over his treatment plan, and his dad took her place. He squeezed Rhodri's hand and smiled down at him. "Are you feeling up to talking?"

Rhodri heaved a shaky breath. "I can talk. Just be warned that I might doze off halfway through a sentence."

"It's not urgent or anything," Nia assured him. "We just want to know what happened."

I wanted to know, too. I wanted to know what the hell he'd been thinking. And why he'd sat in that prison for an entire day without once trying to mind-link me. I could guess at the answer, of course, but I wanted to him to say it out loud and realise how stupid he'd been.

"What, after I ran off?" he said quietly. "Ain't it obvious? I came with the raiders. Knew they were gonna cross the border, so I got ahead of them. I had a gun, I think..."

Her eyebrows flew upwards. "A gun?"

"Yeah," he said, more confident now. "Hannah's gun, that I took off her. I went back and found it. But I missed, didn't I? Someone jumped me from behind, and ... yeah. I wasn't expecting to get so close. I could have done it with my knife, but it happened so bloody quick, and I weren't thinking-"

"It's alright. Don't work yourself up. What happened afterwards? Do you remember?"

"I remember," Rhodri said firmly. There was a look on his face now that I didn't like one bit. It was distant, and it was emotionless. "I woke up in the prison under the pack house. Finn and Joel were there, too. They'd got caught raiding, I think. The flockies were dumb enough to put us next to each other. Finn said he knew about ... he knew who the sleepers were."

Rhodri paused then. He was getting breathless just talking, and he was getting so quiet that I leant closer to hear him. The others had his full attention - eyes and ears and silence - but I reckoned I knew where this story was going, and I wasn't sure I wanted to hear the ending.

"I got him to come closer," Rhodri said steadily, "and then I killed him."

No one said anything.

I remembered how Finn's body had looked. That was burned into my mind, and I didn't think I would ever forget it. There hadn't been a mark on him save for the bruises around his neck, and that hadn't really made sense until now. The flockies hadn't tortured him because they hadn't got the chance.

The silence was starting to drag. Rhodri kept talking just to fill it. "And Joel ... I think maybe he knew, too. But I couldn't reach him in time. They moved me, and I don't know what happened to him. I don't know if he told them."

I didn't know either. It had been a full day since I'd left Joel in that pack, and it had taken the Vaughans less time than that to do this to Rhodri.

Nia reached over and squeezed his shoulder as gently as she could. "Let us worry about that, kiddo. You did the best you could under the circumstances."

She had to say that. It was the only way to keep him from drowning in guilt. Rhodri had spared him a lot of suffering, yes, but I wasn't sure if he'd done it the right way. There had been no mention of compliance, no disclaimer that Finn has asked him to.

But then ... I'd tried to kill Joel, hadn't I? And I hadn't stopped to ask him if he wanted to die. This wasn't much different. I didn't know how to feel, not really, but I could hardly hold it against Rhodri when he'd done it to protect me.

"I dunno about that," Rhodri said. He was struggling now. Every time he opened his mouth, his words were a little slower and more hesitant. His eyes kept drifting shut and then snapping open as he fought to stay awake. "I dunno if it was the best thing to do. I'm here, aren't I? I got out somehow. Maybe he could've too. Maybe he didn't have to die."

"You had no way of knowing that," his father told him.

Rhodri tried to shrug. He quickly realised the error of his ways and went still abruptly, panting through the pain. Some bones were still broken, and he would need more surgery when he was strong enough to survive it.

"How did I get out, anyway?" he asked hesitantly. "I don't remember. And ... where are we? Not too close to Silver Lake? They'll hunt us down when they realise I'm gone."

And once again, we were eyeing each other. Something was wrong with him - that was obvious. His mother was patient and explained it all again, while Rhodri stared at her with bleary, confused eyes. He was asleep before she'd even finished talking.

