Hey guys! I've got a nice chill chapter for your Friday night entertainment! I have added a little thing in my bio (find it by clicking on that juicy Nutella icon) to let you know how close I am to updating at any given time. We'll see if I remember to change it.

LittleLoneWriterGirl has been drawing again. If any of you missed the late addition of Hannah's portrait on the last chapter, make sure to go check that out. Today we've got the church where they hold the packmeets! Does anyone happen to remember who broke that window? :)

"Still think this is unfair," I muttered.

Liam looked over at me and snorted. "I bet you do."

"He literally said that I didn't have to come!" I exclaimed, throwing my head back against the car seat for dramatic effect. "I got all excited thinking I could just stay home and eat biscuits. But no. You just had to take that away from me."

"Don't be such a wuss, Eva," he said. "You'll love it."

I just glowered at him. "No, I won't. Because this time, there won't even be food, will there? No caterers in the bloody mountains."

The truth was, I'd never have left him to attend the packmeet alone. Not in a million years. And especially not on this occasion. There wasn't going to be food because the Alphas were plotting something. They were holding the packmeet in its historic venue - an abandoned church far, far away from civilisation - for the first time in almost twenty years.

I was worried that it meant trouble. That it meant they were planning something which wasn't paperwork or due diplomatic process or a friendly Q&A. The whole point of holding it in hotels had been the abundance of human witnesses to make sure everyone behaved themselves.

What if they'd found our scents at the campsite, too? What if they were just using the packmeet as an excuse to get us away from our pack - isolated and vulnerable - before they did something about it?

Jace was a long-standing Alpha and respected member of the packmeet. His cousin and half-brother would be sat on either side of him as Alphas in their own right. Liam and I were upstarts, and we had no allies in that room, so I didn't think they'd hesitate to have us arrested if they got the least bit suspicious. And there was a good chance they'd do worse, too. Especially if Jace had been running his mouth about who I was - and I wouldn't put it past him. What if they'd wanted Liam to leave me at home so they could tell him that he was mated to a rogue?

Or was I just paranoid and everything was fine?

"Pull over here," Liam said.

It was good he was paying attention, because I hadn't been, and we would have missed the lay-by altogether. Mal, who was like twenty-seven and in possession of a driving licence, brought the car to a halt in front of the jeep which was already parked up on the grassy verge.

The windows were tinted, but I knew exactly who was inside, because there was only one person my mother would trust with a job like this. I went straight to the back door and opened it to see Hayden beaming at me.

"Hands," Nia said.

He held them out for her, and she turned the key in the handcuffs and eased them off him. He'd been walking around free so much recently that the bruises had faded, but the faint scuffed scars where his pressure sores had healed over remained. He pulled his sleeves down to cover it, and then he stuffed them into his pockets for good measure as he got out of the car.

Hayden was excited today - wide eyed and alert, not unlike a puppy - because he was going to see his family for the first time in nearly two months. I slammed the door behind him, but I stayed where I was, firmly in his way, until the smile fell off his lips.

"Some ground rules for you, flockie," I said, using my most serious, most threatening voice. "I want you in my line of sight at all times. No tricks. No linking. No making faces. No pointed comments. When it's over, you get in our car, not your dad's. We clear?"

Hayden nodded his head without hesitation. "Yes. We're clear. And I'm on my best behaviour today - don't worry."

"Good. Get in the car. Back seat."

He did what he was told. I made sure to sit in the middle because I was a lot smaller than Hayden was, and Liam struggled with small spaces even without another person pressed against him. Although for Hayden, being squashed together might have been a good thing. He was sat in our car so he could have some nice flockie scent to hide the last traces of 'rogue' on his freshly-laundered clothes.

"Hi," Hayden said. I wasn't sure if it was directed at Liam or Mal and Kelsey or all three of them, but it certainly made our Betas jump.

Mal did a double-take when he looked at Hayden properly for the first time. He twisted in his seat to stare, and then he exchanged a suspicious look with his mate, because it seemed like both of them recognised him.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa. The hell is he doing here?" Mal demanded. Not very polite. Poor Hayden eyed him with thinly veiled hurt, even though the two of them had probably never met before in their lives.

"We're just giving him a lift," Liam said, all casual like. "Are you armed?"

Mal pulled his jacket back just far enough to show us the butt end of a gun tucked into his belt. "I am. Kelsey's not."

"I'm not allowed guns," Kelsey agreed forlornly. "Not since the incident."

