Instead of throwing a proper meeting, we waited until supper, when half of the pack was gathered in the canteen anyway, and then all we had to do was offer an open invitation to the families who lived around the territory. There were nearly four hundred people in that room tonight - and the kitchen staff had not been very happy with us, but it had been necessary.

I was really, really glad that it was Liam's job to do the public speaking. It was hard enough for me to sit at the head table with so many damn faces staring at me, without having to actually talk to them.

Liam was next to me, and that was probably the only redeeming aspect of tonight. He'd cleared his plate for the first time in weeks - our healing could really work up an appetite. I'd fussed over him some more once we'd been reunited. It turned out Seth had put stitches in his shoulder and taped his hand up until the bones could heal. I'd had to help him cut his food more than once.

"You're really bloody brave," I told him. "I wouldn't do it. Not for anything."

Liam managed a smile that was more pained than amused. He wasn't shy like I was, but this was a room full of flockies, and I knew he'd rather be anywhere else. "Yeah, I hate it. But thanks."

And with that, he stood up and thumped his good hand against the table for silence. The whole meal, the pack had been gossiping away, casting not-so-discreet glances in our direction whenever they thought we weren't looking. Only a fraction of the pack had witnessed the fight, but I was sure that by now they all knew exactly who Liam was.

When he had all four hundred faces turned towards him expectantly, he cast one last unhappy look at me and then started talking.

"I'm in charge here now," he said. "I know you lot don't care who sits up here as long as you're fed and happy and safe. I know you've had six Alphas in the last seven years, and you're probably fed up with us by now. And I know it's been a rough couple of days ... but it's about to get a lot rougher. This pack has been led by my family since its founding, and we've come a long way in that time, but there has also been a lot of bullshit. A lot of lying. And countless abuses of power."

I could've sworn the audience's eyes collectively widened. Some of the people at the very back of the canteen began creeping forwards in order to hear better. Liam could be loud when he wanted to, but it was a big room.

"Most of it ... is best left in the past," Liam continued. He paused to take a careful breath before he managed the next part. It came slowly. "But there is something that you all deserve to know. My father and my brothers were in the habit of killing people who disagreed with them and then pretending that they'd left the pack. This has been going on for years now."

The uproar that followed that announcement was unparalleled. Because the second he stopped talking, the pack erupted into a racket loud enough to make me wince. Some of them were just exclaiming aloud, but most of them were engaging in animated conversations with whoever was closest to them.

It was perhaps a little tactical on our parts to reveal it like this - in a way that would cause maximum outrage. It would help to have them all shocked and reeling. The longer they spent coming to terms with all that, the less they'd notice when Liam and I started dismantling the entire pack. But at the same time, I knew a lot of these people didn't deserve the misery that would follow that announcement.

Liam waited for a relative dampening of the sound before he carried on. "To all the families who are missing loved ones - we will try and get you some closure tonight. And to those of you who are grieving for the fighters we lost today ... I can only promise that it won't happen again. Not ever. The incompetence ends now. The mistakes end now. The raids end now."

That was a very easy thing for Liam to promise. But it was a very hard thing for the pack to believe. They murmured amongst themselves, the scepticism twisting their faces into frowns. An awful lot of them were too shell-shocked by the previous revelation to even process it.

After years of raids, they had tried just about everything to stop us, and they'd achieved ... well ... nothing. But the truth was, it had never been necessary. Not really. The Vaughans had manufactured this war and done everything in their power to keep it going because their hatred for us outweighed their concern for their pack members. In that way, most of these flockies had it bad, too. Not as bad as us, but not great, either.

So after countless lives lost, after years of grief and fear and ignorance, the only thing it would have ever taken to end it was an Alpha who was valued people's lives more highly than his own ego and bigotry.

Even Liam, who was a literal rogue and working for the other side, was going to do a better job of protecting them than his brothers ever had. And I thought that was really, really sad.

It was only after Liam had sat down again that I noticed them. It was the old man and woman from the funeral yesterday. They were stood together, halfway down the hall, apart from everyone else. And while the pack had gone back to their dinners or started talking amongst themselves once Liam had finished, they were still staring at him.

I nudged Liam, letting the link guide his eyes towards them. And I heard his rough intake of breath as he spotted his grandparents. Sorrow and guilt warred openly on his face.

They'd found out the hard way, from rumour and second-hand gossip, that their grandson was alive. And perhaps that had been unkind on our part, but it had not been an easy day, and I was only just now remembering that they existed.

"I should go and talk to them," he said, as if he'd come to the same conclusion. The words were wary.

"Do you want me to come?" I asked him.

Liam cast a lingering glance at my half-full plate, hesitated for a moment, and then shook his head. "No, it's okay. Finish eating. I'll just say hi and shit."

He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and stood up. I could tell that this was not making him nervous in the same way that the speech had. No - it was the good kind of nervous. I reckoned he was as desperate to meet them as they were to meet him. He didn't have many blood relatives left now.

I watched him skirt around the head table and then head towards them. They seemed to become more anxious the closer he got - his grandmother kneaded her hands together, and his grandfather stood up a little straighter.

A hundred pairs of eyes tracked Liam's progress down the room. They lost interest again soon enough, of course, but I kept watching him as he neared the elderly couple. He stopped next to them, standing there with visible tension in his body as those first few words were exchanged.