We waited in silence, wondering if he was just resting his eyes. But he was still, and his chest rose and fell in that slow, heavy way that meant he wasn't controlling it. Out like a light. And Goddess only knew how long it would be before he woke up again.

"He didn't know who I was," I said quietly. "How come? He must have brain damage, right? How long until it wears off?"

His mother swallowed, and there was a slight waver in her voice when she answered me. "Eva, it's all very complicated, and ... even shifter healing can only do so much. We have to manage our expectations here. We might see an improvement when he comes off the painkillers ... or we might not."

That wasn't what I'd wanted to hear. Not even close. I felt a sob forcing its way up my throat, and I ducked out of the tent before they could see my tears. It'd only wake him up. But I'd barely even started to cry when I heard footsteps behind me. It was Nia - I could tell that from the barest glance over my shoulder.

I didn't want her trying to comfort me. It wasn't fair to put that on her. She'd come home and found him like this, and she was going through the exact same thing I was. I used my sleeve to wipe away the tears and before I turned to face her.

"Liam needs to look at the flockie prisoner," I said, as steadily as I could manage. Nia was not the sort of person who would ignore a pair of red eyes, so I would just have to distract her. "Could you tell him?"

"I sent him hunting," she said, watching me carefully. "Your link ain't broke, Eva. Tell him yourself."

I chewed on my lip and took a sudden interest in the ground, because that was the last thing I wanted to do. We hadn't really spoken since we'd got here.

Nia narrowed her eyes. Even when my walls were up, she could read me like a book, and she took my arm to lead me further away from the tents and prying ears. "Right. What's happened between you two?"

"Nothing happened. I'm just tired, is all," I muttered, rather unconvincingly. "Tired and hungry. I'm going out to set some snares - don't expect me back before lunchtime."

Because I needed the distraction, and we needed the food. Nia's belongings were dumped in a corner of the tent. I'd seen a small rucksack and a brace of rabbits. That might feed the camp for a day, but tomorrow our stomachs would be growling again.

Nia nodded after a moment's hesitation. "Okay. Aim for something big. I brought what I could, but we ain't gone raiding for weeks now, and the packs have got men watching every supermarket in Gwynedd."

So the flockies were trying to starve us now, were they? If it had been winter, they might have succeeded. But it was the height of summer - the dog days - and there was no shortage of plants and animals in these woods, if we could spare the time to find them. A few weeks more and we would have more berries and nuts than we could eat.

I left her beside the tent. It didn't take long to find a length of string, which we made from bark or nettles. I had my knife with me. I had a rucksack to hold any leaves or roots I came across. The only thing I was missing was company.

And it just so happened that Hayden Lloyd came trudging through the tents as I was looking around for a friendly face. He stopped right in front of me and ran his hand through his hair. "I was playing hide and seek with that little girl, and now I can't find her anywhere? At what point do I start worrying?"

Jess was a handful, even at the best of times. I smothered a flash of amusement to tell him, "She's in a tree. She's always in a tree. And she can sit there for a while longer - you're coming with me. We're going to catch some supper."

Hayden scrunched up his entire face. "What? Why me?"

Because I couldn't take Liam. I couldn't take Rhodri. Bryn was in a state. My sister didn't have the endurance to trek through miles of woodland. And I was in no mood to make a new friend. The flockie was grumpy today, yes, but that was probably a good thing. If he did something foul enough, I could take all my frustrations out on him guilt-free.

"Because I said so. You want exercise or not?"

"Yeah," he said, quick enough that I could tell he was desperate. Even our ever-changing, always-moving camps got boring after a few weeks. "Yeah, I'll come."

I led him away from the tents without another word. We followed an animal trail into the woods. Hayden was at my heels, making so much noise that the game would be running for their lives. Someone had given him a nice new pair of walking boots, and they were doing a brilliant job of snapping twigs every time he put his foot down. I tried not to get annoyed. It wasn't intentional, I didn't think. He'd just never been taught.