I had no idea what the 'incident' was, but none of us had been expecting her to be armed. I would have felt better if she'd stayed at home, given that she was barely trained, but it had been her decision, and she'd made it in about five seconds flat. Either way, Mal was strapped, and Liam had a knife in his jeans pocket - I could feel it pressing against my thigh. We had not come unprepared.

And there were two other cars on the road today, both full of fighters. Some would be our guards, but most of them were going to surround the church in case the rogues got any clever ideas. There would be ten from each pack - enough to see off several raiding teams at once if need be. But our men had orders to drop that most crucial duty and close on the church if something went awry.

"Are you?" Hayden asked me suspiciously. "Armed, I mean?"

"Yep," I said cheerfully. "Got my knife. I'm going to put it in my bra, because they won't dare look in there."

He turned a rather alarming shade of pink and looked away, embarrassed, much to my amusement. Kelsey snorted from the passenger seat. Beside me, Liam's eyes were fixed firmly out of the window while I got the knife situated, but there was a definite smile playing about his lips. A smile I recognised only too well.

"It's a packmeet, not a back alley fight," Hayden muttered after a long pause. "Goddess above. None of you need weapons."

We all ignored him.

Before very long, we'd stopped again. This time on a long, grassy verge where several other people were already parked. They were all big, expensive cars. But there was no one around save for a small group stood near a field gate.

Hayden was out of the car before any of us. He didn't wait for permission. Didn't even glance back. He made an effort to walk across the grass, not run, but when he got there, he collided with his father forcefully enough to make the man take a step backwards. It was a fierce embrace - the likes of which made me feel a tiny bit bad about my role in the kidnapping.

When they broke apart again, slowly, reluctantly, Jace was looking his son up and down, checking him over. Hayden was completely oblivious. He'd been looking for his mother amongst the group. But she wasn't here. And why on earth would she not be here? It was a chance to see her son. Unless she knew she'd be seeing him soon anyway...

My aunt wasn't there, either, even though she was the Beta female and had every right to be. It was just Jace, his Beta and two guards. Something was off about this. And when Jace lifted his gaze to stare at me, his jaw was set and his eyes were steel. I was getting the impression that he was not planning to let Hayden leave with us once this was over.

"Morning, Alpha Jace," I called, making sure there was a smirk on my lips, just to shake him of his irritating confidence. "Nice day, isn't it?"

His answering smile didn't even get near his eyes. He had one arm around Hayden's shoulders protectively. "A little too warm for my liking, Luna. Shall we go inside?"

"Yes. Of course. After you."

I didn't want them behind me. And Jace didn't kick up a fuss about that. He and Hayden and his pack members began heading towards the half-ruined building where our fates would be decided.

What was the plan? Have his Luna spring Hannah during the packmeet, based on information Hayden gave him? If so, they'd be very disappointed. Mam wasn't stupid. She knew they'd find a way to communicate, and she was moving the camp today to make sure that anything Hayden knew was useless.

While I was thinking that over and growing increasingly wary, Hayden had dropped back to walk beside me, much to his dad's alarm. Those icy blue eyes bore into me with soul-sucking intensity. Jace didn't understand why his son would willingly get within ten feet of me.

"Thank you for this," Hayden murmured to me. "Really. I know it wasn't an easy call for everyone to make, but just ... thank you. I won't forget it."

All smiles. All content. If there was a plan to free him, I reckoned it was safe to assume he knew nothing about it. Either that, or I'd vastly underestimated him and he was mocking me. He was back with his dad again before I could decide either way.

And then there were arms encircling my waist, pulling me into a warm body. Liam kissed my neck, just below the jaw, laughing when I let out the tiniest of squeals. He'd taken me by surprise. I'd been expecting total seriousness from him today.

"It'll be fine," he told me. "You'll see. We got all worked up over nothing."

He thought that the other Alphas would have already confronted him if they'd caught our scents at the campsite. I wasn't so sure. Either way, we'd find out in the next hour or so.

"I hope so," I murmured, letting my head rest against his chest.

The church where the packmeet was being held was not really a church at all. I didn't think it had been used for its intended purpose for a hundred years or more. The tiny spire was crumbling, the glass was broken in a lot of places, and the bricks were crawling with ivy.

I wiped my feet on the doormat as I went inside. It was smaller than I'd been expecting - big enough for a score of people to sit at most - which was probably why the humans had abandoned it. The decorations had been stripped out and taken with them when they'd left. The pews were gone. Now, there was just a big table in the centre of the room and a lot of chairs arranged around it. Most were already occupied.

Jace had stopped walking abruptly in front of me. There was a pair of fighters standing in his way. One from Riverside, the other from Lowland.