Then he stuck his one good hand out for his grandfather to shake, like flockies loved to do, and I saw them relax, just a fraction. A minute later, and they were in earnest conversation, and I was smiling from ear to ear as I finished my rice.

***

There were a lot of people to bury that evening. The fighters who had died in the morning, Micah Vaughan, and now the bodies from the quarry. Liam had even ordered a pair of fighters to burn the old pelt from the canteen. The one that they claimed was Rhodric's. And while they interpreted that as disrespect to the dead rogue and were happy enough to do it, it was actually just our way of doing things. Fire was a lot warmer than the dirt.

A good chunk of the pack followed us to the old quarry, and they watched quietly while a dozen volunteers with strong stomachs helped us secure ropes to the trees so we could all clamber safely down into the shafts themselves.

They were not just empty tunnels, as I had imagined. Every single one was filled with stagnant water - sometimes several metres deep, and that made it difficult to retrieve the remains. We stood waiting on the muddy bank while they brought waders and nets.

It was lucky that Liam knew where to look, because there were a dozen shafts in this part of the woodland alone, and it would have taken days to search them properly. He hadn't let me persuade him to sit out, even though his wounds were still healing. He was right down there in the mud with the rest of us.

"We've got something here," one of the men called, after only a few minutes of poking around in the murky water. He had snagged something with his boat-hook, and now a handful of the others went wading in to help him bring it up. It looked heavy. Three of them were struggling to lift it, and it wasn't long before Liam went to lend a hand.

They managed to haul it onto the bank with no small of cursing. It was a black tarp, fastened with wire and weighed down with half a dozen stones. The whole thing was nearly six feet long and two feet wide. It didn't take a genius to guess what might be in there.

I wanted to be sick. These poor people had been down there for years, rotting in the water. It made me shudder just thinking about it. Being buried in the dirt was one thing. This was another.

I helped carry it up the bank. We had to go slowly and carefully on the loose scree, with the ropes to steady us at the steepest bits. The crowd at the top had long since fallen silent. We lowered the body down gently where Seth and the other doctors were waiting. They'd erected a few makeshift screens so that the families wouldn't have to see this next part.

Because they were going to have a hard time identifying these bodies. They had dental records, and that was all. I doubted they'd be able to pull DNA from the bones with the facilities they had here.

As soon as the first body was safely in their care, we went back down again. We were halfway down the rocks when we heard a call from below. They'd already found a second body.

I had a feeling it was going to be a long evening.

And that feeling was spot-on. An hour later, we realised that we needed more pairs of hands. Volunteers were sent into the other quarries, just to check, and it wasn't long before they had plenty of work to occupy themselves with.

The fighters worked tirelessly. They didn't look nearly so arrogant when they were up to their waists in brown water, fishing for bodies. I could tell that they thought it was strange that I was helping, because they kept eyeing me and exchanging quizzical looks with each other. But they didn't dare voice it, and I didn't really care anyway. Like hell was I going to leave Liam to do this alone.

We ended up with seventeen bodies. Liam had only known about nine of them. Some were buried in shallow graves beside the flooded tunnels, but most were just weighed down with a few rocks. In the tunnels themselves, it wouldn't really matter if they slipped free. They could rot just as quickly floating in the cavern, only to sink again when they were far enough gone. The Vaughans had been clever in picking their personal graveyard.

"Some of these date back fifty years," Seth was saying. "As best we can tell, anyway. We've got fourteen women and three men. Two have already been identified. One had a medical alert bracelet with her name engraved - Elinor Saunders."

Saunders? A relative of mine, then. On my mother's side. I wondered if it had been the aunt who had raised her for the first few years, only to disappear inexplicably. The more I thought about it, the likelier that seemed. My visit to my grandparents' grave had made it very clear that the Saunders family had not been welcome in this pack.

"And the other one?" I asked quietly.

Seth sighed to himself. "Alpha Adrian's mate. We made the identification using her jewellery."

My eyes darted to Liam even as something cold and oily settled in my stomach. I doubted that had been Adrian, somehow. But Mason had been the one to kill him ... and I could certainly see that he'd had a motive to get rid of the poor girl - and with her, any chance that his brother could still sire a son. Maybe she'd been carrying a pup. Maybe not. I doubted he'd waited around to find out before killing her, too.

The way Liam was staring at the skeleton, those dark eyes restless and guilty and not the least bit surprised ... it made me all the more certain that he'd known about this.

I understood now why he'd been so quick to get Lilah out of the pack house. Why he'd had no trouble believing that Micah would hurt her. He'd seen it all happen before.

"Do me a favour," Liam told Seth in a voice that was so horribly, horribly quiet. "And don't tell Lilah."

"Of course. I'll try and keep it quiet. The pack doesn't need any more upset at a time like this," Seth murmured.

Because Mason was still the golden boy, wasn't he? They all adored him. And he would carry on being adored, even beyond the grave, because the pack still didn't know what an utter piece of shit he'd been. There was only one other body here that we could pin on him, but it also happened to be the only murder that had been justified.

Liam nodded. It took him a minute to tear his eyes away from that skeleton, but when he finally managed it, he just walked along the rows of bodies, checking each one in turn.

Seth and I exchanged a guarded look and followed him. It wasn't long before he stopped at a battered grey tarpaulin. The body itself wasn't visible, but a hastily written label listed it as female, 20-35 yo, multiple fractures and evidence of previous parturition. It wasn't the label that Liam was staring at, though. It was the tarp itself and the cords which had fastened it shut.

