The closer I got to my room, the emptier the corridors became. Everyone was evacuating the building, and I got more than a few strange looks for walking against the flow. The fire alarm was still going off - and it was loud enough to make my entire head throb. By the time I reached our room, my nerves were in tatters.

And Liam wasn't there. He'd been trying to link me since the alarm had first gone off, but I'd been steadily blocking him. One touch of my mind, and he'd know something was badly wrong. I didn't want him to find out like that. I didn't want him to find out at all, if I was being honest.

I went straight to the bathroom and turned the tap on. There wasn't much time. I didn't want to be the last one out of the building. It was attention I could do without. I rubbed at my bloodied hands mercilessly, but it had started to dry, and it was taking too long to wash off.

Most of the blood was mine. The little cuts and grazes were just beginning to heal over. But some of it, further up my wrists, probably belonged to Mason. I dealt with that first. The sight of it was making me feel sick again.

The door to the room opened and closed again in quick succession.

"Eva?" Liam called. He sounded worried. I didn't blame him.

"In here," I said, surprised at how normal I sounded. "I'll just be a minute."

I could hear his footsteps coming closer. I hadn't thought to lock the door behind me, and a shadow fell across the sink as he moved into the doorway. "We don't have a minute. That's the fire alarm, not the siren. Micah left the party really fast, so I don't think it's a drill. We need to get out of here."

I didn't reply. There was still a crust of red under my nails and in the creases of my palms. It wasn't coming off, no matter what I did. Liam saw it quickly enough and saw what I was doing. He went quiet. I didn't have to look at him to know that he was at a loss - I could feel it in the silence and the tension in the air between us. He didn't understand how there could be blood on my hands. As far as he was concerned, I'd been sleeping off a drunken stupor.

I felt a hand on my waist, and then he was beside me. He caught my wrists, putting a stop to the frantic scrubbing, and he held them still. Gentle but firm. I had no choice but to look at him.

"What happened, Eva?" Liam asked, ever-so-softly, and I wanted to burst into tears.

How was I supposed to tell him? I'd lied to him, and I'd snuck away, and I'd murdered his brother while he slept. I had no idea how he was going to react. There was a very real chance that he'd be angry.

The longer I stood there, frozen in place, gazing at him with fear in my eyes, the more worried Liam got. He reached out and brushed a few raindrops from my cheek. I wondered if he thought they were tears.

"Are you hurt?" he asked me.

I shook my head.

The tap was still on, and the sink was starting to overflow. Liam reached out to turn it off. "Okay, then we need to get outside. Can you walk with me?"

I shook my head again. Stayed where I was. "You don't understand. I did something."

Liam's forehead creased, and I saw him glance towards the corridor, as if it was occurring to him for the first time that I might be the cause of all this chaos and not a victim of it.

"What did you do, Eva?" he asked. There was the vaguest hint of caution in his voice now, but it was still so gentle. I didn't deserve it.

"I killed someone."

He hadn't been expecting that. For a while, he just stared at me. I couldn't for the life of me tell what he was thinking. The link wasn't giving me any clues, blocked off as it was, and his face was unreadable.

For all he knew, it could have been justified. It could have been self-defence. And even if it wasn't ... I think he made up his mind then. We'd known each other a long time. He would give me the benefit of the doubt, at the very least.

"Okay," Liam said.

Just like that. Okay. Except that it wasn't. I was so astonished that I didn't reply.

He turned the tap back on, and he took over the job of washing the blood away. He was a lot gentler than I'd been. I scarcely felt it. I was staring off into space. I'd thought I was calm earlier, but it hadn't been calmness that I was feeling. It had been numbness, and it was only getting worse.

When my hands were clean, Liam guided me towards the door. He knew, like I did, that we needed to be outside. We had to show our faces, because not appearing would be almost as damning as turning up with blood under my nails.

