Hello everyone! This week we have another piece of artwork!!! And I'm sure Rhodri would be very smug to know that it's of him. It is by BenevolentMyths, who is an author as well as an artist and is currently writing a pretty cool book.

***

Vincent had one eyebrow cocked while he waited for Liam to do something, the very picture of impatience. All of us were staring down the barrel, not just Hayden, and I didn't want to bet my life on the Lowland Alpha's aim. I reckoned I was sweating through my shirt.

"I'm not going to kill him," Liam said, after what felt like a lifetime. "And neither are you."

Uh oh. Those were words that were likely to get us all killed. I reckoned Liam was just stalling for time, for all the good it would do.

"Oh, I beg to differ," Vincent laughed. "Last chance. I'm beginning to wonder about you, Vaughan. Maybe you have some sympathies for the rogue-lovers."

Liam wasn't spooked by that. It was meant as a provocation, not an accusation. He kept staring at Vincent, steady as anything. "I said I'm not killing him, and I meant it. He knows things, you idiot. Things that could be useful to us. I'm going to take him back to Silver Lake and lock him up somewhere nice and secure, and then him and me can talk. Can't we, Hayden?"

He was so much smarter than I was, and it was a little bit unfair, probably, but I wasn't going to complain right then. Not if it worked. Hayden was wild-eyed and hardly daring to breathe while he waited.

Vincent frowned as he thought it over. I was glad that he was at least contemplating it. But Jaden shook his head vehemently, arms folded across his chest. "No, it would be better to kill him now. Just in case."

"Hang on," Vincent murmured. "Let's think about this. What are the chances you can actually break him?"

"He's just a pup," Liam said dismissively. "I'll have him yapping by the end of the day. And then who knows what we might learn? The location of more camps? What the rogues are planning? And hell ... maybe even the identity of a few more traitors. So with that in mind, does anyone else want to object to me questioning him?"

Dead silence from the other Alphas. I suspected that what had just happened to Jace Lloyd was still very fresh in their minds, given that his corpse was cooling on the floor beside them. It struck me, not for the first time, just how quickly things had gone so horribly, horribly wrong.

"Great," Liam said. "We'll be going, then. That is, if we're done here?"

How was he this calm? Hayden had been about three seconds away from getting his head blown off. Him and me were one wrong step away from sharing Jace's fate. We might still have been armed, but we were outnumbered three to one by Vincent's allies, and all of them seemed to have guns like the cowards that they were.

"No," Jaden said immediately. "We're not done. I get New Dawn. I want that acknowledged by everyone now."

Now it began to make sense. Jace's pack bordered his. It had been one pack decades ago, split into two by an argument between brothers, I knew. And now it seemed that Jaden wanted to reunite it in much the same way. It would double his land and make him the most powerful man at this table by far. Hayden knew all that, too, and he seemed to have stopped breathing.

Vincent laughed. "Careful now. We said we'd think about it. Not that it's a done deal. But I agree that it would be safer to have that pack under the leadership of someone we can all trust, lest they get any stupid ideas about avenging Jace. His Luna likes to meddle, and his sister fancies herself a fighter. You can take custody for now, Jaden. But we will decide more permanent arrangements with a proper discussion and a vote. Right now, we have a more pressing issue."

As he said that, Vincent turned back to Zach Lloyd. The flockies had put him on his knees, and there was a muzzle pressed against his temple to keep him there. Blood sheeted down one side of his face, which only served to frame the cold, all-consuming fury in his eyes.

I thought they'd probably kill him, too. He certainly thought so. He was eyeing the gun like he was contemplating making a grab for it. Putting a bullet between his eyes would have been the sensible thing to do. He was very pissed off, and he had his own pack, and that could only end badly for the instigators of today's bloodbath.

But Vincent just crouched in front of Zach and regarded him flatly. "Go home. Cool off. You'll come to realise why we did it. Have a long, hard think about what Jace was doing, and then have a long, hard think about whether you want to fight a pack war against all six of us. And when you've seen sense, call me."

Zach just spat on the ground. In my opinion, it was Vincent who needed to see sense. You didn't murder an Alpha's family, force him onto his knees, put a gun against his head, and then tell him to 'go home' and 'cool off.' But Vincent was so convinced that he was in the right that he didn't see it. He didn't see the danger.