"This is my mother," he said.

Seth's face paled, and I felt my stomach fall away. The calm, even tone he was managing ... it was deceptive. And it was at odds with the miserable look that had those dark eyes of his looking so empty.

I closed my eyes tightly and tried not to imagine how he knew recognised those wrappings. I didn't know how old he had been when his mother had been killed, but ... old enough to remember, evidently.

I tangled our fingers together for the briefest of moments, squeezed hard, and then let go of him again. The realisation was probably written all over my face, because he took one look at me and rubbed the back of his neck ruefully.

"I couldn't stop them doing it," he said quietly. "I was too little. She tried to run away ... and she wanted to take us with her. Me and Mase. She would have got away if she'd just left us behind. I don't know why she didn't."

I kept gazing at him, but inwardly I was panicking. I didn't want him to tell me shit just because he was too tired to have inhibitions and then end up regretting it later. Equally, I didn't want to tell him to shut up while he was in the middle of sharing something. It wasn't often he told me things like that so willingly and unprompted, which was why I hadn't even known his mother was dead until last week.

Because Liam wasn't looking at me while he was talking, he couldn't see any of that. His eyes were still firmly fixed on his mother's body as he finished the story. "And because we went with her, because we didn't kick up a fuss, Dad made us watch. He said we should have known better. Mase wasn't ever the same after that. He was probably, like ... thirteen? He really did love her."

That was a lot of sadness in his voice. I had hoped killing Mason would help him get it straight in his head. It was easier to hate someone when you didn't have to look them in the eye and hear every manipulative word that came out of their mouth. Or so I'd thought, anyway.

"I'm really sorry," I told him. "That's really ... I mean, shit ... that must have been..."

"Bad," he finished for me. "Yeah. I guess it was."

He didn't stick around to watch Seth label the body. He just started wandering further down the line, probably to see who else he could identify. I trailed a few steps behind, keeping an eye on him, but it didn't really occur to me that he was looking for someone in particular. Not until he stopped beside another body and looked like he wanted to be sick. The tag simply read male, 50+ yo, fractures to the ulna, phalanges, ribs and skull.

"You know," I said softly, "this one doesn't have to be identified. Not if you don't want it to be."

He glanced up and seemed surprised to see me there. He'd been so lost in his thoughts. And I saw his forehead crease as he mulled it over. It was a long time before he shook his head. "The others deserve to know that he's dead. To get some closure or whatever."

I hardly even dared to breathe. "You think there were others?"

He managed to look at me then, if only for a split second. And then his eyes were back on the ground. "I know there were others."

Oh, Goddess. This was all such a mess. This entire pack was a mess. First, it was a few things slipping through the cracks. A few bruises here and there, a neglected kid or two, fighters with no idea what no meant...

Then it began to fester and escalate and go around in little, vicious circles. The idea of which behaviours were acceptable became steadily more skewed. And even those who knew better would start to look the other way. They'd think it was none of their business or convince themselves that they were imagining the warning signs.

And instead of helping kids like Liam - the vulnerable ones, the ones with nobody to tell - people had begun taking advantage. It was easy to see how even the slightest tolerance of shitty behaviour gave way to depravity. And now people were getting hurt, and they'd been getting hurt for a long time, and the thing that got me most of all was that ... like, none of it had necessary.

When Seth came over, Liam didn't hesitate to say, "This one here is Presley."

"Old Mr Presley?" Seth echoed, sounding dismayed. "He got me through my A-Levels. Poor man. I mean ... Goddess above. What could he have possibly done to deserve this? He was always on good terms with Mason."

Whether that registered with Liam, I had no idea, because he was in such a catatonic state by then. But one glance at the vacancy in his eyes convinced me that he couldn't stay here any longer. He wasn't really looking at anything, and it was a dead giveaway with him.

"Hey," I said softly. It took a tiny nudge of his arm before he jolted back to awareness, looking more than a little disorientated. "Do you need to leave?"

He looked at me so blankly that I got the impression that he hadn't processed the question properly, but I knew that was probably not the case. He just didn't know how to answer it. A few seconds of confused silence was enough to help me make up my mind.

"Yeah, okay," I said, "come on."

Liam followed me at first. He wouldn't stop looking back, though, and before long he stopped moving altogether.

I watched him go back to Seth. He didn't say much, but I didn't fail to notice the gesture at his grandparents, who were part of the crowd waiting so patiently to hear if their loved ones had been in the water. Maybe Liam had told them earlier, but then again, maybe not.

More talking. Some of which looked a tiny bit like arguing, if I'd had to guess. And then Seth handed him something small, and Liam pocketed it before I could see what it was. That was enough to worry me.

I kept glancing at him as we began the long walk home. I'd been planning to give him a break before we did anything else, but at the first split in the path, he set a course for the back entrance to the pack house. The one that offered the quickest route to the prison.

"We don't have to do this right now, you know," I told him. Because it wasn't only rogues down there now. Felix was still in his cell, waiting for a trial, and I doubted his mood had improved in the last few days. He wouldn't have forgotten the part we'd played in putting him there.

He eyed me sidelong. "Yeah, we do."

And that was probably true. We'd talked about this earlier. It was something I'd wanted to do from the minute he'd killed Micah, but we'd had to wait. Slowly, excruciatingly, the hours had ticked by. Now the sun had set, the pack house was shrouded in darkness, and the only people outside their rooms were gathered at the quarry.