"Can't we wait until it stops raining?" he asked.

"No," I said without looking over my shoulder. There was a part of me that was acutely aware that he was behind me. If he clobbered me with a tree branch, he could make a clean break. And with my hood up, I wouldn't even see him coming. I was staking my life and dignity on the hope that he wouldn't leave Hannah behind.

I stopped before we'd gone a mile to dig up pignut tubers. It took time to follow the root all the way down, and Hayden made his impatience very clear. He couldn't seem to stand still and kept drifting away from the path, trampling flowers underfoot in his carelessness.

He watched over my shoulder as I unearthed a particularly large tuber. It went straight into the rucksack, dirt and all. There were a few more around, but I knew not to take too many, or there wouldn't be any left for next year.

"This is all very Bear Grylls," Hayden said dryly, "but I bet it's going to taste foul. Can we please just go to the supermarket?"

No, we could not, and that was thanks to his friends. I doubted anyone had bothered to tell him that. I stood up, wincing at the stiffness in my knees, and I wiped my earthy hands on Hayden's jacket, to his disgust. "What's a Bear Grylls?"

"It's ... he's from the TV..." Hayden began, only to trail off when I continued to frown at him. "Shit, rogue... Don't you know anything? I bet you didn't even know what a TV was until you went to our cabin."

He was grinning to himself as he turned away, muttering about ignorant, uncultured rogues. My patience had been hanging by a thread, and now it was free-falling, leaving me far behind. I lobbed the uprooted pignut plant at the back of his head. He whipped around, one hand flying up to knock the mud away, and the other raised defensively.

"What the hell was that-"

"You're the ignorant one, flockie," I told him. "What's the tree you're standing under?"

Hayden scowled at me. He looked up, squinted at the leaves, and then scratched his head. "I... It's a ... um..."

I slapped the trunk with one hand. "Come on. This is an easy one. It's probably the most common in the forest, and you don't know it?"

He just shrugged.

"It's an ash tree," I said.

"Does it matter what it's called?" he demanded. "It's just a bloody tree."

"It helps to know what they are," I snapped, rising to it. "This one's got Dieback, because those near branches are red and there's scars on the trunk. You don't want to set up your tent under it, but the branches still make good firewood."

He scuffed his foot against the ground and made a face, but I could tell he was listening now.

I'd been forced to learn to live like a flockie. And that was a lot harder, of course. TV Remotes had dozens of buttons. The symbols on ovens might as well be hieroglyphics for all the sense I could make of them. Every single shower was different, and none of them came with instructions. So yeah. Hayden could memorise a few plants.

I pointed to the next tree along the path. "We collect sap from sycamore. You can drink it. Birch, too, in the spring. The horse chestnuts and the hazels give us nuts. Lime wood is nice and soft for carving, and you can eat the leaves. Oak trees have acorns in the autumn-"

"I know oak," he said indignantly. "And I know about yew trees, now. The rest of them ... I just don't see the point."

I gave him a sidelong look. "If we left you out here, you'd starve. You know that, right? You don't know shit about the forest. So are you going to keep spitting on us? Or are you going to climb down from that high horse and learn how to set a snare?"

Hayden stared at me. I could feel his wolf leaning on me, for all his attempts to rein it back, and it was obvious that I'd managed to piss him off. Well ... good. He tended to stop whining when he was angry.

"I'll learn," he said eventually. "But only because I don't have anything better to do."

I could only roll my eyes.

We went a lot further from camp before I found a quiet trail bordered on both sides by thick holly. It was there that I knelt down with a handful of branches and set to work with my knife. It was a small snare - nothing more than a bent branch, a noose and a trigger. It wouldn't catch anything bigger than a rabbit, but even a rabbit would feed a few of us.

I talked Hayden through the process, and then I let him have a go further down the path. It was slow going, of course, but Hayden had been right. There wasn't anything better to do. It would be a long time before Rhodri woke up again.