It didn't surprise me that he stopped to grab our coats. The rain had got heavier in the last few minutes, and I could hear it beating against the open window. Whenever the wind blew, raindrops splattered onto the carpet. It did surprise me, though, when he took a bottle of whiskey from the dresser.

I walked the corridors in a daze. Liam's hand was on my back. It was that gentle pressure that kept me moving - it was more of a reflex than a conscious decision. I was more than happy to let him sort this out. I'd done my part, and I was utterly spent. The adrenaline had drained away, leaving my muscles shaking and my mind foggy and slow.

He kept glancing at me as we walked. He was worried - I could tell that much. It was harder to know if he was worried about me or worried about what I'd done. Probably both.

I could tell that he had a lot of questions, but for whatever reason, he wasn't asking any of them. I didn't know if that was a good sign ... but it didn't feel like a good sign.

We weren't the last ones out - not even close. A handful of drunk teenagers were stumbling down from their rooms on the floors above, and none of them seemed to be taking the fire alarm very seriously. One insisted that it was just burnt toast. We dropped back to walk behind them.

Before we reached the final set of doors, Liam led me into an alcove, where he uncapped the whiskey and pressed it into my hands. I stared at him blankly, not understanding and lacking the energy to think it through.

"Drink," he said. "It'll help."

I raised the bottle to my lips and grimaced as the golden liquid hit the back of my throat. It tasted foul, and it made my stomach churn, but maybe he was right. It would take the edge off.

I managed to swallow a few mouthfuls before I gave it back. Liam set the bottle down and draped my coat around my shoulders to keep the rain off.

And finally, he led me outside. My socks were already wet, but I could feel them sinking into the mud with every step I took. The grass had been trampled by dozens of feet - churned up beyond recognition.

There were nearly a hundred people milling around on the lawn. Most of them weren't dressed for the weather, and some looked like they had tumbled out of bed. A handful of people were using the side of the building as a shelter against the rain, but the gutters were overflowing, and I could hear them all shrieking every time it sent a curtain of water cascading towards their heads.

Liam and I stopped a few paces from everyone else. I cast a surreptitious glance at the fourth floor. They'd managed to open a few windows up there, and the last dregs of smoke were billowing out. More than a few of the flockies were pointing at it and muttering amongst themselves.

Liam took one look at the smoke and started scanning the crowd. He was looking for his family, and it didn't take him long to realise that they were all missing. He took a step towards the pack house, and I wrapped my fingers around his wrist, pulling him to an abrupt halt before he could do something stupid.

He might have pulled away from me or started an argument then, if the look on his face was anything to go by. It was single-minded determination, and it wasn't going anywhere. Not for me, not for anyone.

But at that moment, Micah Vaughan came out of the pack house. He was carrying his niece in the same way I might have carried a sack of potatoes. Behind him, Felix was dragging Lilah. She was sobbing and fighting him every step of the way, but he had a handful of her nightgown and an arm around her waist. They were the last ones out of the pack house.

I let go of Liam's wrist. My hand had fallen away of its own accord, and I made no effort to grab him again. He'd gone very still, now that he could see that the kid and his sister-in-law were safe. I could see him putting it together.

Lilah was hysterical, his brothers were stony-faced and pale, and Mason was nowhere to be seen. Ever so slowly, Liam turned his head, and he looked at me. His eyes were darker than usual, and I could see a wide array of emotions stirring in their depths. Disbelief. Mistrust. Betrayal.

He still didn't ask.

Felix had dragged Lilah onto the grass. He left her there, and she collapsed into a sobbing, destitute heap. There was blood on her hands and more staining the flimsy nightgown she wore. Micah put the kid down beside her.

Everyone else had gone very quiet, all of a sudden, seeing their Luna in such a state. It wouldn't be long before they all knew what had happened, but for the moment, they were left to guess. There was no chorus of voices demanding answers - that was flockies, for you.