The first thing we did was dismiss the guard at the prison entrance. He looked vaguely puzzled to get a visit from his Alpha and Luna so late at night, and that puzzlement only intensified when Liam told him that he'd done enough work for one day. He went off to find his mate with no shortage of backwards glances.

He'd given us his keys. It was a small ring, all things considered, but the power it gave us was considerable. The first door it unlocked for us was the one that led down to the prison.

The stairs were shorter than I remembered. It was certainly easier to walk down them when your hands weren't cuffed together. The gloom below, on the other hand, was just as oppressive as it had always been. There were only two cells occupied on this level. In one, I could see a dark shape in the corner which wasn't moving. Joel, probably.

In the other, Felix was sat hunched in a corner. He looked awful. The amount that he'd deteriorated in just a few days was terrifying. His skin had a pale, sickly pallor to it, his entire body was drenched in sweat, and he was shaking.

He was sitting by his latrine bucket. It was full of vomit almost to the point of overflowing, and the way he kept leaning over it made me think he was still retching, even now. There couldn't be anything left to come up.

He raised his head when we came in. And somehow, despite all the exhaustion, his face twisted into a scowl. I found myself feeling a tiny bit sorry for him. He didn't even look like he had the energy to be properly angry at us.

Liam stopped a few feet away from his cell. I lagged behind a bit, because I knew we had to get Felix out of the way, but I didn't want to actually, like, interact with him. A drop or two of pity didn't make me dislike him any less. But Liam didn't speak. He just stared at Felix in that hopelessly complicated way of his. It wasn't the same way he'd looked at Mason. But it was close.

Felix didn't put up with that for very long. He spat, and it was hard to tell if he was trying to make a point or just get the taste of vomit out of his mouth.

"I don't know who you are," he said slowly, his eyes fixed on Liam. "And I don't know what twisted bloody game you're playing. But my little brother is dead. He's been dead for a long time."

The guards had been talking, then. That was unfortunate but perhaps not very surprising. And all the more reason to bugger off now and leave Felix alone. Nothing good could possibly come of this conversation.

Liam didn't say anything, but he did pull down the collar of his shirt with one finger, just far enough to show the beginning of the big scar that stretched down his chest. I still didn't know where he'd got it, but it was hard to forget.

"Hey, Felix," Liam said in that quiet, toneless voice.

Felix swore at him. He still wasn't sure - I could see the slight flicker of uncertainty tightening his eyes. But the longer he eyed his brother, the more he started to believe it. There were a few more foul words. And then, finally, he swallowed.

"You swore you wouldn't run on my watch again," Felix said slowly. His eyes had found empty space. "And then you did it anyway. And Mase nearly killed me."

I watched Liam's gaze come to rest on the floor. "I know. I'm sorry. I wasn't really ... I don't know. I wasn't thinking that night. I just needed to get out."

Felix just shook his head, rejecting the apology. "He was so much worse after you disappeared. You have no idea what it was like."

Liam seemed to wince. He was chewing on his lip and saying nothing at all, and the guilt might as well have been written all over his face. He still didn't dare meet his brother's eyes.

"Mase knew," Felix said, just to fill the silence. He ran a hand through his hair and laughed to himself. "I mean ... shit. He recognised you from the start."

It wasn't a question, but Liam nodded anyway,

"You killed him?" was Felix's next question. It was strangely matter-of-fact. He thought he'd worked it out.

Liam just shook his head slowly, and it was more convincing than any number of denials.

And Felix looked a little puzzled, to say the least. His eyes flicked to me once or twice as he thought it over, but he didn't go as far as accusing me. Probably because his focus was still on Liam.

"Well, it wasn't me," Felix said. "You have to know that, right? I hated him sometimes, sure, but I could never have done that. Not while he was sleeping. Hell, probably not ever."

"I believe you," Liam said.

"Then open the bloody cell."

There was enough force in those words to have Liam tensing up. But instead of shirking away, he took a few steps closer and knelt down so Felix wasn't having to stare up at him. He was, I reckoned, a little too close. Felix could have reached him through the bars if he'd been in any condition to try.

"I'm not going to do that," Liam said wearily. "You might not have killed him, but you've done plenty of other shit. When the trial's done, they'll put you up against the wall and shoot you. And all this ... will finally be over."

"Because you'll be the only one of us left," Felix laughed. He had taken the news of his execution with a pinch of salt, it seemed. "Never. Never in a million years did I think you'd be the last one standing. I always figured it'd be Mase who killed me. Not you."

It looked like he wanted to say more, but he was interrupted by the pressing urge to retch into the bucket. All that came up was a few drops of yellow liquid. Withdrawal did not look like fun. I saw Liam wince and couldn't help remembering that he'd been the one puking only a week ago.

"Although ... the state I'm in right now ... you won't get to execute me," Felix said quietly. There was a little smile on his lips that was anything but amused. "Reckon I'll be dead before the trial can even start."

"If these are your last few days, do you want to be clean?" Liam asked him.

"No. The opposite."

"That's not just the withdrawal talking?"

Felix shook his head.

Liam watched him a moment longer, trying to decide, and then he reached into his pocket. "Give me your arm, then."

The disbelief swept over Felix's face, slackening every single muscle all at once. But he didn't dare voice it. He just started rolling up his sleeve. I found myself edging closer, if they were going to be touching. Just in case.