A dozen snares later, and Hayden asked me, somewhat bashfully, what a tree was called. I didn't tease him this time, even though it was a hazel and he really should have known it. And suddenly he wanted to know about every flower and berry in sight and whether it was edible.

"Eva!" someone called, as I was showing him some wild garlic leaves.

I stood up abruptly, looking around to see where the voice had come from. The sound of snapping branches and swishing leaves helped me locate its owner - a young man called Turner. He had a pack of children around him, Matty and Ahmed included. They were responsible for most of the crashing sounds.

They were all carrying bags of elderberries and wild cherries, so it was safe to assume the children had been up the trees. They could all climb like squirrels. Turner was there to babysit and to lift them onto the higher branches. It was a job I'd done many times.

I managed a smile for Turner as he drew closer. He was nearly twenty now, and we tended to hook up whenever we were in the same camp. The last time I'd seen him, he'd been locked in New Dawn's prison, so this was a nice surprise, to say the least.

"Clear off for a minute," Turner told the kids. "Do something productive, yeah? I need to talk to Eva."

Their idea of 'productive' was throwing twigs and handfuls of rotten leaves at Hayden. He didn't find that as funny as the rest of us, for some reason, and he was swearing at them before a minute was up.

"I see you made it out of New Dawn," I said,

Turner grinned from ear to ear. "Yeah. Thanks to you, I'm told."

That was accompanied by a lingering look at Hayden. It was more curious than hostile, despite what he'd probably endured in the young Alpha's pack, but Hayden bristled anyway.

"Team effort," I said dismissively. "What're you doing here?"

It was a fair question. His raiding team wasn't camped here. If they had been, I wouldn't have dared stray so far from my family. Most of them still hated my guts.

"I'm on loan to your mother," he said, tapping the side of his head, "as a walking, talking walkie-talkie. In my spare time - of which there seems to be a lot - I've been making myself useful as a professional pup-wrangler, as you can see."

I cast a deliberate look at the pups now. "Do you want to wrangle them away from my assistant before he clouts one of them?"

"Oi," Turner bellowed. "I told you to bugger off, didn't I?"

He had a loud voice, and the kids scattered in all directions, giggling and shrieking as they pushed each other and tripped over the brambles. Hayden took a well-earned breather. If I'd dared let him out of my sight, I'd have sent him away, too. He had nothing to do except eavesdrop now.

"So, how are you, babes?" Turner asked, his hands in his pockets.

I couldn't honestly say good, so I just shrugged. I knew I had a nasty bruise across my cheek, thanks to Mason, and Turner's eyes snagged on it more than once.

"I heard about Rhodri," he said, rubbing the back of his head. "I'm sorry. He's a good kid."

Another shrug. This time, it dislodged my coat. I didn't realise that the mark on my collarbone was showing until Turner choked on thin air. He reached forwards to pull my coat aside and examine it properly. His hands were wet with rainwater, but I tolerated it.

"Damn. This is new," he drawled, one eyebrow cocked. "Do I take it you're finally off the market?"

I finally knocked his hand away and pulled the coat shut. "It's not like that. I'm not even seeing anyone."

He didn't look entirely convinced by that answer, because it was the werewolf equivalent of wearing a wedding ring, but he was too good-natured to believe that I was lying. "So ... if I came to find you later, would you wanna go for a walk?"

"A walk?" I said, not bothering to hide my amusement.

"Yeah. Not very glamorous, I know, but my tent is on the other side of the Silverstones."

I thought about it. I thought about it harder than I had in a long time. It didn't feel right to say yes, not so soon after what had happened with Liam. But ... if I said no, it felt like admitting that there was something going on between us. Something serious enough to make me celibate. I couldn't win here. But I maybe I could buy myself a few hours of distraction.

"Sure," I said, and I stood on my tiptoes to kiss him. My relationship with Turner had always been easy and uncomplicated. If neither of us were seeing anyone, we had some fun, and he never expected anything from me afterwards.