"It'll only take a moment, sir," one of them was saying.

"You want me searched?" Jace demanded. "Can I ask why?"

Those questions were directed at the Alphas already sat around the table. Vincent gave him an easy smile. "Oh, don't take it personally, Lloyd. We've all had to tolerate it. We thought it would be a sensible precaution to take, given that we don't have any humans around to keep the peace today."

Jace didn't argue again. It wasn't just him they searched - it was their entire group, Hayden included, but Jace was the only one whose search turned up any results. They took a gun off him, which didn't surprise me in the least. He had probably been planning to point it at my head when he slipped away with Hayden. But then again, Alphas seemed reluctant to leave home without one these days. Especially if they were away from their nice, safe territories.

It was our turn next. And I had been right in my assumption that no one's hand would go anywhere near my boobs while Liam was stood beside me, but I'd also overestimated flockies in general. They didn't even search me. Or Kelsey. But they did search Liam, and they did search Mal.

It was a fairly brief pat-down. I waited expectantly for them to be relieved of their weapons, but one of the flockie's hands passed over Mal's back without pause, and the other seemed not to notice the penknife in Liam's pocket.

Odd. Very odd.

It wasn't an accident, I didn't think. Mal's face had slipped into a wary, confused frown, and it didn't budge from that expression the whole time we were taking our seats. He knew they'd felt the gun, but for whatever reason, they'd pretended that they hadn't. Liam looked much the same way, although he was doing a better job of hiding it. Why were we allowed to remain armed when New Dawn wasn't? Was this some kind of trap to accuse us of threatening the packmeet?

We weren't the only ones who were worried. Hayden, who'd been present for that entire conversation in the car, was suddenly sitting up a lot straighter. He kept looking at Mal and then back at the flockies who'd been picked to search us, his forehead furrowed. But he didn't dare say anything.

The mystery only deepened as the other Alphas arrived. Vincent, Jaden Lloyd and Chris had already been at the table. Zach Lloyd was robbed of a wicked-looking sheath knife and a handgun upon entry, as were most of his men. Lewis Fletcher went through the same process a minute later. I didn't understand why we'd be the exception.

"Let's get down to business, yes?" Chris asked once Lewis had taken his seat. Ember's new Alpha was on one side of us, and New Dawn were on the other. Both allies, I supposed, even if Jace was a slightly unwilling one. "I understand that you tabled a re-vote on our most recent amendment to pack law, Jace. Why is that?"

Jace braced his arms against the tarnished wood. "Why not? We have two new Alphas at this table. They both deserve a chance to make their voices heard. We should ensure that our legislation reflects our beliefs properly."

"Well, it was only ratified last month," Chris said slowly. "And it has been incredibly effective so far. So I am loathe to disrupt that, and to spend an entire packmeet going over the fine print again, only to hold a divisive vote with no change in outcome, when there are much more important things we could be doing here today. Let's hear the nays."

His hand went up, along with two others. Vincent and Jaden. The two most anti-rogue people in the entire room, I'd wager. They didn't want to risk it being overturned, because that would mean they'd have to call off their country-wide rogue hunt. Jace eyed his half-brother with poorly concealed disappointment.

Lewis Fletcher leant forwards in his chair beside me. If it wasn't for my mother, his douchebag uncle would be sitting there in his place, and if the glance he cast at me and Liam was any indication, he was all too aware of that fact. "It is a major piece of legislation. I would like a re-vote. Or at least an open discussion with the aim of making adjustments."

"So would we," I said quickly. It was my job, not Liam's, to say all the things that were likely to piss people off, because that way we could play both sides beautifully. I got things done for Team Rogue, while Liam played nice in private with the most bull-headed Alphas so that we'd know what they were planning.

Vincent frowned at me from across the table, but it didn't take him long to tire of it. "Seems like you're the tie-breaking vote, Zach."

Zach Lloyd lifted his head up wearily and blinked at us all. "Oh, yeah? What are we talking about?"

He didn't look interested. Or even like he was pretending to be interested. And while I related to that on a fundamental level, I would have appreciated him paying attention to a discussion which would mean life or death for a lot of people.

"Whether to re-examine the amendment," Jace told him. "Three in favour, me included, and three against."

Zach made a face, nose wrinkled up and his lip quirked to one side. It only took him a few seconds to think about it, but they were some of the longest of my life. We needed him to say yes. Reversing this amendment was the whole reason we'd gone to Silver Lake in the first place.

"Goddess' sake," he said eventually, sounding bored. "It's only just been passed - and by a substantial majority. We should wait a few months before looking at it again. Sorry, Jace."