It was so horribly silent. A few whispers drifted towards me on the breeze, but that was all. No one was daring to move. No one except Liam. He crossed the lawn to reach Lilah, and he crouched beside her.

Felix and Micah glanced at him as he came nearer, assessing the threat, but neither of them moved. They were talking in low voices. Arguing, I'd wager, because their muscles were taut and they were both scowling. I tried not to stare at them.

Liam took his coat off and helped Lilah into it. She seemed to be calming down as they spoke in soft voices. I didn't doubt she was telling him what had happened, and that made me nervous in so many ways.

I'd accepted every possible consequence of what I'd done. Every consequence except Liam.

Felix and Micah had finished talking, and they were now going their separate ways. I watched them out of the corner of my eye. Neither of them seemed particularly upset about their brother's murder, but they were more affected by it than I'd thought they would be. They looked - in a word - livid.

Micah went to the small group of fighters who were actually on duty. Felix pushed through the crowd, getting our attention in the blink of an eye. He stopped in clear view of everyone and waited for silence. It didn't take long.

"Get in a bloody line. We're going to search the lot of you. If you have any objections, you can explain them to me from a prison cell."

No mention of why. I reckoned he didn't want news of Mason's death getting out just yet. When it broke, the entire pack would be in turmoil, and most people would be too busy worrying who the new Alpha would be to care who'd killed the last one.

The flockies were obedient, as ever. Most of them were drunk, but they formed a jagged line against the building wall. I went with them, stumbling over the uneven ground. My head was swimming, every sound was muffled, and I could hear the blood roaring in my ears.

I slotted into the line about halfway along. Far from the start so they'd have lost interest by the time they reached me. Far from the end so I wouldn't stick in anyone's memory. The night air was cold, and the rain was colder. There were teeth chattering all around me.

"Well done," Felix said, only half-sarcastically. "Now stay put. And stay quiet."

He wasn't sending out patrols. He wasn't tightening the borders. He knew the murderer must have been close to home. Rogues didn't have such intimate knowledge of a pack house. Rogues didn't have access to the Alpha's sleeping quarters. Rogues wouldn't have left Lilah and the kid alive ... in Felix's opinion, anyway.

He prowled to one end and snapped his fingers at Micah's little group of fighters. They approached the first person in the line - a young man who was having trouble standing upright - and they began the gruelling process of searching him from head to toe.

I was alone where I stood. Liam hadn't come to join me. Across the lawn, he was taking his jacket off, and even as I watched, he wrapped it around the toddler to keep the rain off her. The second he was done, Lilah hugged the little girl close. I could see her clinging to Liam's hand, too. There was a lump in my throat, all of a sudden, and I couldn't seem to swallow it.

I'd done this.

Micah had noticed Liam's failure to move with everyone else. He went over to shout at him, and when that failed, he gave Liam a shove towards the rest of us.

"She's fine," he was saying. "Move."

Lilah was, of course, anything but fine. I was finding it hard to even look at her. Every time I did, I felt a stab of guilt in the pit of my stomach. Her mate had been murdered right beside her, and she wasn't ever going to be the same.

Liam fell into line beside me with no shortage of reluctance. He was in a t-shirt now - and soaked to the skin. I could see him shivering as he stopped there. Micah hadn't taken his place, so Lilah was left alone with her mate's blood on her hands and the toddler in her arms.

I could feel Liam's eyes on me before long. I risked a glance in his direction which did absolutely nothing to reassure me. He was looking at me like he was seeing me properly for the first time. Like he was re-evaluating his entire idea of who I was. It was very hard to tell if that stare was hostile, but my hackles were rising, and I was fidgeting under the weight of it.

He knew. He definitely knew. And it was no longer a hunch - Lilah had told him.

The urge to look away was almost overpowering. I was finding it hard to breathe as the minutes went past. But I kept fighting the impulse, and I kept looking at him. He needed to see the misery, and he needed to see me so perilously close to tears. I didn't want him to think I was some heartless bitch who could kill someone without feeling something.