He kissed me back with warm, rough lips before stepping back and dipping his head. There was a flash of a grin - mischievous and careless - and then he was on his way. The kids flocked back to him, and I could hear them teasing him long after they were gone from my sight.

Hayden watched Turner closely as he left. There was a bit of colour in his cheeks as he turned back to the snare. Guilt, perhaps? Embarrassment? Whatever it was, I couldn't quite put my finger on it. He was crouched before the snare again, fumbling with a piece of frayed cord.

"Why does the branch have to spring back? Isn't it enough to catch it?" Hayden asked quickly, as if he'd noticed my eyes on him.

"It's kinder," I said. "Snaps their necks before they have time to struggle and panic."

He nodded, but I could tell he wasn't really interested. He kept glancing in the direction Turner had gone and making faces. It didn't take me long to get tired of it and raise my eyebrows expectantly.

Hayden was not slow to oblige. I reckoned the words had been choking him, so quickly did he spit them out. "Is he your boyfriend or something?"

I snapped a branch with particular vigour and started shaping it with long, rough strokes of my knife. "No. Course not."

Hayden lifted an eyebrow and turned back to the snare. "Oh. I see."

"Here we go," I sighed.

"Well ... it's not right!" he blurted. "How's your mate going to feel when he finds out you've been sleeping around?"

Slowly, derisively, I lifted my eyes and narrowed them. Hayden was clearly not immune to his pack's fanaticism when it came to religion. Like Silver Lake, they taught about purity and the sanctity of mates until they could regurgitate it all for the first offender who crossed their path.

"He'll feel like it's none of his business," I said. "Or I'll leave him on a roadside."

Hayden shook his head in clear disgust.

"I reckon you're just jealous," I laughed. I'd gone back to the carving, and it was helping to cool the fire in my blood. "Jealous and pent up. We could find you a nice rogue girl to fix that, if you like. Not sure how many'd be willing to snog an Alpha puppy like you, but I suppose it's worth a shot, right...?"

"No, thank you," he said curtly.

The words were accompanied by a look. It was full of gentle scorn and private amusement. And strangely, it reminded me a lot of the looks Nia had given me when we'd been younger and I'd asked her which of the guys she fancied.

I looked up at him as I worked, trying to keep my voice light and casual. "You know, it doesn't have to be a girl."

The effect was instant and somewhat more drastic than I'd been expecting. Hayden let the string fall to the ground, and his head snapped around. He was staring at me, his eyes wide and panicked, and it was safe to say I'd shocked him, at the very least.

"Why would you say that?" he demanded.

Oh dear. I chewed on my lip, nervous under the weight of that stare. I didn't want to force him into telling me. I probably shouldn't have said anything, in hindsight, but it was too late to take it back.

"I don't know. I was just wondering," I said quietly. "And it's none of my business - I know that. But ... I guess I could help, maybe? I'm good at listening, and I know how to keep my mouth shut."

He was quiet for a long time. I meant a long time. Then he demanded in a deathly-quiet voice, "How did you know?"

It shouldn't have surprised me as much as it did. I went very still, hardly even daring to breathe, and I regarded him with wide eyes. "I ... didn't. But I do now, I guess. You're gay?"

Hayden swallowed, looking for all the world like he wanted to drop dead on the spot . He opened his mouth once, thought better of it, and then sat there, squirming, for a while longer. He swallowed again. "I think I've already given that away, haven't I?"

"Sort of, yes," I agreed. "Being gay is fine, but being gay and a flockie at the same time ... that's not so easy."

"If you're suggesting I desert my pack, Eva, let me tell you now," he sighed. "That's not going to happen."

I'd been crouching for a long time. And now that we'd both forgotten about the snares, and there was no chance of the conversation ending soon, I knelt on the damp ground to give my muscles a rest. "Does ... does Hannah know?"