Well ... shit. We didn't have a few months. At the rate they were finding camps and then burning them to the ground, I reckoned we only had a couple of weeks left. If that. We were outnumbered nearly five-to-one by the flockies at this point, and once they found one camp, they were twice as quick finding the next.

Jace was looking at me and Liam. So was Lewis. They didn't really know what to do now. Both of them had been told to vote down the amendment, which had been the only thing on our agenda today, and I didn't think there was a back-up plan. We'd been relying on getting either Chris or Zach to side with us. One of them had been swayed by the goon squad before the packmeet had even begun, and the other had made a snap decision because he hadn't been paying attention.

Great. Now what?

"If we're not going to have a re-vote, can I ask that we go over the legislation anyway?" I asked. "There are a few points which I feel need clarifying. Like, when we're executing little children for trespassing, do they have to be fourteen at the time of the offence, or can we just, I dunno, lock them up and wait for their fourteenth birthday? And also, if we were to put a toddler on the border, and they happen to wander across it, can we count that as trespassing?"

I was trying not to sound furious about it, but the tiniest hint leaked into my voice anyway. But aside from the two Alphas who had already been staring at me, none of them so much as glanced in my direction. I was the only Luna in the room today. Here, they didn't have anywhere nice and quiet and out-of-the-way to put their mates, so they'd simply left them behind. But the male Betas were here, I couldn't help noticing, with the slightest twinge of annoyance. And so were a pair of guards for each pack.

"I'm sure your mate understands the new laws, even if you don't," Alpha Vincent said, all smiles. "We don't have time to explain it all to you, sweetheart. There is important work to do."

I wasn't expecting to get so pissed off. It was only a few sentences on his behalf. Condescending, yes, but I was used to that from flockie men. It took me a while to work out that some of the anger was Liam's, washing across the link.

"Apologise," he said.

Vincent's eyebrows flew upwards. "What?"

Liam nodded in my direction. "To Eva. Now."

He didn't want to. Not one little bit. His face hardened, and he was regarding Liam with no effort to conceal his annoyance, but he didn't want an argument, so he just murmured, "I'm sorry, Luna, if I have somehow offended you. It wasn't my intention."

"If you ever talk to her like that again, we're going to have a problem," he said. "Now answer her questions, please. The same way you would have done if it had been me asking."

Vincent looked like he was fighting a losing battle with a very hateful expression. It wasn't just me pissing him off now - it was Liam too. But he was a smart man, and he knew that he needed to keep Silver Lake's new Alpha on his good side for the time being. So he forced a polite smile onto his lips and looked at me properly for the first time ... well ... ever.

"You can interpret pack law as creatively as you like, provided that you're prepared to convince us of your interpretation in a court of law," he said. "But - and this is off the record, mind - none of us will persecute you for bending the law where rogues are concerned. This is war, and we can't afford to be lenient. Even to our ... younger enemies."

"Thank you, Vincent," I said sweetly. "I'll make a note of that."

Hayden was avoiding my gaze. His jaw was tight, and if I didn't know better, I would have said he looked ashamed of himself. Hard to ignore such blatant evidence that these were not the 'good guys.' We'd been in this room five minutes before someone had voiced their approval of child murder. He'd been in our camp for months and heard only the opposite from us - loudly and vehemently.

"If we're not even going to discuss the amendment," Jace said, "then we don't have anything for the agenda today."

"Oh, we do, actually," Vincent said, sitting up a little straighter in his chair. He had a large ring-binder on the table in front of him, and he opened it now, flicking through to find the correct page. "It pertains to you. We intend to conduct an interrogation today to help us decide whether or not to file formal charges against you and your son."

Jace wasn't one for flaunting his emotions. Quite the opposite, actually. He kept his face so carefully still most of the time that you'd have no idea that he wasn't carved out of stone. But in the wake of that oh-so-casual statement, he visibly went through each of the five stages of grief in quick succession.

"You're going to what?" he demanded quietly. That tone was an awful lot closer to anger than acceptance, as it turned out. His irises were still that ice-cold blue, but his voice was sharp.

Beside him, Hayden fidgeted in his chair, watching the exchange with wide, alarmed eyes. It was his future at stake here. And Alpha Zach was suddenly paying a whole lot of attention to the discussion at hand, leaning forwards in a rather menacing fashion as he regarded the Lowland Alpha.

Vincent just shook his head. "You heard me. Let's begin with the-"

"You know what, puppy?" Zach cut in before he could get much further. "Mind how you speak to him. Because we all know you wouldn't dare take this any further. Jace has been an Alpha since before you were even whelped."

