There's a guide up top if you get a little muddled later. I know it's probably been a while since you all read Luna of Rogues at this point. Despite my best efforts, it's another looong chapter, so make sure you have half an hour to spare and some snacks handy before you dig in :)

I was coming through the door as Charlie was coming out of it. We had to do an awkward little shuffle to get past each other. I didn't say hi. Physically, I'd been awake for hours, but mentally it was closer to ten minutes, so people couldn't expect too much from me.

Liam was sat sprawled on the floor. He had a pile of papers in his lap, and he was feeding them to a decrepit-looking fireplace one at a time. He looked extremely ruffled and still half-asleep, despite it being nearly lunchtime, but he looked up when I came in and gave me a heart-melting smile.

"Good run?" he asked.

I kicked off my trainers and shrugged. "Would have been better if there weren't so many bloody brambles. What ... are you doing?"

Because the whole office was a mess. He had piles of paper everywhere, and the sofas were covered in blankets and our clothes from yesterday. We'd slept in here out of sheer laziness. One sofa each and a whole lot of tossing and turning. Because now Liam wasn't the only one with problems sleeping. Every time I closed my eyes, I felt Mason's fingernails against my skin or I saw Micah advancing on me down the prison corridor or I heard Joel's words from the day before on replay. Sometimes it was all three.

"Just some admin," Liam said.

He watched me settle myself on one of the sofas, and then he went back to the papers. He'd scan each one, some more carefully than others, and then he'd invariably toss them into the flames, where they quickly crumbled into ashes. It wouldn't have bothered me if they hadn't looked so damn important. Every single page was stamped, signed and watermarked with Silver Lake's logo.

"What is that stuff?" I asked him, forehead creased.

"Oh, these?" he asked. "They're all the laws that have been written specifically to oppress women. I'm burning them."

My eyebrows went flying up, the picture of scandalised delight. And before long, I felt a little grin tugging my lips upwards at the corners. "That's hot."

He looked up at me, a little incredulously, as if he was trying to decide how serious I was. A moment later, he snorted and went back to scanning the sheets of paper.

Curiosity overruled comfort, and I lowered myself onto the floor so I could edge a little closer and read over his shoulder. "Have you been doing this all morning?"

"No," Liam said. "I've been doing all sorts. The elders wanted me to testify about the quarry, so I did that. Finished the paperwork for everyone who died yesterday. Found some rooms for Lilah to stay in. Oh, and I've asked Charlie to show us the pack accounts tomorrow. I think you'll enjoy that."

I blew out slowly, letting my eyebrows wander upwards. "Shit. Okay. You've been busy. What can I help with?"

He was still training me up. I was slow at working the computers, and I was terrible at reading, but a lot of the little admin jobs were easy enough. Running a pack was a lot of work for one person. But when we shared the job between us, the way it was supposed to be shared, it wasn't so bad at all.

Liam looked around himself, eyeing the various piles of paper. Eventually, he just kind of shrugged at me. "Well ... I've been holding off on changing the patrol schedule because I want you to do that."

"Oh yeah?" I asked with grudging curiosity. "Why me?"

"I just think it'd be really funny."

I cocked an eyebrow and waited for him to explain himself properly.

"The Deltas are like ... off-the-scale in terms of sexism," he said. "I want them to watch a girl come up with a new schedule in five minutes flat and then have it work perfectly. I think it would be really good for them ... like ... emotionally."

I shook my head at him fondly. "You want to give them an aneurysm, you mean."

Liam grinned at me, which meant yes, of course. "Would that be so bad?"

Probably not. I didn't like the Deltas much. Screwing with them would be fun. But ... did I want to commit to that much work? I made a face at Liam while I thought it over. "Can I just make it random?"

"Absolutely. It's not like it's going to be put to the test."

"Cool," I said. I began scooting closer to get a look at what he was burning, but before I could get very far, we were interrupted by a timid knock at the door. Liam called in a young fighter who couldn't seem to stand still.

"Sorry if I'm interrupting," he murmured, his cheeks flushed red. It didn't matter that we were both fully dressed and sat a metre apart - most of the pack seemed to think there was only one reason why a Luna would ever be in this office. It was baffling, in all honesty. Had Lilah really ... like ... never helped out with running the pack?

"You're not," Liam told him, setting the papers down at long last. He only had a few left to burn. "All finished, then?"

"Yes, Alpha," he said. "We left it across the border, and I've got two guys watching to see if they take it. It might take a day or two, of course..."

"Cheers. But pull the guys back. A camera can do that job for them, and they'll be safer for it."

"I'll do that now," the fighter said. He lifted one hand tentatively to show us a white envelope. "And uh ... I'm supposed to give you this. If that's okay. The elders said it was urgent."

And with that, he crossed the room to hand Liam the envelope, and then he was gone, shutting the door behind him. I raised my eyebrows at Liam the second we were alone again. "What was that about?"

The beginnings of a grin began to steal across his face. "Oh, right. Yeah. You'll like this. I told them to fill a van with food. Like, properly fill it. Tins and fresh stuff and everything. I said it was all poisoned and that they should leave it out for the rogues to steal. Because you know, that way they'd eat it all and die. The fighters got really excited about it."

"Yeah?" I asked. It was good to see him smiling. Enjoying himself, even. It had been a rough few weeks for both of us.

"But it's not poisoned," Liam finished. "And I've told Nia to come and get it. So they actually just delivered a shit ton of food to the raiders ... free of charge. Which ... y'know ... is kinda funny when you think about it."