Hayden sat down, too, grimacing as his knee landed in a puddle. "I think so. I said some stuff when I was drunk, but we've not really ... talked about it."

I nodded. "And, um, what about your dad?"

"No," Hayden said quickly. "I've never - I wouldn't dare."

I tried to hide the pity, but some of it must have bled into my eyes, because Hayden winced and shook his head.

"It's not like that, exactly. I think he'd be okay with it ... but he'd tell me that I have to hide it, and I'm not ready to hear that. I'm not sure I'll ever be ready to hear that."

"You don't have to hide it," I said vehemently. "No one should have to."

I'd been pretending to be something I wasn't for a few weeks, and I was already exhausted. He'd been doing this for years. A lifetime of it would be enough to break anyone.

Hayden just shrugged at me. "I guess. It's just ... I'm going to be Alpha... And I don't want to give that up. But at the same time ... most of my pack is not okay with it. The older ones, especially. I think they'll probably turn on me if they find out."

"I dunno about that," I said slowly. "Packs are dictatorships, right? I think that once you become Alpha, you can probably make all kinds of changes. And yeah, they might grumble about it, but they won't lift a finger to stop you."

After all, the Crochet Club didn't dare do anything more than make posters and whisper amongst themselves. And they had a lot more to be outraged about than New Dawn did.

"Maybe," Hayden murmured, but he didn't sound very sure.

"And hey," I said, "if it doesn't work out, come and be a rogue. Seriously. You'll make a half decent one by the time I'd through with you. Finish that snare, and let's move on."

"Oh, yeah," he drawled. "I'll live in the woods and eat dirt and smell like bird shit."

I growled deep in my throat and reached over to thump him. He tried to knock my hand away, and soon we were slapping at each other like children. An attempt to push him over backfired spectacularly. After a short, brutal wrestling match, he kicked my legs out from under me and pinned me on my back, a knee digging into my stomach.

That would have been the perfect opportunity to clobber me and run, I had to admit. He had several large branches within arm's reach. But Hayden was breathing heavily and actually smiling, although he'd have denied it had I pointed that out. He didn't wait for a submission before he rolled off me.

We ended up lying side by side in the wet leaves, laughing breathlessly and waiting for our muscles to stop burning. He wasn't my favourite cousin. Not even close. But he also wasn't a complete ass.

***

It was two hours later when we trudged back into camp, soaked to the skin and starving. We'd run out of string, and more importantly, energy. I was still sore from my morning romp around the woods.

"When you check the snares ... can I maybe come with you?" Hayden asked.

I didn't try very hard to hide my smile. "Yes, flockie. You can. But only because you behaved so beautifully."

It was then that I saw Bryn. He was sat away from the camp in a circle of exposed earth. He had a notched stick in one hand and his knife in the other. When he scraped them together, it was making a horrible rattling sound that brought every worm in the vicinity writhing to the surface. They thought there was a mole coming for them. Instead, they ran right into Bryn's arms. He scooped them up and placed them tenderly into a pot that was already close to overflowing.

Naturally, I led Hayden straight towards him. I'd had an idea. Bryn looked up as I approached, beaming from ear to ear. He seemed happier than before, probably because he'd been told that Rhodri was awake and talking, and I was glad to see him back to his usual, chaotic self.

"Um, Bryn," Hayden began hesitantly. "What ... exactly ... are you doing?"

"Calling my subjects," Bryn said without looking up. "Look how they dance for me. All hail the Worm King!"

Hayden was looking at him like he wasn't quite right in the head. He gazed at the worms for a long moment, and then he turned to look at me pleadingly.

"It's bait," I sighed, once again taking pity on him. "For fishing or to snare birds."

"Oh," Hayden said.

Bryn took hold of a particularly juicy one and lifted it high. He let it wriggle in front of Hayden's eyes with a wicked grin on his face. "Does this upset you, flockie?"