But Felix wasn't in the mood to do something stupid today, it seemed. He held his arm through the bars and let Liam do his best to find a vein that wasn't already blown. This was what Seth had given him, I realised. A bottle of something strong and a needle to go with it.

It didn't take very long in the end. The second Liam was done, Felix sat back, his eyes closed tight. He already looked better, but maybe that was just my imagination.

"I'm going to move you to the med wing. You'll be cuffed to the bed, but they'll be able to take care of you properly there," Liam said, once he'd pocketed the syringe once again. It was news to me, but it was hard to protest when I considered the absolute state that Felix was in.

He raised his head for a moment to snort. "Yeah? Cheers, I guess. You're too bloody soft, kiddo. You always were."

Liam ignored that, sensibly enough. He crossed to the cell door and opened it. Felix was so weak and out-of-it that he was able to put a pair of handcuffs on him without any problems. I wasn't worried about them being alone together when I saw how much help Felix needed to stand up, let alone walk.

Liam pressed the keys into my hands as he passed me. "I'll be back in a bit."

I watched him go with an edge of uneasiness. He was being nice to Felix, of all people, and I wasn't sure why. He'd clearly put some thought into it, too. Did he feel guilty? He had let Felix take the fall for this when he'd known it was me all along.

Maybe, if I worked up enough nerve, I'd ask him later. But I doubted it. The last thing I wanted was for him to think I was angry at him. It had been a really, really long day.

I turned away from them and wandered up to Joel's cell. He'd woken up at some point. He was sat up, his legs curled beneath him. And as I got closer, I could see, even through the gloom, that his face was a mess. The rest of him was even messier. He'd been beaten since I'd last seen him.

"What happened to you?" I asked softly.

Joel shrugged at me. "Oh, someone was pissed off. About something. It's not as bad as it looks."

I inched closer to the bars, hoping he wasn't lying to me. I needed him functional enough to drive ... because I certainly couldn't do it. Being closer didn't make it any easier to see the extent of the damage, but it did let me see the confusion and surprise which had taken up permanent residence on his face. He didn't understand why I was here.

If we'd been friends, I might have enlightened him. But we weren't, so all I said was, "Can you stand?"

"Reckon so," he muttered. "Why? Am I going somewhere?"

In answer, I just turned the key in the lock. I watched his eyebrows lift, and then he picked himself up with some effort. I couldn't help tensing a little as he got closer to me, because before all of this, we hadn't been on the best of terms. It didn't stop me letting him out in the corridor, but it did get my hackles up.

"Shit. Okay. You got a key for these, too?" he asked, nodding towards his handcuffs. There was something spacey about his expression now. Something which made me think he was still deciding if this was a dream. But of course, it did nothing to knock that cockiness out of him. It was both infuriating and impressive.

"Probably," I muttered. "Come here."

I had to get very close to him to reach the handcuffs. I couldn't seem to find the right key - all of the small ones looked the same. And the whole time that I was doing it, I could feel Joel's eyes on me. The weight of that stare was a tangible thing that made my heart beat a little too fast and a shiver run down my spine.

As one of the keys finally turned in the lock and I loosened the handcuffs, Joel managed a tiny little grin. "Finn died, Rhodri died, and I'm the one who gets to walk out of here. That's got to piss you off."

I regarded him in stony silence for a long, long time. I didn't really know what he was playing at. It didn't seem like a good idea to antagonise me while I was breaking him out of prison.

"Oh, don't worry. Everything you do pisses me off," I told him lightly. "But believe it or not, Rhodri's alive."

Joel's eyes widened considerably. "He's what?"

"Alive," I said. "You know... Breathing."

He took a moment to absorb that. I still could scarcely believe it myself. He was probably the first rogue to survive a flockie prison in years. Joel would be the second, and he rubbed at his jaw now, watching me with wary eyes. "He didn't say nothing to you, did he?"

It wasn't hard to feign confusion, really. I just had to furrow my forehead. "About what?"

That quickly, the confidence was back. And my suspicions were confirmed when he gave me the tiniest of triumphant smiles. "Nothing. Forget it."

Joel was free of the handcuffs and had been for some time now, but he hadn't stepped back again. And that meant he was still too close, crowding me and making my chest feel cold. I was holding the keys too tight - I could feel them digging into my fingers. But somehow I couldn't force the muscles to relax.

I wanted to get moving. I wanted to get rid of him as soon as humanely possible. But the words were sticking in my throat, and I was too panicky that he might say or do something which couldn't be unsaid or undone.

I should have moved. Sent him on his way. Done ... literally anything. Because while I'd been dithering, his eyes had drifted downwards. With him, that happened a lot. But it was the edge of my mark which had caught his attention today. It was peeking out from my shirt collar. And I watched the look of cool confidence on his face shatter into a thousand pieces.

"What the hell is that?" he demanded. It wasn't a calm, rational question. It was hoarse and angry and made me feel like I'd done something wrong, even though I hadn't. And that would have been bad enough even if he hadn't followed up the question with a grab for my collar.

His fingers were rough. He pulled my shirt down so that he could see the mark properly. By the time I'd recovered enough to knock his hands away and lurch out of range, he'd gotten a good look. And the look on his face was now downright nasty.

"I dunno, really," I snapped. "What does it look like?"