It was. I started giggling quietly, and before long, I couldn't seem to stop. The more I thought about it, the worse I got. The whole thing appealed to me on a fundamental level. Theft, deceit, and making fools out of flockies were three very satisfying boxes to tick. We'd get away with all sorts of shit like that now.

"You're awful. You know that?" I told him, when I had eventually brought the giggles under control. "Amazing. But also awful. I'd never have thought of that."

Liam just shrugged at me. He was still smiling in that carefree, infectious way of his, and I found myself eyeing his lips a little too much. The urge to do something stupid was ever-present. I edged closer again, trying to keep a reasonable distance since I was still sweaty from my run and I wanted to spare him from the smell.

"I do my best," he said, slow and lazy.

I kept on staring at him, my lips twitching at the corners, but I'd calmed down now. I let the silence settle before I spoke again, because that made it more serious, and I didn't want him to think it was something that I was just saying.

"You're good at this," I told him quietly. "Like ... scary good."

Liam ducked his head, visibly flustered by the praise. He scratched at his jaw absent-mindedly. "I dunno about that. It still doesn't feel real, you know? But I guess I like fixing things, and there's an awful lot to fix here."

He was opening the envelope. I watched him unfold the piece of paper inside and begin scanning it. As he did, he lay back against the carpet. I watched him squint at it for a bit, holding it above his head. It took him a while because although he could read just fine, he was a little bit long-sighted. It hadn't really been a problem at camp, but here... Well, I hoped the pack doctors were also opticians.

Before long, Liam was frowning at the piece of paper. That expression only intensified as he kept reading. At one point, his eyebrows rose sharply.

"Uh oh," he said, offering it to me. "Look at this."

I did take it, but I made a face at him before I began to scan it, because if he'd read it, then surely I could be saved the effort. It was, of course, pure laziness on my part, and it fizzled out of existence the moment I saw that the sender's name was Jace Lloyd. This wasn't some boring missive about the pack. It was an email of some sort, and it was addressed to Mason, not us, because the other packs didn't know he was dead yet.

"They've called an emergency packmeet," Liam told me. "It's today. And you know what that means."

I let the paper drop and stared at him, aghast. "That we have to go?"

He nodded.

"No," I groaned. "No, you can't make me."

Playing nice with ordinary flockies was one thing. Playing nice with a room full of Alphas was going to test my patience to its limits and possibly leech away my will to live. But I knew, deep down, that we had to go. This meeting was probably about the Fletcher boys and their illegal takeover of Ember. They would need Liam's vote.

"Come on, Eva," he laughed. "It won't be that bad. It says there'll be food..."

I made another indistinct groaning sound and drew my knees against my chest. Distressed as I was, it took me a little while to process the last part. And ... even though I knew he'd said that specifically to bribe me into coming, I'd be damned if it wasn't working. The promise of snacks could lure me just about anywhere.

"What kind of food?" I asked grudgingly.

"Buffet dinner. They eat all sorts of fancy shit at packmeets, I swear."

I heaved an overly dramatic sigh and eyed him while I thought it over. Liam was still lying on the carpet, his knees folded, while he read over the last of the documents he was burning. Every now and then, he'd sneak a pleading glance at me with those big, innocent eyes, because he wasn't above emotional manipulation at times like these.

"Fine," I said eventually. "I'll think about it. For the food."

He didn't give up that easy. With a smile that spelt trouble, he sat up again so he could look at me properly. "If you come with me, I'll make it worth your while later."

I frowned at him, part curious and part alarmed. "What does that mean?"

The smile only grew wider. "Guess you'll find out, won't you?"

Bastard. He knew I wouldn't be able to resist it. If I didn't go, I'd never find out what he had planned, and it would nag at me for weeks to come. With one last reluctant groan, I nodded my head, and he went back to his work with that sly smile still stuck on his lips.

***

I devoted that entire day to dreading the packmeet. Sure, I was doing work, but my heart wasn't in it. Not that my heart was ever in it. And by the time our car pulled up outside a posh-looking hotel in Bangor, I was finding it hard to keep the scowl off my face.

Lilah had told me to wear a dress. Instead, I'd turned up in a polo shirt with Silver Lake's logo, old jeans and a pair of battered trainers. My hair was tied back to keep it out of my face. I'd stuck a knife into the pocket of my jeans, just in case.

Liam got out of the car first and held the door open so I could follow. Like me, he was dressed down, but that sent a message all by itself. Turning up in the kind of clothes you might throw on after a shift said something very different to turning up in a shirt and tie. It was more important that we looked comfortable being here - like we thought we belonged here - than anything else.

An incredibly nervous Charlie followed us. He was there to play at being Beta and to add a shred of legitimacy to Liam's claim. The two fighters we'd brought to be 'guards' took up the rear. They'd been picked for the ability to keep a cool head and a closed mouth. Neither had a particularly imposing build, but they had all but mastered the cold, gut-wrenching stare.

The lobby was eerily empty. It was one of those fancy, fancy places with gold-plated ceiling decorations and a statue in every corner. I felt uncomfortable even daring to tread on the carpet, because my shoes were still muddy from the morning run, and it was, for some inexplicable reason, pure white. One of the clerks approached when he saw us loitering, his forehead furrowing as he frowned at us all. I reckoned he might want to kick us out.

"The reservation is under Lloyd," Liam said. "I believe we're using the conference rooms..."

In the blink of an eye, his expression morphed from snide to welcoming and reverent. "Yes. Right this way, sir."