Hayden spat on the ground. The swearwords came soon afterwards, quiet and vicious, and I thumped him in my astonishment. "Cool it. Geez. Am I missing something, or is it just that time of the month?"

"What, you don't know?" Bryn asked, visibly delighted. "Hayden's so grumpy all the time because he's got worms."

I couldn't help laughing at that, despite everything. A teasing smile stretched from ear to ear as I knocked my shoulder against Hayden's. "That'll teach you to wash your hands, eh?"

He turned his scowl against me, but his heart wasn't in it anymore. He looked closer to miserable than angry. "Yeah, screw you. It was your shitty forest food that did it."

Bryn winked at him. "Blame the watercress. It's what I always do. I've had fluke once, worms more times than I can count, and fleas ... well, they're just a part of me now."

Hayden and I relocated ourselves at considerable speed.

"I'm kidding!" Bryn laughed. "Mostly. They're not so bad. You barely even know you've got them. Honest."

I opened my mouth to disagree, but the words died in my throat when I felt a tug on the mind-link. I twisted my head to see Turner standing in the fringe of the trees. The children were gone, and his hands were in his pockets. He was clearly waiting for me.

"I've gotta go," I said, clambering to my feet. "You can look after the flockie for me. Give him as many fleas as you like."

Bryn followed my gaze, one eyebrow crawling upwards. "Turner? Again?"

"I guess."

He made an appreciative noise in the back of his throat. "Hot."

As much as I liked Turner, he wasn't the best looking young man I'd ever come across. None of the really attractive ones were interested in me - because I wasn't exactly an oil painting myself. Even Liam was a bit out of my league. So yes, most of Turner's charm came from his personality, but I preferred it that way.

So I just shrugged at Bryn. "You say that about everyone."

"Because everyone's hot," Bryn said matter-of-factly.

And that was genuinely what he thought. Because Bryn was just like that. Everyone was hot and everything was fun and it didn't take much, really, to make him happy. The fact that Rhodri was capable of speech was enough to cheer him up. It wasn't enough to cheer me up. I'd only be happy when he was back to normal, and it was looking increasingly unlikely that was ever going to happen.

But I didn't want to think about that. Not now. I was running away from my problems again, it seemed - all of them, all at once, and it wasn't going to end well. That knowledge didn't stop me distracting myself by carrying on a conversation which had already found its natural endpoint.

"This kid's as straight as a roundabout," I told Hayden. "In case you hadn't noticed."

Hayden nodded warily. The way he was looking at me ... he knew it wasn't a coincidence that this topic had come up again so quickly. And to my surprise, he didn't jump to change the subject. He actually looked right at Bryn, fidgeting all the while. "You're bi, right?"

"No," he said indignantly. "I'm pan."

"Right. Sorry."

Bryn went back to his worms with a frown on his lips. While he was distracted, I nudged Hayden and leaned in close to whisper, "Bryn's been out for years. If you want to talk to someone who really, like, understands ... well, you could do a lot worse."

It would have been better to send him to Nia. Bryn was only sixteen, and he was not known for his sage wisdom, but at least the two of them got along. Bryn got along with everybody. Probably because he didn't have a spiteful bone in his body.

Hayden eyed him, not looking entirely certain, but he nodded anyway. Since Turner was still waiting, I headed towards him at long last. A shrug of my shoulder sent the rucksack tumbling to the ground.

Turner fell into step beside me. I could feel his eyes on me, but I didn't turn my head towards him as we went deeper into the trees. My heart was a beating a little too fast - and not because I was excited. Turner was uncomplicated and familiar and reassuring. And yet I felt more conflicted about kissing him than I ever had in my entire life.

"Are you alright, Eva?" he asked me quietly.

"Yeah...?" I said, like it was a stupid question.

I was not alright.

I knew I wasn't doing anything wrong. We were both single, consenting adults. And there was still a part of me insisting that this was a bad idea. Luckily, there was a bigger part telling it to shut the hell up.