It felt like an age before Felix stopped in front of us. He stood there, heedless of the rain and the wind, and he stared at the pair of us with cold, dead eyes. The two fighters separated us before they started the search.

They did Liam first. He flinched a few times too many when they were patting him down. One of the fighters swore at him, and they seemed to take it as some indication of guilt, because they spent twice as long on him. They turned out his pockets and even made him take his shoes off before they were satisfied.

And then it was my turn. I hardly felt their hands on me. They didn't take the opportunity to grope me, as they usually would, and I had no idea if it was because they were decent guys or because Liam was watching them like a bloody hawk.

They turned out the pockets of my coat, patted me down from head to toe and then checked my skin and clothes, no doubt looking for bloodstains. It was a thorough search, so it took a few minutes. My heart was pounding in my chest, counting out every excruciating second.

Mason's fingernails had left a few crescent moons on my wrists. The other cuts had healed over, for the most part. One of them was still bleeding intermittently, but it was so diluted by the rain that they didn't notice. I thanked the Goddess that it was so dark. The moon was hiding behind a thick layer of cloud - turning a blind eye to the events unfolding on the miserable Saturday night.

"What's wrong with her?" one of the men asked. "She looks like she's walking with the bloody fairies."

Was it that obvious? I felt like my head was in the clouds, sure, but I wasn't doing anything except standing there. It was my eyes that gave it away, in all likelihood. Unfocused, glazed over, and drifting around aimlessly.

"She's high," Liam said. He thought quicker than I did. I wished I really was high, because it would have made this so much easier.

"And drunk," the man added dryly. He could smell it on my breath, of course. More quick thinking on Liam's part, I'd wager. He hadn't given me that whiskey just to calm me down, had he?

Again, Liam answered before I had even processed the question. "Yes, sir. We were at the party."

"But you're not drunk, are you?" Felix asked. Until then, he'd been content to let his buddies do the interrogations. It was the first thing he'd said to anyone in the line, and my heart started beating a tiny bit faster.

Liam shook his head. I wondered why he'd even bothered asking. Liam was too wide awake, too collected, and much too coordinated to be drunk. On the other hand, maybe that was why he'd been singled out. Anyone carrying out an assassination would have to be quite sober, and there weren't very many sober people here tonight.

Felix raised his eyebrows, and there was something very predatory in his gaze, all of a sudden. "Why not?"

"I was looking after her," Liam said quietly.

Felix kept staring at us. I had no idea if he'd bought that or not, but he didn't press the issue, and after a few more excruciating seconds of scrutiny, he made a face and moved on to the next couple in line.

I let out a breath I hadn't realised I was holding. I'd expected more suspicion to be levelled at us, in all honesty. Over the last few weeks, Felix had made it very clear how little he trusted us. But somehow we'd passed the first test.

And Liam had sided with me. So he couldn't be that angry.

Right?

An hour later, they'd searched everyone ... and found nothing. I could see that Felix wasn't happy, but he didn't have much choice but to send everybody back inside. We would have been facing hypothermia in our dozens if they hadn't.

The 'investigation' had hit a snag. Felix and Micah had no proof, no real suspects, and no idea where they could find any of either. The evacuation would have ruined any scent trail. They couldn't search every room in the pack house. All they were left with was the crime scene itself, and I didn't doubt they would scour every inch of it. Sooner or later, they would find the knife, and then I would have some awkward questions to answer.

"I want everyone in their rooms," Felix had said. "Mandatory curfew. You'll stay there until I say otherwise."

***

The walk back to our room was a blur. I let my body do the work for me - putting one foot in front of the other in that monotonous, automatic way while my mind wandered elsewhere. There was no arm around me now. Liam glanced back every so often to make sure I was still following, and that was all. He hadn't spoken to me once.