He led us to the very back of the hotel, through a twisting maze of corridors, each more ornate than the last. And finally, we came into a room which was a strange mix of opulence and modern. There was a large wooden table in the centre with more than a dozen chairs arranged around it.

We'd arrived early on purpose, but there were already three Alphas settled around the table. They were sitting with an awful lot of tension in their bodies for people who were supposed to be allies. The way they were facing each other made me think we had interrupted something. An argument, maybe, because they had turned towards the door with scowls still on their lips.

"Who the hell are you?" one demanded.

Liam ignored that, sensibly enough. He crossed to the table and pulled out the more comfortable chair - the one that was clearly meant for an Alpha - for me. He dragged another chair forwards, right beside mine, and only then did he sit down. Charlie and the guards were left to wait outside.

The other Alphas stared at us both. Two of them I recognised. The other I did not. Jace Lloyd was closest to us, and he looked tired. But those haggard, lifeless eyes widened when they landed on me. He definitely recognised me. And it was fun to watch his internal struggle with confusion, disbelief and most of all ... panic, because a rogue had just walked into the packmeet, and he didn't know whether to make a scene. I lounged back in my chair and offered him a sly wink.

Zach Lloyd was beside him, regarding us with such lazy disgust that I was inclined to dislike him. He was an unnerving mixture of sharp cheekbones and corded muscle - of haughtiness and violence. He had laid eyes on me once before, albeit briefly, so I tried to keep my gaze away from him. Just in case.

The last Alpha at the table must have been Jaden Lloyd from Riverside Pack. He bore an uncanny resemblance to his half-brother. He hadn't brought his Luna, and neither had Zach, but I recognised the New Dawn Luna sitting a few feet apart from her mate. She was staring at me in much the same way Jace was, because I'd sat in her house and eaten her pancakes shortly before participating in her son's abduction.

"Hi, everyone," Liam said, after there had been an uncomfortable amount of silence. "I hope we're not interrupting."

Confident wasn't the word I'd use to describe him. No, it was actually just total indifference to them and what they thought of him. And it worked well at the pack, but we were not dealing with random flockies today. We were dealing with seasoned Alphas who'd been sitting at tables like these for the last twenty years. They were cocksure and assertive as hell. Liam had riled them, not rattled them.

"I'm going to ask you again," Zach said, dangerously slow, "and this time I suggest you answer me. Who the hell are you?"

Liam leaned back in his chair, letting the force of the words wash over him with the beginnings of a grin on his face. "This is Eva. She's the new Luna of Silver Lake."

They knew what that meant. I could see it written all over their faces. They must have met Lilah a hundred times over the years, and now they were wondering how I could have taken her place. The three Alphas exchanged a guarded look. I didn't think Jace was breathing any more. The rogue was not only in the packmeet now. The rogue was a Luna.

Zach tightened his jaw and eyed Liam in an entirely new way. "You know damn well that we don't care about the girl. Who are you?"

He did a brilliant job of looking surprised by the question. "Oh, I'm her mate."

"You're the Alpha?"

A slow, lazy nod from Liam. "Yeah. I guess. But don't mind me. Eva's doing all the talking today."

Oh, hell no. We had not discussed this. I'd had the impression that I could just sit here quietly for an hour and then tuck into the buffet. Slowly, I turned to Liam to give him the most incredulous, disgruntled look I could muster up.

"You dick," I whispered. To the other Alphas, it probably looked like we were being flirty, because my mouth was very close to his ear and my expression had been carefully moulded into adoration. It was only Liam who could see that the smile didn't reach my eyes.

Infuriatingly, he was trying to fight off a grin. And he wasn't even trying very hard. It was difficult to be angry at him while he looked like that - careless and smug and amused all at once. It wasn't hard to tell that he was finding this all very funny.

"What, you don't want to?" he asked me.

I didn't know, really. I hadn't given it much thought. This was a very high-pressure environment in some ways. Our relations with other packs would be very important in the next few weeks, and it was important not to screw it up irreparably, but ... it wasn't like these men were expecting much from me. I was a teenager, and I was a girl, and there was probably nothing I could say that could possibly lower their opinions of me. Plus, it would be fun to screw with them a bit.

"Do I have to behave myself?" I asked Liam in a whisper as I fiddled with the papers in front of us. I kept rolling up the corners and then letting them unravel again. I couldn't believe I was even toying with the idea.

He looked surprised by the question. "No, of course not. Be as difficult as you like."

A little smile stole across my lips. "Seriously?"

Liam nodded.

"I don't think you understand just how difficult I can be," I murmured.

It was his turn to smile. "No? Surprise me."

They didn't like us whispering. We all knew it was rude. If we wanted to talk privately, we could have just used the link, and by speaking aloud instead, we were just flaunting it. Zach, for one, seemed to have had enough. His eyes flashed, and he leant forwards in his chair.

But before he could open his mouth to berate us, the door opened once again, and the clerk showed in a new crowd of people. Two Alphas had arrived together. I didn't know either of them, but I could tell by process of elimination that one of them would be the Lowland Alpha and the other would claim he was from somewhere called 'Pine Forest.'

They were chatting to each other as they entered, seemingly oblivious to the tension in the room. We watched them take their seats and unpack laptops onto the table, all the while continuing their conversation about cricket and failing to notice that there was an intruder in their midst.

Eventually, the shorter Alpha, whose hair was greying and patchy, lifted his eyes to scan the table. He seemed to be counting us all, but he didn't pause at me or Liam. His gaze just slid straight past us.