Loyalty - I liked that. He wasn't afraid to defend his cousin. It would have been nice if Jaden Lloyd, who was Jace's brother, had bothered to do the same. But he just sat there, watching the proceedings impassively. I wasn't sure why I was surprised. He seemed to side with the sneering Vincent more often than his family these days.

"Are you trying to obstruct the investigation?" Vincent asked.

Zach laughed at him. "No, by all means. Ask your bloody questions. Just stop pretending like there'll be consequences if you don't like his answers."

Vincent stared for the longest time. Long enough to make me think they might come to blows, in all honesty. But finally, he forced himself to look back down at the papers, seemingly deciding to ignore the older Alpha entirely.

"We have numerous accounts claiming that you turned all your rogue prisoners loose earlier this month. Is it true?" he asked Jace.

I watched as Jace's jaw tightened almost imperceptibly. He turned his head, nice and slowly, to eye me with barely concealed hatred. Are you happy now? that gaze was demanding.

And the look Hayden was giving me was ... in all honesty, not much different. He'd warned me about this. But the way they directed all their annoyance at me, as if I'd had any say in Mam's decision making ... well, that was a little unfair. Yes, I was glad that Turner and the other raiders were alive. But that was all.

"No," Jace said steadily. "It's not true. I had to release several prisoners at once - two were underage, and another three were proven to be lones with no evidence of crimes committed. It seems that act was misinterpreted and overstated by people who were far too quick to jump to conclusions."

"There's no such thing as a lone these days," Vincent said, looking faintly amused. As he spoke, he was passing out copies of his papers around the table. Everyone got one except for Jace himself and Zach, who clearly wanted no part in the interrogation. "But we will make a note of that response. Alpha Vaughan - care to continue?"

"Yes, I would. Did you or did you not catch a group of rogue children on your land and release them without charge?" Liam asked. He had to play his part, like the rest of them.

Jace's anger seemed to be reaching new heights. There was now a definite tinge of black in those eyes. I could see what he wanted to say so very badly. Yes. I did. And one of those 'children' was your mate, Alpha Vaughan.

"No. I did not," he said shortly. "Although I'm struggling to understand what the problem would be, given that what you are describing is not even illegal."

"It's about establishing a pattern of behaviour," Vincent told him. "Acts like that one, while not illegal under our current laws, would point to you having sympathies for rogues that the rest of us do not share. Let's move on. Chris?"

Alpha Chris was the next to look up from his document and ask, "Is it true you have only been raided once in the last few months? And that the raid in question had no casualties on either side, while your neighbouring pack, Riverside, was raided on six separate occasions, with a total of three pack members dead?"

"I can't speak for what happens at Riverside, but yes, there has only been one recent raid. Our patrol schedule is very comprehensive. If you're implying that I have somehow persuaded the rogues to ignore my pack, then I will have to refer you to my pack elders, who have just completed a clean audit of our finances."

Chris made a hm sound, then looked back to Vincent expectantly. He wasn't slow to pick up where the other Alpha had left off. "We will be checking with your elders - believe me. Have you had any contact with rogues outside of an interrogation?"

"No."

"Not even Skye Llewellyn?"

"What do you mean not even Skye Llewellyn?" Jace asked incredulously. "Especially not Skye Llewellyn."

Did they know something? Vincent hadn't said anything to Liam about this, but if someone had overheard a phone call ... if someone from Jace's pack had been talking ... then there was a good chance the packmeet had an inkling about what was going on.

"Has she approached you?"

"No."

"Have any rogues approached you?"

"No."

Vincent gave a brisk nod, but his eyebrows were high on his forehead, and it was pretty obvious that he wasn't buying any of these answers. He glanced back down at his sheet of paper for a moment, then cleared his throat. "Can you please account for the whereabouts of your son over the last two months?"

Jace considered answering that honestly. I could see it written all over his face. And for a moment he looked at me, and I thought he might just say it. If only to shut Vincent up. He was trying to decide if we would really hurt Hannah, so I could only harden my gaze and cock one eyebrow to try and convince him that we would, even though it felt painfully obvious to me that no one would touch her, regardless of what Jace did.

Hayden was sat to attention, leant forwards in his chair and full of nervous energy. But he didn't dare speak up. I was getting the impression that he was expected to let his father do all the talking.

"He has been on Anglesey, building relations with the shifters there at my request," Jace said eventually, and I loosed a breath I hadn't realised I'd been holding.

"For the entire time?" Vincent asked. His voice was oh-so-casual, but his eyes were glinting.

"Yes."