I could tell he was angry. He wasn't bothering to hide that anymore. His shoulders were tense and the muscles in his jaw were knotted. That could have been stress, of course, but I knew better.

It was the way he was looking at me that gave it away. His eyes were missing all their usual warmth, so it was just a cold, detached stare. I didn't think he'd ever looked at me like that before. Not once in seven years. And I didn't like it.

We entered the room at long last. I sat down on the bed without even thinking to take my coat off, relieved to take the weight off my legs, which felt about as strong as cooked spaghetti. Adrenaline was a drug with one hell of a come-down.

Liam went straight into the bathroom. He came back out with a towel and dried himself off before he changed out of his rain-soaked t-shirt and trousers. He did it all without so much as a glance at me.

I was a little taken aback. I'd been expecting an argument or a telling-off or something, because we had privacy at long last. I didn't understand why he was just ignoring me, and it was making me nervous. By the time he went to sit with his back against the radiator, still without looking in my direction, I stood up and took an uncertain step towards him.

The movement was enough to catch his eye. I didn't miss the slight turn of his head in the split second before he stopped himself. It only made me more certain that he was ignoring me deliberately.

"I think we need to talk about this," I said, very quietly.

His mouth set into a scowl.

"Oh, now you want to talk about it?" he demanded. It was mocking and scornful, and I'd be lying if I said it didn't sting a little.

I shuffled a little closer. Sat down on the carpet. Hugged my knees to my chest. Tried not to look so damn terrified. "What's that supposed to mean?"

He just stared at me, like I should have known. And I did. Or at least, I reckoned I did. He was pissed off because I hadn't told him. I could understand that - of course I could. I'd just ... well, I'd been expecting him to be upset about it. Not angry.

I didn't say anything else. And soon enough, Liam looked down at his hands. There were white with cold, and he was flexing his fingers, trying to get the blood into them. It was a relief to have his eyes off me, but the respite didn't last for long.

"It was all just lies, right?" he asked roughly. "You didn't want to go to the party. You weren't feeling ill."

I chewed on my lip. I hadn't wanted to lie to him, but ... he must have known why I had. Right? I'd needed him to be surrounded by people when it happened. I'd needed to give him one hell of an alibi.

"I'm sorry," I said. It was quiet and hesitant.

Liam raised his eyebrows. He was still scowling at me - unconvinced, apparently. "Are you?"

"Yes."

He let out a breath. It was somewhere between a sigh and a snort, and I reckoned it meant he didn't believe me. His legs were sprawled out in front of him. One bent upwards, the other lying on its side. Midnight had been hours ago. He was tired, and I didn't think that was helping his mood.

"Did you learn nothing from Rhodri?" he snapped.

I couldn't help feeling a little indignant, and I scowled at him. "Why'd you think I did it so carefully? Why'd you think we're not behind bars right now? He was stupid. I wasn't."

"No, Eva," Liam said. "You were the stupid one. Because if you'd failed, it wouldn't just have been you dead. It would've been me too. And all our work here would've been for nothing."

I tried not to let him see how badly those words affected me. I'd accepted that I was gambling with my own life. It had barely crossed my mind that I was gambling with his, too.

"Well, there was no need to worry, was there?" I muttered, more to fill the silence than anything else. "It worked."

"I didn't get a chance to be worried. Because you didn't bloody tell me."

Not for the first time, it struck me that Liam looked more like his brother when he was angry. It shouldn't have bothered me as much as it did, now that Mason was dead, but for some reason, it did. There was a knot of cold, stomach-churning fear building within me.

Normally, Liam would have felt that across the link. If he'd known he was scaring me, he would have stopped. I knew that. But right now, we both had our walls up, and I didn't think they were coming down any time soon. I'd have to find another way to reach him.

"I watched him hurt Rhodri," I said quietly. "I watched him hurt you. At some point, I guess I just had enough. You be angry all you like. I can't take it back now."