"We're still missing Mason," he murmured, eyebrows raised. "It's not like him to be late. Does someone want to try calling him?"

"Not like him at all," the other new arrival agreed. "Let's call him. I must have his number here somewhere..."

Perhaps I hadn't recognised him, but I did recognise his voice. It made my skin crawl, in all honesty. It was sneering and unsoftened by the familiar Welsh lilt which I had grown up hearing from anyone and everyone around me. Every last word was carefully enunciated. He must have been the Lowland Alpha ... and if I'd ever known his name, it was safe to say I'd forgotten it.

He dialled the number, and he lifted the phone to his ear with a patient smile on his lips, lifting one finger to his fellow Alphas as if asking them to wait. His smile began to falter when the phone rang in Liam's pocket. He shot us an annoyed look, as if asking us to turn it off, and then he went back to listening.

Liam did turn it off. He placed the phone very deliberately onto the table and rejected the call. I watched the Lowland Alpha frown at his phone as he was cut off mid-ring. It took him almost a full ten seconds to connect the dots, much to my amusement. Then his eyes widened, he froze in place, and his mouth gaped open like a fish.

The silence was beginning to drag. Liam's hand came to rest on my leg, just above the knee. He squeezed gently - a prompt, almost. And when I glanced at him, half surprised and half incensed, I saw that the smile was still tugging at his lips. Oh, he was enjoying this.

"Yeah, Mason isn't coming to the packmeet today," I said eventually. "Or any future packmeets, for that matter."

"Hang on. Who are you?" the Lowland Alpha spluttered. When Liam and I just looked at each other, he turned to his colleagues for an answer. "Who are they?"

"I'd like to know the answer to that too," Jaden Lloyd said snidely. It was the first time he'd opened his mouth so far, and I took an immediate dislike to him. Unlike his half-brother, he wasn't the quiet, calculating type. He was loud and brash and there was a glazed look to his eyes which made me think there wasn't much going on behind them.

"This isn't the Fletcher boy?" the older man asked. The bewilderment made the words quiet, but they came edged with a definite note of alarm.

"No, idiot. Does he look like Lewis to you?"

"I don't remember what the pup looked like. Why should I? It's been years."

"Lewis won't be here for another half an hour." That was Jace, and he sounded just as tired as he looked.

"Then who is he and what's he doing here?"

"We don't know, you halfwit. And we need to resolve this before the Fletcher boy arrives."

That finally put an end to their bickering. All of them turned towards us by some unspoken consent, and the older man leaned forwards to frown at us, his hands laced in front of him.

"You understand we can't move forward with the packmeet until you have explained yourself?" he said, not ungently. "If you're representatives from Silver Lake, then I should make you aware that only Alphas and Lunas are allowed to be in this room. Mason should know damn well that he can't send proxies."

Before I had to answer, Jace sighed audibly. "I don't think Mason sent them, Chris. The boy is claiming to be Silver Lake's Alpha."

Silence. Blessed silence. It lasted only a few seconds, but that was enough time for me to enjoy the looks of utter shock and horror on their faces.

The man called Chris had gone very pale. "So Mason is-"

"Dead," I finished helpfully.

This bout of silence stretched longer. None of them looked particularly distressed, I'd say, but two of the Alphas were eyeing each other in an alarmed, shifty way that I didn't like one bit. Riverside and Lowland. Both of them were very anti-rogue, but that was pretty much all I knew about them.

"And who are you," the Riverside Alpha began slowly, "to claim the Alpha position? That pack belongs to the Vaughans. I can't imagine they would sit quietly and let a wet-nosed little puppy take charge of the pack."

Jaden was clearly the worst of the three Lloyd Alphas. He made a point of addressing Liam, even when I'd been the one talking. The sickly smile I forced onto my face was wasted on him, because he didn't so much as glance in my direction.

"He is a Vaughan, you idiot," I said. "The last Vaughan, in fact. Felix killed Mason, and Liam here killed Micah. And before you go off, it was all legit and proper, and we've got some pieces of paper here which prove it."

Liam helpfully pushed the papers in question across the table. They had all been ratified by the pack's elders the day before. At first, the other Alphas just eyed the pile, and it looked like none of them could be bothered to read it all, but eventually the older man let out a heavy sigh and pulled the pile towards himself.

"Are they lying to us, Vincent?" Jaden Lloyd asked, because apparently he didn't give up easy.

I didn't know which one was 'Vincent' until the Lowland Alpha opened his mouth again, his eyes narrowed in annoyance. "Why should I know?"

"Because if he's telling the truth, he's your brother-in-law. Do you recognise him?"

The Lowland Alpha just grunted. "Olivia has a lot of brothers. I can't be expected to remember them all. But yes, I suppose he looks like Mason, doesn't he? In a certain light?"

Bloody hell. I'd forgotten that he was mated to Liam's sister. If he'd actually just brought his Luna to the packmeet, this could have all been avoided. She might have recognised Liam from the very start. But it was only me and Jace's mate in attendance today, which seemed ... bad. They weren't even pretending to involve their mates in pack politics anymore.

The whole time we were talking, Jace couldn't seem to stay still. He sat forwards in his chair. He eased back again. He looked from side to side, as if gauging his fellow Alphas' reactions. He eyed Liam almost constantly. I reckoned he was wondering if this young new Alpha knew that he was sitting beside Skye Llewellyn's daughter.

He'd known that I was one of the sleepers in Silver Lake. He hadn't ever known that Liam was the other. As far as he was concerned, Alex Hayes was some nameless rogue, not an Alpha's little brother.