A lot of meaningful looks being exchanged around the table. They had found Hayden's scent here in Snowdonia, only a few days past, and now Jace was caught in a lie. I would have warned him had he not been so bloody quick to answer.

"And these duties on Anglesey were vital enough to cause him to miss two packmeets, in contravention of our requirement for attendance once an heir has reached the age of seventeen?" Alpha Chris cut in.

"I think peace is pretty vital, don't you?" Jace asked. "The so-called 'requirement' is not legally binding, Chris. It is just an advisement tacked onto the end of the law about inheritance. This is all so contrived. Most of the things you are accusing me of are not actually illegal, and none of them come with even a shred of proof. Are you satisfied now? Or do you want to take this further?"

Silence from the other Alphas. Vincent was drumming his fingers on the table, seemingly expelling some restless energy. I didn't miss him raising his eyebrows at Alpha Chris, who shook his head in clear disapproval of Jace's answers.

To my surprise, it was Jaden, who'd been so quiet all this time, who spoke up next in a steady, reassuring voice. "You're right, Jace. There's no concrete proof of anything. Making a conviction stick would be nearly impossible. We all want to treat you fairly in this. Right, gentlemen?"

There was a series of nods exchanged around the table. Vincent was smiling openly now. But the hairs on the back of my neck were standing on end. Because it was obvious that they weren't happy, and they weren't satisfied, and this wasn't over. And I had a feeling it was going to come back and bite us sooner or later.

Jaden continued, "Maybe if you showed Chris the paragraph in pack law - the one where it says it's not a legal requirement to have your heir attend packmeets - he'd be inclined to forget about that particular quarrel. What do you say, Chris?"

I was glad that Jaden had finally found the guts to stand up for his brother. His intercession seemed to have turned the tide in the space of a few seconds. Jace looked glad of it, too. He actually managed a little smile for Jaden.

Chris mulled it over for a moment before nodding. "It would provide some much-needed reassurance."

"Great," Jace said shortly. "Do we have a copy here today?"

Jaden was on his feet in about two seconds flat. "Yes, of course. In the back. I'll show you."

We'd won ourselves a break from all the tension and unpleasantness. I lounged back in my chair, making a yikes face at Liam. He appeared to share the sentiment. He was bouncing his leg under the table intermittently, probably because he hated conflict of any kind.

I eyed Vincent next, just because I didn't like him and I wanted to do some glaring. But his attention was fixed wholly and completely on the Alphas who were heading towards the back of the church. It was a warm day, and he was only wearing a t-shirt, so it was easy to see that every muscle in his body was taut and knotted, despite his supposed nonchalance. I turned to see what he was staring at.

It didn't make very interesting viewing. Jace tucked a large file under his arm and came back towards us, his brother behind him. He set it down on the table with a big, echoing thud and then began flipping through it.

Jaden was stood behind him. I saw his hand move towards his pocket, and I saw the expression on his face harden, but I didn't see the knife.

Not until it was buried in Jace's back.

There was a moment of horrible, horrible stillness in the room. Jace frowned to himself, his forehead furrowed and his eyes puzzled. He reached towards his back, slowly, ponderously, as if to scratch an itch. But his hand never got close.

All the colour was gone from his face, and even as I watched, he began to slump towards the table.

"Sorry, little brother," Jaden Lloyd said. "But it's just that ... I don't believe you. Play nice with rogues, and you die like one."

And with that, he pulled the knife free and wiped it on Jace's shirt before stepping clear.

I'd been trained my whole life to react. And I did, in a way, lurching to my feet, but that was as far as I got for a few seconds. There wasn't anything obvious to do, as far as I could tell. No one was attacking me. No one was attacking anyone. The damage was done.

It was easier for Liam. He was sat beside Hayden, and Hayden had certainly reacted. He managed to get out of his chair and take a single step towards his father before Liam was on him. It was easy - grabbing him from behind like that. Liam got an arm around his throat, and that probably saved his life, because he would have attacked his uncle, and he would have died.

But while grabbing him was easy, holding him was not. He was eighty kilos of desperation, and he was fighting Liam with every ounce of strength he had. Mal got in front of him, a hand on Hayden's shirt and another one helping wrench one of his arms backwards for Liam to grab hold of before it could occur to him to shift.

"Easy there," Liam breathed. "Don't be stupid."

Hayden's answer was to thrash even harder. "I'm going to kill him."

It didn't help that Jaden was now stood back, watching his brother die with obvious satisfaction. There was not a single drop of remorse on his face, and I did wonder how long exactly he had wanted Jace dead. My guess was that it probably pre-dated the whimpers about treachery by a while.