Joel clenched his jaw hard. He looked like he was fighting back swearwords or violence or both, but I stood my ground. I didn't think he'd hurt me. Not without provocation. And the state he was in ... well, let's just say I fancied my chances if he did decide to put his hands on me again.

"He marked you?" Joel spat. "And you let him? Why, Eva? You're not even his mate. Doesn't it bug you - knowing you'll never find out who it was?"

"No, not really," I said.

It was almost amusing. The key word being 'almost.' No, it wasn't a real mark, and no, I didn't think it would stop me finding my mate, but Joel didn't know that. And that made it very easy for me to stand there, smirking away, while he was getting even more worked up.

"Did he force you?" he asked quietly.

I rolled my eyes - and made sure he saw me do it - because he was very quick to recognise unacceptable behaviours in others and utterly incapable of seeing them in himself. "No."

Joel wasn't easily deterred. He eyed the mark again, scowling all the while. "It's messy."

"I know."

He made a face like he didn't quite believe me, but he didn't push it. The next vicious, needling question was, "Did he tell you he's your mate?"

"Shut up," I said shortly.

There was a triumphant gleam in his eyes as he sensed that he'd found a sore point and pounced on it. "You never thought he might be lying? Never thought to wait and see before you let him bite you?"

"He's not the one who's lying," I snapped. "You are."

Joel went very still. His brown eyes widened almost imperceptibly, and then he swallowed. It was strange for me, because I'd never seen him look nervous before.

"Rhodri told you," he said.

No. You did. Whether you realised it or not. It was not an easy thing to hide. The look on my face told him everything that he needed to know. It was furious and hurt and terrified all at once.

He winced and scratched at the back of his neck. "I didn't want you to find out like that."

"Shut. Up."

The panic was now a tidal wave, and it was crushing my heart. Because if he said it out loud, it would become real. There would be no more ignoring it, no more shoving it down to the deepest, darkest depths of my mind.

Joel's lip curled. "You don't believe me, right? And now you never will. Because with that thing on your neck, you're not going to feel it."

Funnily enough, that proved to be the last straw for me.

"Of course I don't believe you," I snapped. "Because I know you're lying and it's all some screwed-up game. All these years, you've never been able to leave me alone. And you've never been able to leave him alone. So yeah, I know damn well this is just another attempt to torture us both. Don't try it again. And don't you dare tell Liam."

He snorted. "Right. Sure. The last thing I'd want to do is muck up your relationship with Kendrick."

That stumped me. I licked at my lips, trying to come up with something grumpy to say back, but my thoughts had stopped dead in their tracks and found something else to occupy themselves with. And that was thinking about Liam and what would happen if he ever found out.

He was nearly nineteen. And he hadn't felt anything. But that didn't mean he wasn't going to. Fion had said it was complicated, right? So there was a still a chance, and I just had to wait for my eighteenth birthday. It was only two weeks away now. Until then, I wasn't going to let Joel upset me, and I wasn't going to fall for his shit.

Joel leant against the bars of his cell, and he looked at me, and for a moment, all the cockiness was just ... gone. If I hadn't known better, I'd have thought he was actually miserable. Softly, he asked, "I've already blown it with you, haven't I?"

I didn't have to think about it very hard. We'd barely dated for a week, and in that time, he'd managed to be really, really controlling. And if that hadn't been enough to put me off for life, he'd started picking fights with Liam afterwards, for no reason other than jealousy, as far as I could tell. I didn't want to sleep with him anymore, let alone start a relationship with him.

"Yeah, Joel. You blew it," I said, not very gently. "Is that what you want to hear? Will you leave me alone now?"

He regarded with a strange, lopsided look that was far too intense for my liking. "Here's the thing, Eva. I don't think I can."

And with that, he took a step towards me, tilted his head down, and before I had time to realise what he was doing, he had pressed his lips against mine. They were warm and not altogether unpleasant if you didn't think too hard about who they belonged to.

It took me longer than it should have to fully process what he was doing. He'd caught me off guard and confused me, and by the time I got my hands up and shoved him away by the chest, it had gone on longer than I would have preferred.

Joel didn't fight me. He let the shove carry him backwards, and when I reeled away from him, he stood there without trying to close the distance again.

I'd been expecting some kind of triumphant smirk. Instead, I just got the faintest of smiles. "I know you're angry and whatever, but I had to do that. Just once."

No, I wanted to say, no, you didn't. But it was at that moment that Joel's eyes slid past me, and the smile fell off his lips. I watched him swallow. And I turned my head to see what had caught his attention.

Liam was behind us. He had picked the worst possible moment to return from the med wing. He had stopped halfway down the stairs ... so there was no way he hadn't seen Joel kiss me. The look on his face was not one I recognised. It was entirely unreadable.

My heart was reaching a crescendo. I hadn't done anything wrong - I knew that. We weren't involved, and I'd made no promises to him, and he must have seen me push Joel away. But no one had told my chest, which felt like it was being crushed, and no one had told my stomach, which was tying itself in knots.

I turned back to Joel furiously, but he wasn't paying me the slightest bit of attention anymore. He was standing, tense as anything and eyeing Liam. And now I was worried for a whole different reason. Even more so when Liam snapped out of his trance and came towards us.

I moved ever-so-slightly. Just far enough that I was in his way. It was instinctive, really, just like it was instinctive when I grabbed at him. My fingers closed around his wrist, squeezing a warning.