Eventually, though, he seemed to get a hold of himself. I watched as he slipped a semi-pleasant smile onto his face and leant forwards as if he was actually happy to be there. "I apologise for the rocky start, Alpha Vaughan. Allow me to formally welcome you to the packmeet."

I thought that might be the floodgates opening. If one of them acknowledged us, then surely the others had to. But of course, the Alphas were like dogs fighting over a bone, and they seemed to relish in bickering with each other.

"Goddess above," Alpha Vincent muttered. "Don't encourage them, Jace. We are in the middle of a war! Now is not the time to have a pair of obstinate children in charge of Silver Lake."

"Better two obstinate children than a bunch of tired old men," I retorted.

I thought Liam might tell me off for that, and a half-glance back at him probably told him as much. But he just gave my knee another quick squeeze. There was a tiny little smile on his lips.

The Alphas could stare at me all they liked, and a few even let out low growls, but they didn't dare say anything. Not while Liam was sat next to me. The bruises from yesterday were at their darkest now. I was willing to bet it made the other Alphas wary of him, since the majority of them had probably never had to fight for their position before. They had inherited their packs peacefully and held them since with a combination of intimidation and fear.

The older man, meanwhile, had finally finished reading through the documents. He set them down and ran a hand through his hair. "It all appears to be in order. Every single one of the elders has signed off."

"Dammit. Let's get on with it then," Jaden said, his lip curling. In terms of being a prize shithead, he was in close competition with the sneery man from Lowland. I couldn't decide which of them I hated more. "Who here thinks that we should throw the Fletcher boy out on his arse for what he did?"

Vincent nodded his head gravely. "There is no question. We cannot accept him. It would set a dangerous precedent."

I thought that might set the tone for the entire conversation, but Zach leant back in his chair and made a face. "I don't know about that. He broke the rules. But so did his uncle. As far as I'm concerned, two wrongs cancel out."

"No, they don't," Jaden spluttered. "What's wrong with you?"

Zach just shrugged, and his cousin was next to speak up, because my mother had instructed him to support Lewis today, and he was going to keep doing what he was told for as long as we held Hayden. Especially while I was here to watch him.

"If the pack wants him," Jace said mildly, "then frankly, I don't see the problem with it. Better to bring him into the fold than have a rebel pack at a time like this. We need Ember's fighters."

Jaden shook his head in fond disgust. "At what point did you stop being such a hardass about pack law, little brother? What he did was illegal, and we should be trying him for murder, not acknowledging him as an Alpha. End of story."

"Hang on. What did he do?" I asked. I knew damn well what he'd done, of course, because it was all part of the evil plan. But I wasn't supposed to know. I could feel Liam's eyes on me, smiling, because I'd opened my mouth unprompted for the first time. Our chairs were way too close, and his hand was still brushing against my leg. It was, to say the least, a little distracting.

It looked like none of them were going to answer me until the older man, whose name I had already forgotten, took pity and explained in a slow, ponderous voice. "Lewis Fletcher was Alpha of Ember twenty years ago. His uncle challenged him and took the pack, and Lewis was presumed dead. Now the boy has walked into Ember and killed his uncle and claimed the pack for himself, despite having been struck off the register. He says the first challenge was illegal. We have to decide whether to believe him."

"That all sounds way too elaborate to be a lie, so I reckon I do," I muttered.

He shook his head in dismay. "No, no, darling. We have to consider the evidence and the law carefully. We don't just make snap decisions based on how we feel. I know you're new here - don't worry, it'll take some time to get the hang of it."

From what I'd seen, they did nothing but make snap decisions based on how they felt, but whatever. Something about that fatherly, patronising tone had managed to tick me off.

"I'll actually do whatever I want, but thanks," I said sweetly.

The Alpha frowned at me, his eyes darkening a fraction. But one glance at Liam seemed to remind him that growling at me would not be productive, so he fell silent. And for a long while, no one seemed inclined to fill the gap in the conversation.

"No, but bear with me for a second here," Zach said abruptly. "If someone breaks the law, and then someone else breaks the law specifically to correct what the first person did, then what's the bloody problem?"

"That is exactly the kind of reasoning I would expect from a rogue's son," the Lowland Alpha sneered.

Zach raised his eyebrows slowly, the action dripping with malice. He leant forwards, pulling all the powerful muscles in his back taut. "What did you just say to me?"

He forced a terse smile onto his lips, and I got the impression that he was not keen on the idea of a physical fight with Zach, however much he might have enjoyed taunting him. "It was just a joke, Lloyd. Don't be so bloody uptight."

There were two reasons why the flockies preferred to use human venues for their meetings now. One, it kept them safe from us nasty rogues, and two, it kept them safe from each other. No one was stupid enough to start something with humans in the next room. It didn't stop them flexing their muscles, though.

"I dunno, I reckon I agree with Zach," I said, lounging back in my chair. It seemed like a good idea to break the tension.

"Well, you would, wouldn't you?" Jace said. He made it sound so casual. Like it was some tiny joke between us. And he knew damn well that none of the other Alphas were bright enough to pick up on it, but I did, and Liam did, and we both ended up staring him down.

It was obvious that he didn't want me in the packmeet. He didn't want me to feel like I was safe here. But it was a very dangerous game for him to play while we had Hayden as a hostage. If he got me killed, my mother wouldn't hesitate to retaliate.

The other Alphas were, of course, entirely oblivious to the tension between us.