"Yeah, that's what I thought you'd say," Liam murmured. He forced Hayden backwards a few steps, and then he pinned him up against the wall of the church to make him easier to hold. Mal was swearing under his breath because Hayden had managed to thump him under the ribs along the way. But they had him securely now. His arm was twisted in a position that was unnatural for a wolf to stop a shift before it even started.

Watching them, I felt too damn idle. I got my knife out. Dragged Kelsey behind me, so that she was near Mal and safe as she could be. Then I stood in front of all of them, the blade hidden in my sleeve, almost hoping someone would try to attack me so I could use up some of the adrenaline that was making every muscle in my body tremble. The two Silver Lake guards were pressed against me on either side.

The chaos hadn't let up while we'd been occupied. Alpha Chris was the next to walk over to Jace, calm as can be, and bury a knife in his ribcage. He, at least, seemed to take no pleasure from it. It was at that point, much too late, that I realised they'd been planning this all along. And in holding Hayden back, Liam was probably doing exactly what they had wanted him to do, however inadvertent it might have been.

Jace's Beta had shifted in the blink of an eye. It was Jaden he lunged for, not Chris, but he never got that far. Because there seemed to be a lot of guns in the room, all of a sudden, and at least two of them fired at once.

A pitiful yelp was cut short. One of the bullets had hit something vital, but it still took him a long, long while of lying there, gasping for breath, before he managed to die. And there was just one more body lying on the floor. They didn't even wait for Jace's guards to make a move before shooting them dead, too.

Zach had risen so fast and forcefully that he'd sent his chair flying halfway across the room. But he hadn't got much further than that, because he had been met by Vincent's pack members, all of whom were training their guns on his skull. They'd been ready for him.

"If you move, Lloyd," Vincent told him, "then you're next."

Zach moved anyway, because he was so far past furious that he didn't care. And for all Vincent's threats, his guards didn't dare pull the trigger, because then they'd be responsible for killing an Alpha, and that prospect probably terrified them. They shouted warnings, and they edged backwards, their fingers tightening on their triggers.

It wasn't the threat of being shot that stopped him in the end. It was his own pack members holding him back. And with no small amount of effort.

When Vincent saw that, he smiled again. And almost tauntingly, he walked over to Jace to take his turn. The New Dawn Alpha was on the floor now, not even managing to kneel in place. That first knife had torn his aorta, I reckoned. There was so much blood. The second one had ripped into his chest cavity, so his breathing was fast and shallow and near-useless.

The closer Vincent got, the more violent Hayden's thrashing became. He looked close to tears by then. His eyes were red, and his breathing was coming in stops and starts. I tried to imagine watching my dad being murdered. It didn't really bear thinking about.

"Not another bloody step, Vincent," Zach said. "Because if you kill him, we've got a problem, you and me. He can heal from this. Leave him, and I swear to you that I'll forget this ever happened. And so will he. Right, Jace?"

But Jace couldn't answer. His breaths came in wet gasps, and he was slumped against the table, too weak even to support his own weight now. It wasn't his cousin who had his attention, or even the Alpha stood over him with a knife in his hand. No, his listless, desperate gaze was fixed on Hayden and Hayden alone. Because he knew he was going to die without ever knowing if his son would survive this.

"That's cute, Lloyd," Vincent said lazily. "Really, it is. I never thought I'd see you plead for anything in your life. You must love him a lot. But come on, now. This only ends one way. You know that, don't you?"

And with that, he knelt down beside Jace. Knocked aside a weak, grasping hand. And smiled.

Hayden shouted at him. They were all desperate, jumbled, furious words - predictable and easily ignored. Across the table, Zach had gone eerily quiet. He was watching Vincent with an unnatural stillness and a look in his eyes that promised murder.

Both of them went unheeded. Vincent was careful not to get too close to Jace. His mouth was pinched in distaste, as if he was reluctant to get blood on his clothes. He took a moment to roll up the sleeve of his shirt before leaning over and driving the knife into Jace's chest at an angle that was bound to find the heart. And it was hard to say if that was mercy or simply a desire to get it over with.

Jace had been sheet-white from the blood loss, and that proved enough to push him over the edge. He managed one last rattling breath, and then he went still at last. Those piercing blue eyes were left glazed and staring at nothing.

In the space of a heartbeat, the fight went out of Hayden. He just stood there, muscles slack, gazing at his father's body with a horrible kind of emptiness. Past desperation and now into shock.

"You're dead," Zach said quietly. His gaze was hungry as he looked around the room, eyeing each of his fellow Alphas in turn. "All of you. Dead."