Besides, he thought that New Dawn would soon be under Jaden's control. That Silver Lake would side with him. That Ember would follow the crowd or remain neutral at the very least. He did genuinely believe that it would be one pack against six. While in reality, if we could help put Hayden in charge of New Dawn, it would be four packs against three in our favour.

Vincent stood up again, wincing as his knees straightened even though he couldn't have been older than thirty. He looked at his men.

"One of you must have a pair of handcuffs," he said. "Surely. Give them to Alpha Vaughan, and then the lot of you can go back to the cars. We're done here."

They didn't have handcuffs. But one of them did have a pocketful of zip-ties. It was one thing understanding that they were supposed to be for Hayden, but it was quite another putting them on him, seeing as Mal and Liam didn't dare take a hand off him in case he shifted and got himself killed.

"Kel, take the gun," Mal said. She slipped her hand under his shirt obediently. "Good. Now point it at Lloyd's head. And if he so much as twitches when I'm putting these on him, I want you to shoot him."

Kelsey smiled at Hayden in an incredibly unsettling way. I knew her well enough by then to tell it was an act, but I doubted he knew that. She had been very quiet through the whole packmeet. Especially when shit had hit the fan. The poor girl wasn't used to violence, but she had Alpha blood running through her veins, so she hadn't shirked from it.

"You heard him," she said, her voice impressively steady. "Not a twitch."

Hayden didn't answer her. He barely even looked at her. But he did stand still while Mal locked each cuff of the zip-ties in turn. We had to keep up the pretence, at least until we were outside, because this whole situation still felt incredibly precarious. Hayden was peeled away from the wall only when his hands were secured. And suddenly, we couldn't seem to leave fast enough.

Maybe it was the medic in me, but I crouched down to check Jace's Beta and guards for pulses as we passed them. Nothing from any of them. But it had been worth trying. It was a horrible way to die. Sudden. Violent. No way to fight back. I wiped a bloody hand on my jeans as I stood up again.

We escorted Hayden out of the church. Behind us, Zach was still on his knees, so I supposed I'd just have to trust that they really would let him go. Not that there was much we could have done to save him if Vincent had set his mind on it.

Lewis and his pack members were not far behind us. They'd left at the first possible opportunity, and I reckoned it said plenty about how he was feeling. Not happy. Mam had known what she was doing when she'd helped him get Ember back.

He came to walk alongside me, much to my surprise, murmuring, "Now what?"

"We're about as clueless as you are," I told him frankly. "Go back to your pack, get your fighters ready, and someone will be in touch."

Lewis nodded. He cast a wary glance over his shoulder, checking that none of the other Alphas had left the church yet, and then he stepped closer to speak to me in an undertone.

"They might not realise this," he said, "but after what they did today, I will have no trouble justifying a pack war to my elders. And neither will Zach. Or you two, for that matter. It seems like your mother is going to get what she wants."

"If you think any of this is what she wants, you don't know her very well," I snapped as we went our separate ways. What Mam wanted was the only thing any of us wanted - a bit of peace, a bit of safety, and for the flockies to stop massacring us.

And speaking of massacres ... there were bodies on the grassy verge. And a lot of men stood around them, chatting to each other like the dead men weren't still listening. Our fighters were among them, although they were quick to break away when they saw Liam and me approaching. They were looking more than a little uncertain of themselves.

It didn't take much detective work to guess what had happened. They had systematically killed the ten fighters from New Dawn when the fighting had begun in the church. Again, not because they'd done anything to deserve it. They had all been stand-up flockies, I was sure.

Hayden stared at them all - because he'd known them, of course - with empty, lifeless eyes. Liam was quick to guide him past. He put Hayden into the back seat of the car and flicked the child-lock on before shutting the door on him. I had no idea what the plan was. But we all got into the car, because that was safer than staying on the dirt track beside the church, just waiting for something else to go wrong. Mal had put Kelsey in a car with the fighters, rightly assuming she'd be a lot safer with them.

"Next time you decide to murder an Alpha," Mal said shortly as he slammed his car door and turned the keys in the ignition, "do you mind letting me in on it beforehand?"

"Wasn't our plan. Believe me. Jace was on our side. I mean ... shit," I murmured. It felt very quiet in the car in those seconds before the engine purred to life. We were all a little shell-shocked. "I dunno what to do now. Have you got your phone, Liam?"

He passed it back to me. I dialled my mam's number from memory. My hand was shaking a bit, much to my disgust. It started to ring.