"You've been quiet, Chris. What do you think?" Vincent asked. Since I had trouble believing that he cared about other people's opinions, I reckoned he was probably looking for an ally.

The old man just shook his head. "You won't like it, Vincent, but I am extremely wary of turning him away. It's hard to know what the consequences would be. Best case scenario, we lose a pack from this alliance. Worst case, we end up at war with Ember. If there was a better candidate for the Alpha position, perhaps my answer would be different, but there's not. If his testimony is satisfactory ... I will not oppose him."

Well, thank the Goddess for that. Jace and Liam were only two guaranteed votes. It sounded like we were going to get the other two we needed. And not a moment too soon, apparently.

The door to the room opened and closed in quick succession. Thankfully before the Lowland Alpha could open his vile mouth again. And this time, I certainly recognised the man entering. He was tall and brown-haired and a good deal more presentable than the last time I had seen him. In fairness, he had been living rough in the woods, and flockies were terrible at that.

"Good afternoon, gentlemen," he said as he pulled out a chair. "And ladies. My apologies. I see you've started without me."

He was alone. He'd brought nothing with him. But there was a quiet composure about him which I liked very much. He sat down and braced both arms on the table, one prosthetic and one flesh. He scanned the faces around him and gave me and Liam a quick, business-like nod, because doubtless he recognised us too.

Jace Lloyd fixed the new arrival with a flat stare. No greetings for him, apparently. No niceties. He was on trial today. "You will tell us your version of events, and then we will give you our decision."

So Lewis told them, and he was convincing about it, because it was the truth. And even the grumpiest Alphas began to come around. Their questions became less accusing and more earnest.

Despite all the earlier bemoaning of 'murder,' they didn't seem to like the fact that Lewis's brother had been the one to kill their uncle, not Lewis himself. It offended their notions that an Alpha had to be the best fighter in the pack. Never mind that the younger one was apparently ill-suited to command and had been more than happy to defer to his older brother.

Lewis was remarkably patient while explaining that having one hand did not make him any less capable as a leader. It just meant he'd delegate a lot of the running and fighting to others. If I were him, I would have punched at least one of them. Their comments were, of course, horrifically ableist. But Lewis just answered each and every one with a forced, weary composure.

The vote was a shambles. Four hands went up in favour, only to be followed by the final two a heartbeat later. Vincent and Jaden were happy enough to argue against it, apparently, but once it was inevitable that he was going to be added to the packmeet, they jumped on board to avoid antagonising the newest Alpha. Goddess, I hated politics.

They complained about me being the one to raise my hand. They said it had to be Liam. But when he turned those unflinching dark eyes on them, they changed their minds quickly enough. So yeah, packmeets were exhausting. But once we'd got all the nonsense out of the way, we could eat.

***

The other Lunas were here, after all. They had just been waiting with the Betas and guards for the official part of the packmeet to end, and I thought perhaps that was worse. They'd been dragged here, but they weren't trusted enough to listen to anything important. Either way, I felt no pressing urge to socialise with any of them.

I stood by the food table, wrinkling up my nose as I examined the spread. The buffet was indeed 'fancy' to the point where I recognised none of the items on offer. And worse, it turned out that fancy food was not necessarily good food. It was all either overly sweet or slimy.

Liam kept getting drawn into conversation, and my social quota for the day was already overflowing, so I lingered by the food table alone, trying to force down a handful of salmon cakes. I'd only come here for the food, and if I didn't eat, this had all been a massive waste of my time. While I chewed, I scanned the room idly, taking an inventory of the Alphas there.

Three Lloyds. Jace was a scheming bastard ... but loyal to us, if only because we had his son. Zach was dangerous but too lazy to act on it. Jaden was a shithead. I was surprised to find that I could tolerate Lewis - he was actually okay. The older man, Chris, seemed chill enough, if a little afraid to break ranks with the others. But Vincent from Lowland ... I did not like him. He was angrier than Jaden and just clever enough to act on it.

There was someone behind me. The hairs on the back of my neck knew that, even if I didn't. I turned around slowly to find the New Dawn Luna hovering under the pretext of filling her plate.

"Hayden?" she asked me, low and terse.

"Oh, he's fine," I laughed. "I wouldn't worry if I were you. He's an incredibly privileged prisoner, that one. He can go where he likes and do what he likes as long as he behaves himself."

She gave me a tiny nod. "And my niece?"

"Hannah? Less fine. But she's getting better at calculating doses for our foraged food, so there's that..."

This was obviously information she wanted desperately, but I couldn't help wondering why her mate wasn't with her. He'd want to hear this too. But instead he had pulled Liam aside and was talking to him in a low voice. Maybe this was a strategically timed conversation from the Luna. A distraction. I wouldn't put it past her.

"I'd love to talk to them," she was saying. "A phone call, a mind-link ... anything. Even if you could take them a letter I'd written, it would mean the world-"

Uh oh. Cruel as it was, I knew the risks of letting them communicate. They would take advantage in any way they could, and before long, we'd be two prisoners short.

"I couldn't sanction that even if I wanted to. Ask someone more important," I told her, after I had scoffed the last salmon cake and wiped my sticky hands on my jeans. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I have places I'd much rather be."

And that place was, of course, sticking to Liam like glue. Jace eyed me as I approached, only to break off the conversation suddenly and excuse himself before I had even arrived. And that all stank to high heaven.

"What was that about?" I asked Liam.

He laughed humourlessly. "Oh, he was asking about you. It started off friendly enough. It ended with some very pointed questions about your family history and a few not-so-subtle hints that you aren't really from his pack."