Vincent didn't pay him the slightest bit of notice. He stepped back and flicked a drop of blood from his hand. The knife was dripping blood steadily onto the floor in a soft pitter-patter. Like the other Alphas, he had chosen an ornate blade - something that looked more like a letter-opener than an actual weapon. It was not the kind of knife a rogue would use.

Now that Jace was gone, his gaze had settled on someone else, and his knuckles whitened around the knife-hilt. Hayden Lloyd was pinned against the wall. Restrained, yes, but still very much alive. And all of a sudden, there was a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach. They weren't going to be content to stop with Jace, were they?

"What the hell are you waiting for?" Vincent snapped. "Cut his throat, and let's be done with it."

And that quickly, Zach's full and undivided attention was on our little group - Liam most of all.

"You kill him, Vaughan," he said, "and I'll kill you."

Oh, great. Ten minutes ago, we'd been in everyone's good books. Now things seemed to be heading in the opposite direction. I stared at Zach nervously, because there was nothing either of us could say to reassure him in front of everyone else. Goddess above. Why hadn't we just feigned illness and stayed home? We could have spent the morning in our nice, cosy bed and not had to deal with any of this nonsense.

"It does seem excessive..." Alpha Lewis murmured. He had been the only person to remain neutral and still for the entire affair. His guards were in readiness on either side of him, but of course, neither of them were armed. Vincent had been careful to strip the weapons from everyone who might have had a reason to join the side of reason and civility.

"Excessive?" Jaden laughed. "Oh, no. I wish that were the case. Hayden here visited a rogue camp last week. We can only imagine what he was doing there."

"Do you want to know what I was doing there?" Hayden asked. He sounded very, very done. "Do you? For Goddess' sake, they-"

He didn't get much further than that, because Liam squeezed his throat hard enough to make him retch. And he kept that hand there long enough to thoroughly scare the kid. If it had been me, I reckoned Hayden would have just kept talking, because he knew I wouldn't do it. But Liam was older and quieter and cold-eyed, and I reckoned Hayden was wary of him.

For the longest time, they just stared at each other. And then, just when I was starting to get restless, Hayden shut his mouth and averted his eyes. If the other Alphas had noticed anything amiss, they didn't say anything, but then again, I doubted they would. They'd just stab Liam in the back if they were the least bit suspicious, apparently.

"Is this really what you want, Jaden?" Zach went on furiously, when the silence in the room had become deafening. "To murder your own nephew? He's just a kid. Leave him. Please. This is all so bloody pointless."

Hearing him break down rattled something very deep inside me. He was practically begging them to let Hayden live, and I couldn't help wondering exactly how helpless he must have felt, having to stand there and watch this all happen.

"Oh, shut him up, will you?" Jaden snapped at the others. His eyes were cold and unfeeling. If he'd ever cared about his nephew, it had clearly worn off a while ago, because he was still regarding Hayden like he wanted to crush him underfoot.

Vincent nodded at one of his men, and then I was flinching as yet another gunshot went off in that small, echoey room. It took me a moment to identify who it had been aimed at. One of Zach's guards dropped to the floor like a stone, his brains splattered across the wall. He'd done nothing to deserve it, as far as I could tell.

"Next one goes in your head, Lloyd," Vincent said. "Sit down. Shut up."

Zach did no such thing. Instead, he just snarled and lunged forwards. The same man who'd shot the guard used the end of his gun to crack the Shadowless Alpha over the head before he could get very far. The sound of metal against bone was sharp enough to make me wince. Zach dropped. And the flockie was immediately turning towards Vincent, looking utterly terrified in case he'd done the wrong thing.

But his Alpha couldn't have cared less. He was busy taking a gun from one of Jaden's men, even as I watched on, my hand tightening around my knife hilt. But it wasn't Zach who ended up facing down the barrel.

No, Vincent was pointing it at Hayden's head. And that was a big no. I hadn't liked Jace much. Had I wanted him dead? No ... probably not, if only because he was useful to us. But Hayden was actually okay, as far as my cousins went, and I'd gotten fond of him in the last few months, so I was not going to let some prick Alpha shoot him for something he hadn't even done. And if that meant blowing my cover, then I'd blow my cover.

There was little doubt that it was Hayden he was aiming at, but him and Liam and Mal were packed so close together that they were just as likely to take a bullet. It was hard to know if that was a good or bad thing. But I stepped sideways as slowly and subtly as I could so that I was blocking his line of fire even more.

"Kill him," Vincent said again, "or I will."