Please don't, I was saying. Not today.

Joel was a piece of dogshit, yeah, but he was also hurt. Liam would be punching below his weight if he started a fight now. I reckoned he knew that. Just like he knew that it wouldn't solve anything. It would just mean fresh injuries for both of them and guilt for me. So I kept a firm hold of his wrist, even as I leant into his body, hoping that would be a clear enough message for Joel.

But it didn't really work. They were staring at each other and showing no signs of stopping anytime soon. So without letting go of Liam, I slapped Joel's arm to get him looking at me, instead, and then I gave him a push along the corridor.

"Let's go before someone sees, yeah?" I muttered. My voice was shakier than I would have liked. "Down the hall. We need to get the kids."

Joel cast one lingering glance at me, not bothering to disguise the hunger in his gaze and the half-smirk on his lips. And then he broke into a grudging walk. The second his back was turned, I felt Liam's eyes on me, even as we began to follow him.

His forehead creased, and he mouthed, okay?

I'd been trying to put a brave face on, but it couldn't have been very convincing. I could hardly admit that I was terrified of his reaction, not of Joel. But I nodded all the same. My chest still felt weird. Too light, almost. And that only worsened every time Joel glanced back at us.

"Keep going. Next left," I told him sharply.

His expression darkened, and his shoulders tightened a fraction, but he did keep walking. It was obvious that he didn't like having us behind him. And he categorically did not like being told what to do. Well, tough. He'd brought it on himself.

"Eva..." Liam began, barely louder than a whisper. He was trying to sound casual about it, but the colour of his eyes and the tension in his body told a very different story. "I know it's none of my business, but ... what the hell was that?"

I chewed on my lip. "He's just being an arse. Like always. And he wants a rise from you. Like always. So just ignore him."

"I mean ... shit, I'm trying," he murmured. "But I don't really give a shit what he wants. He knows you're not into it, and if he does it again, he's going to get a rise."

I didn't know if he would do it again. Just once, he'd said. But it was all the more reason to keep the jackass safely at arm's length until we got him out of here. For Liam's sake and mine.

A set of stairs later, Joel came to halt where the corridor split. He didn't know where we were going. Liam nodded towards one of the unlit branches.

"Wait there," he said coldly.

Joel let a quiet growl slip at that point. He padded a metre or so until he was safely out of sight. I could feel him glaring at us both from the gloom, but that didn't matter. We just needed him hidden for a minute.

I stuck my head into the guard's room to find two guilty faces staring back at me. They'd been in the middle of streaming a TV programme to their phones instead of doing their job. It was a shame they didn't know how little I cared.

"Luna," one of them spluttered, rising to his feet and fixing his eyes on the ground. "What can I-"

"You're dismissed for today," I told him. "Go and get some sleep."

I could see their panic. They didn't want to disobey me, because they knew it would piss me off, but they also knew that a Luna had absolutely zero authority in the pack. As far as they were concerned, I had no reason to be down here.

"Is the Alpha..." he began, only to trail off helplessly. "I mean, we have our orders. I'm really sorry. We'll need to have a word with him before-"

It was a treat to watch his eyes widen as Liam came into the doorway behind me and slipped an arm around my waist. "You heard what she said. Get out before I write you up for insubordination."

And within the blink of an eye, they were falling over themselves to get out of the room. The stench of fear was overpowering. There was a hurried chorus of "Yes, sir," and "Sorry, sir," as they passed us.

It was only when they were long gone that Liam withdrew his arm after the briefest of squeezes and gave me an apologetic look.

"I'm sorry," he told me quietly. "It might take some time before they listen to you."

I couldn't help smiling then. "It's cool. I know you're trying."

I waited patiently while he logged into one of the computers, both to delete the previous surveillance footage and to turn off any future recording, just in case anyone went snooping. It only took him about ten seconds.

When we got back to Joel, he was staring at us with thinly veiled incredulity. He'd seen the guards bugger off, I'd bet, even if he hadn't seen the interaction that had caused it.

"How the hell did you swing that?" he demanded.

I felt the tiniest of smiles tugging at my lips, and I looked back at Liam. "Oh, being the Alpha comes with a ton of perks."

Joel swore. He didn't ask, which was good, because I didn't think I'd have told him anyway. He didn't need to know.

It was lighter in this part of the prison, and that made it easier to see how badly he'd been beaten. The bruises didn't worry me so much. But the bottom half of his shirt was soaked in red, and he was starting to shiver. It was cold down here, but they hadn't given him a blanket in the cell or even anything warmer than a t-shirt to wear.

We moved onwards. The children's cell was very close to the guardroom, presumably because they needed so much more attention than the other prisoners. The flockies had at least had the decency to put them all in together. But they had not been hot on cleaning it, so there were puddles of piss and other assorted substances making the place stink to high heaven.

Two of the kids burst into tears when they saw us. Another was too unwell to raise his head, let alone do anything more. At some point, whoever had been looking after the baby must have gotten tired of it, because it was in the lap of one of the older children and coughing sporadically. And looking at them all, I wished I could kill Mason Vaughan all over again.

It was ten minutes later that we emerged from the pack house. Joel had his nephew tucked against one shoulder, and he had one of the toddlers dozing on the other. He had been shivering so badly since we'd got outside that he was now wearing Liam's coat. Hopefully, it would make him look less conspicuous. With Silver Lake's logo on his chest, he could easily pass for a fighter. As long as no one got close enough to see the bruises or catch his scent.