"Blimming hell," I murmured. "He really is trying to get me killed."

He genuinely thought I'd walked into Silver Lake and happened to be mated to one of the Vaughan boys, and this was all dumb luck. I doubted it had even crossed his mind that Liam might be actively working with rogues. Our families did have a long, sordid history of trying to kill each other, after all.

"Yes. I think so," Liam said, staring at Jace's retreating back. "So naturally, I assured him that you're as much a flockie as I am. But I reckon I'll play along in future - see how far he's willing to take it."

I grunted my approval. "I'm guessing pretty far, if he thinks he'll get away with it. He's too clever for his own good."

Liam opened his mouth to reply, only to close it again, his eyes fixed on something behind me. It wasn't long before I discovered who had interrupted us. The Lowland Alpha sidled up with a rather beautiful young woman on his arm. There was a look of forced patience on her face, as if he'd been dragging her around the entire room with him, but that changed very quickly when she saw Liam.

"Hi," she breathed.

Right. Because Olivia was his half-sister, and this wasn't weird at all. She did have a lot of the classic Vaughan traits, so I could see why their father had decided to claim her despite ignoring half a dozen more daughters. Her dark eyes were glistening now.

"Hi, Liv," Liam replied. There was a tiny smile playing around his lips, but his voice was impressively normal. He was used to this now, I reckoned. There had been a lot of reunions with the people who had mourned him all those years ago.

"Yes, I thought you two might like to say hello," the Lowland Alpha said. His tone was so bland and indifferent that I got the distinct impression that he thought this was a waste of time. But the way his mate was gazing at Liam broke my heart a little. "She was expecting to see Mason, of course, but I suppose you'll do."

It was then that Olivia blurted, "Is it true? About Mason?"

After the briefest of glances at me, Liam nodded slowly. "Yes. I'm sorry."

"So he really is dead," she murmured. She looked more torn-up about it than I'd been expecting, but her voice was still steady and even. "And you're not."

Liam didn't really need to answer that one, and it wasn't a question anyway. He just shrugged at her.

"The last time I saw you ... Goddess, you were so small. I can hardly believe it, to be honest," Olivia told him.

He managed a little grin then. "Yeah, well. You were smaller."

Vincent didn't seem to like watching his mate talk to someone without being included. He took her hand in his, and I was incensed to see that his knuckles were white with the force of that grip. She fell silent in a heartbeat, the smile falling from her face.

"I saw you were talking to Jace," he said to Liam with the same familiarity I might use with an old friend. "I wouldn't, if I were you. We've all got a careful eye on him as of late. I don't suppose your brother mentioned it?"

Liam glanced at Olivia, his jaw tightening, because he would probably much rather have continued his conversation with her. "In passing, yes."

Vincent nodded amiably. "Well, we're all quite concerned. He released all of his prisoners a few weeks ago, for no reason we could discern, and he refuses to answer questions about it. And if that's not bad enough, his son is Goddess knows where, fraternising with Goddess knows who, and Jace himself has been disgustingly outspoken in the packmeets. He likes to side with the rogues, that one, but lately it has been getting worse and worse."

At that point, Vincent paused, looking to Liam as if he was expecting something. It took him a second to force a sufficiently scandalised expression onto his face. "No way."

"Yes," the Alpha said, his voice amusingly grave. "We have all been wondering what to do about it, if I'm being perfectly candid. A few ideas have been floated around ... some more drastic than others. But perhaps Mason told you about that too?"

"I can't say he did," Liam told him. "But if you come up with something, let me know. We can't let that kind of thing go unpunished."

"Exactly! You seem like a sensible lad. I think you and me will get along just fine," Vincent said, the satisfaction evident in his voice. "Come now, Olivia. We should get going before the tiramisu runs out."

He tugged on his mate's arm to illustrate the point. She didn't look happy about it, but she didn't fight him, and there were only a few mournful backwards glances before they reached the food table.

As soon as they were gone, Liam turned to me, his eyebrows raised. "Shit. I did not like the sound of that."

"No, me neither," I murmured. Jace may have been a bastard, but we couldn't afford to be picky about our allies at the moment. Without his vote, we would never get a majority.

Liam scratched at the back of his neck and winced. "Imagine what they'd do to us, if they ever found out."

I didn't have to imagine. I remembered perfectly well how Rhodri had looked. And I doubted they'd even get as far as that before our hearts gave out. And wasn't that a cheery thought?

***

I slammed the car door with vicious relish and stepped onto the tarmac. The night air was chilly, and I wrapped my arms around myself, shivering on the spot, while I waited for Liam to come around the car and join me.

"Can we just, like, go to bed?" I asked him. "We've done enough work for today."

I was drained. Not physically, perhaps. But mentally and emotionally ... well, damn. The packmeet had probably taken a year off my life in terms of conforming to dumb societal standards. We'd been stuck in that room for hours, making polite conversation with the other packs.

"Yes, we can go to bed," Liam laughed.

He draped his own jacket over my shoulders, much to my amusement, and then we began the walk back to the pack house without any further shivering. I tried to turn down the corridor which led to the office, because that was where we'd been bedding down, but Liam redirected me with a gentle hand on my back.

"Oh?" I murmured. "What's this? Do we have a bedroom now?"

We'd lost the keys to our original room when we'd been arrested. And if Liam had sorted out something new, then he'd certainly kept it quiet. We weren't going to stay in the flat - that much I knew. I didn't think Liam ever wanted to go near the place again, whether it was the official residence of the Alpha and Luna or not.