Finally, a flicker of emotion behind Liam's eyes that wasn't outwardly hostile. His face softened, ever so slightly, the tension leaving his body in the space of a single breath. He rubbed at the half-healed tooth marks on his neck ruefully.

"It was reckless," he said, but there was no force in the words.

I sat back and heaved a sigh. "I know."

"And you should have told me."

"On that, we'll have to agree to disagree," I replied. "You would've stopped me."

He didn't deny it. He leant back against the radiator and eyed me with a horrible kind of weariness. "He's really dead?"

I nodded. He sounded like he was having trouble believing it. I didn't blame him. I was still having trouble believing it myself. But it was also more than that. When he saw me nod, he didn't look relieved, like I might have expected. Relief didn't make the colour the drain from your face and it certainly didn't make your eyes glassy.

"You're upset, aren't you?" I asked, ever-so-carefully. Their relationship had been so hopelessly complicated that I honestly didn't know.

He smiled dryly. "Yes. But not because I'd rather he was alive."

I didn't understand, and it showed.

Liam looked down at the floor and shrugged. "He was all I had. For ten years. And Goddess knows he had it coming, but don't expect me to be happy about it."

The lump in my throat was back with a vengeance. "I don't think anyone's happy about it, Liam. I know I'm not. I wanted him dead, but I didn't want to kill him. So for what it's worth ... I really am sorry."

He didn't argue with me this time. He looked up at me just long enough to give a little, grudging nod, and then he went back to staring at the carpet. The silence that followed those words lasted a long, long time.

***

There was a knock on the door.

It roused me from the state of almost-sleep that I'd been enjoying for the last few hours. Every time I'd started to drift off, I'd felt fingernails clawing at my skin and heard Lilah's screams ringing in my ears, and I'd jolted awake again. The sound of knuckles against wood had me sitting up in bed within seconds.

"Shit," Liam said quietly. "That's not good."

Because the pack house was still under lockdown. There had been a number of threatening reminders of that through the mind-link. The only people walking the halls were the Vaughans and the handpicked fighters who had been deemed above suspicion.

"No, it's not," I agreed.

Liam got out of bed, pulling his shirt over his head as he moved towards the door. Before he could open it, they knocked again. This time louder and with enough force to rattle the door in its frame.

With one final, wary glance in my direction, Liam turned the lock and swung the door open a crack. He stopped it there and stared at whoever it was.

"Can I help you?" Liam asked, oh-so-innocently.

"Open the door."

That was Felix's voice, and it sent a shiver down my spine. I reckoned I knew what this was about, but Liam had no idea, and he wasn't quick to obey. I watched him jam his foot against the door as he tried to decide what to do. It was shuddering as someone pushed from the wrong side.

"Open the bloody door," Felix snapped.

Another second's hesitation from Liam proved too much. Someone pushed the door hard, and he was knocked backwards by the sheer force of it. They streamed into the room - five or six of them at least - and the frontmost man shoved Liam back another step.

So Felix had brought friends. And they hadn't come here for a conversation. They'd come to arrest us. There was no other reason to kick a door open and barge in here. There was no other reason why they were spreading out to surround Liam.

"On the ground, yeah?" one said. "Don't make this difficult."

Again, Liam hesitated, but they didn't give him time to disobey them. Two of them grabbed him by the shirt, and another one kicked his legs out from under him. They had him on his knees in the span of a few seconds, and they didn't stop there. It was sheer, brute force.

I had never moved so fast in my life. One moment lying in bed, the next scrambling over to help him. It still wasn't fast enough. One of the fighters broke away to intercept me, stopping me short with an arm around my chest. He dragged me away from Liam, back towards the bed.

I fought him every step of the way. I could hear him swearing in my ear as he wrestled with me, trying to catch my wrists. I didn't wait for him to get me in a nice arm-lock. I threw my head back into his face, and that was when his language really got colourful. But he didn't let me go, much to his credit. Even though I'd probably broken his nose with that little stunt.