I had the baby. The poor little thing was too weak to cry. We'd given her a bottle of warm milk to tide her over until she got to camp. It might take them a while to find someone who could feed her. Her mam had probably died when the flockies had stormed the camp.

Another of the kids trailed behind us. She was nonverbal and not a huge fan of being touched. We all knew that around camp, and she did very well there, but the last week had probably been especially difficult for her, having been ripped away from her routine and everything she knew. I had wondered if we might have trouble getting her to the car, since she hated being carried so much, but she had recognised Joel and followed us without any hesitation whatsoever.

Liam was making sure she kept up and carrying the last of the kids - a little boy who was clinging to him like his life depended on it. There had been a lot of tears on the way out, but he was quiet now, his head buried in Liam's jumper.

The whole time we were getting them settled in the car, Joel couldn't seem to keep his eyes to himself. I felt the weight of that stare on my back more than once, and no amount of glowering could get him to stop. It worked both ways in the end. The more he looked at me, the more I looked at him.

And I couldn't help noticing that he winced every time he bent down. With no small amount of reluctance, I bullied him into letting me lift his shirt. All that blood must have come from somewhere. We couldn't have him passing out behind the wheel. One glance showed me that his chest and stomach were a mess. They'd been alternating between knives and electrical burns, by the look of it.

Most of the wounds were old. There were filthy, cracked scabs with lines of red streaking onto the surrounding skin. The smell was unmistakable. I was willing to bet that at least half of those cuts were infected. But the number of fresh injuries was disproportionate. They had been rough with him today, and I didn't have to think too hard to guess why that might be. Rogues had killed fifteen of Silver Lake's fighters. The guards would have been pissed off, and Micah would have been pissed off, and Joel had clearly paid for it. I hadn't stopped to consider that in all of my scheming.

"It's fine," he told me. "Stop looking at me like that."

I kept looking at him like that anyway. I was feeling a tiny bit guilty about it all, because they'd been torturing him for information about us, and he'd kept his mouth shut. It was the only reason we were still alive. But then again, we were repaying the favour now, weren't we?

We'd made it very easy for him - Nia was barely ten minutes down the road. And Liam had already given orders that he was to be allowed through the border checkpoints unchallenged.

"You can drive, right?" I asked him.

That easily, the scorn was back. "Yeah, Eva. I can drive."

He climbed into the driver's seat and began flicking things and adjusting the mirrors with such practiced ease that I was inclined to believe him. When the engine rumbled into life, I took a step backwards. Liam slammed the passenger door closed and came to stand with me.

He was trying his best not to stare at Joel, and I was very appreciative of that. The very last thing we needed was them fighting in the car park. Instead, his gaze was fixed firmly on the treeline, but there was nothing vacant about it, and I knew he was all too aware of every move Joel made.

"Can I keep the car?" Joel asked me, far too cheerfully.

I looked around the car park, noting the dozen identical Range Rovers littered around. No one would notice it was missing. "I guess. Just scratch off the pack logos before you use it for anything nefarious, please."

He gave me a grin that wasn't entirely reassuring. I could hear the gas beginning to roar as he put his foot down, but it quieted again a moment later. Almost like something had just occurred to him. And my suspicions were confirmed when his eyes flicked towards Liam.

"Oi, Kendrick. Come here."

Liam looked at me, probably wanting permission. I shook my head ever-so-slightly, but Joel didn't give up easily.

"Seriously," he laughed. "C'mon. I ain't gonna bite."

I still wasn't keen on the idea, but even that slight insinuation of cowardice on Liam's part was enough to break the stalemate. Of course. Goddess save me from men.

Joel had him walk all the way up to the car. And when Liam was right beside it, he leant out of the window to get closer still. I reckoned I wasn't supposed to hear it. He was speaking quietly. But I was close, and I was a shifter, and I was listening intently, so I heard it anyway.

"She's not yours," Joel told him. "So maybe try and keep your hands off her. Yeah?"

I wanted to hit him. He'd done that on purpose. Liam was sharper than both of us combined, and it was a pointed enough comment to get his mind working. It was also vague enough to avoid forcing a confrontation. But if he'd thought it wasn't going to piss me off, he was very wrong.

I didn't get a chance to do anything at all, in the end. Because Joel had waited just long enough to see the words have their intended effect before he eased down on the gas, and the car pulled away. I was left staring after him furiously.

Liam hadn't been given enough time to process it, let alone react. And I doubted he would have reacted anyway. It had been a long day, and he wasn't the kind of person to throw the first punch at the best of times.

Before long, of course, Liam's eyes were on me. Searching. Wondering. I tried desperately not to show it - to force a look of lazy disinterest onto my face - but it was so hard. And harder still while he looked so damn worried.

"Eva," he began cautiously. "How old is he now?"

There was only one thought which could have prompted a question like that.

"Don't know," I said. It was a lie, yes, but it was a kind lie. "Why?"

There was an overly long pause. "No reason. Just wondering."

So we were both lying now? Great. Just like Joel to screw things up so quickly and with so little effort on his part. If I saw him again, he'd better hope I didn't have my knife with me.

I turned away rather than meet Liam's eye for even a second longer. And he was soon staring after the car again, his forehead slightly furrowed. But he didn't ask again, and he didn't ask about anything else, either. Because some things were a lot easier left unsaid.