"I guess we do," he said.

Liam led me down a corridor which I didn't recognise and then nudged a door open. At that point, he stepped aside, leaving me standing in the doorway, like I was supposed to go in first. I glanced back at him, uncertain, but he just nodded towards the door. So I padded inside without any idea what to expect.

It wasn't a particularly big room. There was a kitchenette and a pair of sofas which looked disgustingly comfortable. It was only when I wandered further in that I could see the bedroom properly. Because it was on the first floor, there was a pair of glass doors which led out onto a patio. And beyond that, there was a little walled garden which must have been hidden amongst the pack's many hedges and rose-beds.

"Oh, damn," I breathed. "This is pretty cool. When did you-"

Liam had been watching me take it all in with a weary smile on his face. "Earlier. When you were on your run. This used to be one of the guest rooms - y'know, for the really important people, but I figured you might like it."

I did. We wouldn't even have to crack a window. With those big doors open, it would feel like the outdoors.

I'd been so absorbed by the garden that I hadn't looked at the room itself. It was fairly standard, for a flockie bedroom, but I couldn't help noticing that the bed wasn't made. Instead, it was piled high with extra cushions and blankets and duvets. My forehead creased, and Liam was quick to explain.

"I, um... I got them to give us some spares so we can make a bed on the floor if you want. There's also some wood out back to get us started with the fire."

"The fire?" I echoed quietly.

"Yeah," he told me, nodding towards a fireplace that I hadn't even seen in all of my awe. "That's the other reason I picked this room. We can light a fire in there if we want. It's safe and everything."

I forgot to breathe for a good few seconds then. And I think it probably showed. When I finally sucked in a lungful of air, I was frozen in place, looking from the fireplace to him and back again. Sometimes it really was the simplest of things that made me feel the happiest.

"Is it okay?" Liam asked me. He sounded genuinely worried, so I nodded vigorously, because it was not just 'okay.' It was perfect, if I was being honest. It was the closest I'd ever come to feeling at home in a place that was not a tent in the woods.

Lighting the fire was our first task. And once the flames were beginning to lick at the underside of an impressively-sized log, I had a hard time peeling myself away from it again. Still, we dragged the pile of bedding down to the fire and arranged it there until we had something resembling a bed on the carpet.

It was much better. When we'd been sleeping on the bed in our old room, I'd always made sure to be smack bang in the middle. Less chance of falling off that way. And some mornings I'd still woken up too close to the edge for comfort.

Every time I looked around the room, I got a weird, clenching feeling in the pit of my stomach. He'd done all of this for me. And there was a part of me that wanted to burst into tears and another part of me that was horrified that someone else had gone to any effort on my behalf whatsoever.

"Is this what you meant," I asked him slowly, "when you said that you'd make it worth my while to go to the packmeet?"

Liam nodded. Like me, he wasn't straying far from the fire now. With the doors open, it was the only warm place to be. Its heat seemed to seep into our bones, and I could already feel it making me drowsy. Liam was sat on our heap of bedding, like me, and I could see that he was struggling to keep his eyes open now.

But he hadn't stopped smiling since we'd come in here. I'd noticed, and I was noticing more and more, that he would smile whenever I was happy. Just like I smiled when he was happy. We'd gaze at each other the whole time, and while it could be a 'friendship' thing, it sometimes felt like more than that. That should have worried me, probably, but it didn't. It was too nice of a feeling to cause any upset whatsoever.

For a long time, the silence between us was comfortable. We knew each other too well to feel the need to fill every last second with conversation. But I was feeling the need to say something in particular today, while we were alone, and while we had nothing else we needed to be doing.

"You kissed me yesterday," I told him. I hadn't had a chance to bring it up until now. We'd been so damn busy. But I felt like it did need to be brought up, because we hadn't kissed since... Well, since our little slip-up.

Liam eyed me in a way that made me think he was probably remembering that same occasion. His voice was very quiet and a little hesitant. "Yeah. We're supposed to be mated and whatever. So it was just to keep our cover. You're cool with that, right?"

"Right," I agreed. "But it didn't really feel like keeping our cover. You know? It felt like something else."

I knew exactly what I was doing. I knew where this was leading. But somehow, I didn't care. And if the look on Liam's face was any indication, neither did he. He was watching me every bit as intensely as I was watching him.

"Then maybe we should practice," he said, all matter-of-fact. "To help you tell the difference between keeping our cover and ... y'know. Real."

He was braver than I was. That much was obvious. It was pretty blatant, all things considered, and the heated nature of his gaze was hard to mistake. The combination of tousled dark hair and skin cast golden in the firelight was proving too much for me. I swallowed hard. It was weird knowing how stupid we were being and somehow not caring in the slightest.

"Yeah. Maybe we should," I agreed.

Liam sat up. I edged closer to him. My stomach was free-falling, but my heart was slow and calm. And that didn't change when he tilted his head down and our lips brushed. Tentative. Wary, at first. Each waiting for the other to change their mind.

But we didn't. I liked kissing him a lot more than I had ever liked kissing Joel. And when I opened my eyes again, pulling back for the briefest of moments, I realised that he was smiling, and I was smiling. This was easy. Complicated, perhaps, but it felt effortless. It always had.

I kissed him again. This time deeper and without any of the hesitation. My hands found the back of his neck, pulling him closer, and his slipped beneath my shirt. Before too long, I was on my back. And while the fire roared away beside us, we did plenty of things that we would probably come to regret.