To the other fighters, I was just an afterthought. It was Liam they were after. He was on the floor. One of the men was kneeling on his back and another was sat on his legs. He wasn't fighting them anymore. They bent his arms backwards, one after the other, and they put the handcuffs on him.

That end of the room was calm all of a sudden. It drew a lot of attention to my struggle with the flockie. Attention that neither of us needed. I was currently trying to contort myself into an unnatural position so that I could lodge my elbow into his groin. It wasn't working.

Felix had been stood over Liam, watching with icy indifference. He turned around now to give my captor a disgusted look. "Get a hold of her, for Goddess' sake."

That embarrassed him. I was a girl, and it should have been easy for him, and now all the other fighters were staring and smirking openly.

His arm moved from my waist to my neck. Every time I moved, he squeezed. It didn't take me long to get the message. He wasn't going to let me breathe unless I stood still. I decided to comply - at least until I knew what was going on.

"What the hell are you doing?" I demanded. "We haven't done anything wrong."

Felix just smiled, like this was all very funny.

"Toss the room," he said.

Two of the fighters moved to obey him. A third, who had been waiting in the corridor in wolf form, stalked into the room, his nose to the ground. He was probably a scout, and that was bad news for me, because he would be able to pick out even the faintest of smells.

Micah Vaughan moved into the doorway and leaned against the frame. He eyed Liam first, and then me, and then he watched them search the room. They were not being careful about it. Clothes were tossed out of drawers, the furniture was turned over, and the bed was stripped. I would have been the first to admit that our room hadn't been tidy to begin with. But by the time they were done, it looked like a bomb had gone off in there.

And they hadn't found anything. Our two phones and the bottle of pills were tossed at Felix's feet, but he barely spared them a glance before dismissing them. That was his mistake. My last dialled numbers were two of the most notorious rogues in Snowdonia.

"Nothing?" Felix asked, looking troubled for the first time since he'd entered the room. He exchanged a lingering glance with Micah.

"Nothing," the man confirmed.

Both of them looked to the wolf who had long since finished his sniffing.

"Traces of smoke. Traces of blood," he said into an open link. Felix's frown was quickly turning into a smirk, and I felt my heart stop in my chest. "But I wouldn't say it's conclusive, because-"

Felix cut him off very quickly. "It doesn't matter. This is just a formality. I've already got all the evidence I need. Take him downstairs and get him comfortable."

What evidence?

My captor gave me a little shake, as if to draw Felix's attention to me. "What about the girl?"

Felix looked me up and down and then made a face, like he hadn't even thought about it. For some reason, all of their focus was on Liam, and I needed to find out why. They couldn't know who he was ... could they? Joel was still imprisoned here, and he was not Liam's biggest fan.

"Bring her too."

The man holding me readjusted his grip ever-so-slightly, and then I heard the clinking of metal. He was going to handcuff me. And that proved to be my breaking point.

All these weeks, we'd always had the option to run if things went wrong. They were about to take that option away. Once those cuffs were on, we were at their mercy. Wholly and completely. This was my last chance to get away, and I couldn't just watch it pass me by.

I started thrashing again. This time it was less indignant and more frantic. Liam was still pinned down, so he couldn't help me. He could only watch. I managed to get one arm free, and I slammed it into the man's face over and over again, aiming for his bloodied nose. After the third blow, he made a horrible groaning noise and released me.

I didn't get far. Felix came stalking towards us, his pace almost leisurely. He was big, and he was a lot stronger than my previous opponent. He seized a handful of my hair and used his weight to force me onto the ground. I lost my footing before he could finish the job, and my head collided with the bed frame as I fell.

All of a sudden, there were black spots dancing before my eyes, and my body felt very far away. Felix took advantage of my disorientation. He knelt on top of me, somehow managing to lodge a foot in my groin in the process, and then he reached for the handcuffs.

I didn't have balls, so it could definitely have hurt more than it did, but it still hurt. I mean ... Goddess. Between my head and ... down below ... I wanted to curl up into a little ball. I barely felt the cold metal cinching around first one wrist, then the other.

The carpet was rough against my cheek. Felix finally got off me, leaving more than a few bruises behind, but I didn't feel inclined to move anymore. There was no point. I would have realised that earlier if I hadn't been so panicked. There were eight of them and two of us, and we didn't stand a chance.

My eyes met Liam's across the floor. He looked so worried that I almost felt guilty, for a moment. We didn't know for certain that this was my fault, but it seemed ... likely.

He mouthed something which could only have been, "Are you okay?"

I nodded, but it might have been more convincing if I hadn't also been wincing.

"Get them up," Felix said.

The fighter bent down and gripped my arm. He hauled me to my feet with a few muttered curses. He didn't let go, even once I was standing. But once he started trying to tug me towards the doorway, I dug my heels in. I had a feeling that if we ended up in that prison, it would not end happily for us.

Liam noticed the hesitation, and he shook his head ever so slightly. His eyes were saying don't. I took absolutely no notice. They were leading him out the door, and he was walking nicely, but I kept standing my ground.

"You have to tell us why," I said.

Felix ignored me. That was a little bit frustrating because I needed him to tell me. Until he did, there was no way I could deny it. We weren't supposed to know that Mason was dead yet, let alone that he had been murdered.

"You have to tell us why you're arresting us," I repeated. This time it was louder, and Felix finally bothered to look at me ... if only because all the fighters had stopped what they were doing to let us finish the conversation.

"No, I don't," he said, visibly amused. "You're not pack members. You don't have rights."

I had no idea if that was true, but Liam would have known, and Liam wasn't arguing. It wasn't looking good for us, to say the least. How were we supposed to fight the charges if we didn't know what they were? And more importantly, could he execute us without telling us why?

The whole situation was made even more frustrating by the fact that we were pack members. But if we told Felix that, he would go and look at the register, just to make sure, and he wouldn't see Alex Hayes there. He'd see Liam Vaughan. And then we'd have a new problem.

"If you don't tell them, I will," Micah said from the hallway. It was a very deliberate action, intended solely to piss Felix off. Both of them knew they would have to fight soon - to decide the next Alpha - and it seemed like tensions were already rising.

The two of them stared at each other for a long moment.

"Fine." Felix almost spat the word. There was no love lost between these two. "Alex Hayes, I'm arresting you for murdering our Alpha. Your mate is charged with aiding and abetting."

They thought Liam had done it.

"You've got it wrong," Liam said quietly. "I was at the party. Ask anyone."

That made Micah frown, at the very least. Felix's face twisted into a fury unlike anything I'd seen on him before. He reached into a pocket and drew out a knife. I recognised it easily enough. The blade was still covered in Mason's blood, and the handle had two letters etched into the wood. E.M.

"Really?" Felix demanded. "What's this, then?"

And just to illustrate the point, Felix thrust it into the doorframe, missing Liam's cheek by mere inches. He flinched, naturally. But like me, he recognised the knife. And now he understood why he was in handcuffs.

He did a good job of looking confused. I suspected he wasn't having to feign it. He knew why the knife was bloodstained, but he had no idea how it had ended up in Felix's hands. I hadn't told him that I'd left the murder weapon for them to find, and he had no reason to believe that I would have been so stupid. The way Liam was looking at me ... well, it was a mixture of horrified and incredulous.

When it became obvious that he had nothing to say, Felix snapped his fingers at the fighters, and they got him moving again. They weren't going to check his alibi, apparently. We were going straight to the cells, and that meant my plan was falling apart.

This time, when I felt a push against my back, I didn't resist. I was out of ideas. Felix didn't care if he'd got the right person. He just wanted someone to pay for Mason's death, and in leaving the knife behind, I'd practically begged him to pick us.