"I don't believe for one minute that you didn't know," Hayden snapped. "They didn't take your bloody weapons, did they? And Vincent was talking like you were in on it."

I lowered the phone and regarded him with something akin to pity. It was easy to see how he'd reached that conclusion. And it was true that we'd known something was going to happen. But never in a million years had I thought they'd kill him.

"Hayden," I said. "Look me in the eye and tell me you think we brought you here today just so you could watch your father being murdered."

That was hard to argue with. He averted his eyes and gave me the tiniest of nods. I kept on watching him, though, because he'd been breathing fast ever since we'd got in the car. He was safe enough now to start feeling it. All of it. All at once.

I put the phone to my ear again after a while. It had gone to voicemail. I wasn't too surprised, in all honesty, because they were in the middle of moving camp, and that was invariably a big, chaotic mess. I dialled it again and kept eyeing Hayden I waited.

"It's too hot in here. And I think I'm going to be sick," he murmured after a few minutes, and I could certainly believe it, looking at the colour of his face. The back of his head was sticky with blood where Liam had shoved him against the wall, but that was it. He wasn't really hurt.

And yet his breathing was only getting faster and faster. His heartbeat was racing along, and it was loud enough that I could hear it, even over the sound of the engine. The car was filling up with a sickly-sweet smell. And I reckoned he was trembling. I knew all those signs well.

"Pull over," I told Mal.

He eyed me through the rear-view mirror. "What? Why?"

"Pull over," I repeated.

He put two wheels on the verge and then flicked his hazards on before looking back at me expectantly. He wasn't looking for long. Hayden was breathing loudly and messily enough by then to catch anyone's attention.

"Yeah, I can't- I can't breathe ..." he managed to say.

Liam turned in his seat with some effort. He looked at Hayden, guessing it in about two seconds flat, and then he caught my eye. There were times when we didn't need any words.

"Hayden, lean forwards for me," I said. "What's happening is that you're having a panic attack. And it's probably because you've just been through something traumatic. Let's take this off you."

I undid his seatbelt for him first. And then I flicked out my knife and used it to cut the zip-ties off his wrists. Once they were gone, he could at least sit comfortably. I wasn't worried about him making a run for it right then. You could fake hyperventilating, but you couldn't fake the smell of fear.

"You're okay, Hayden," Liam said. "I swear. It'll pass in a bit. Breathing too fast makes you feel dizzy - that's all. It's not because you're not getting enough air. It's just your body's way of asking you to slow down."

Hayden managed the barest glance at him, so I got the impression that he was at least hearing what Liam was saying, even if he couldn't find the puff to reply. Liam had such a calm, quiet voice that it was hard not to listen and harder still not to believe him. I was glad he was the one doing the talking, not me, because I wouldn't have really known what to say. Talking had never helped with Liam - he just needed to be left alone.

"What you're going to do now is breathe in slowly through your nose and then out through your mouth. It's going to feel a bit weird at first, but then you should start feeling better," Liam was saying.

Ever since we'd stopped the car, I'd felt my heart rate picking up. There was fear pushing at the edges of my mind now - a dark, looming wave that made me want to shift and start running. Hayden was a tapper, like Nia and her mother, and that meant we got to feel the aftershocks of his emotions.

And naturally, he was spilling over quite a lot. Mal was wincing in the front of the car. I could feel Liam beginning to push back against him, more instinctively than anything else. He didn't have enough control over his own tapping abilities to do it properly, but he could at least give us a reprieve while Hayden fought with his lungs. It took him a few minutes just to get a steady rhythm going, and then he began to slow it down.

"Well done," Liam said quietly. "Keep on like that. You're alright."

When Hayden was breathing a bit better, Mal got out of the car and opened his door for him. We got him sitting on the grass, and then I took an old water bottle and splashed it over his hands and wrists to cool him down a bit. It took him a long time to get properly calm. A very long time. Adrenaline could be a bitch when it wasn't needed.

"Any better?" I asked him, once he'd been quiet for a while.

He wiped his face and grimaced. "Yeah. I think so. We can go now, if you want. But, um, I don't think it was a panic attack. Girls get them, not guys. It was just that I wasn't feeling well or something."

I eyed him for a long moment. If he'd not been in such a fragile state of mind, I might have called him out for that properly. Instead, I just settled for a stern look. "I dunno who told you that, flockie. Guys can get them too. And it's okay if it was a panic attack. Because they're not anything to be ashamed about, which you'll probably work out for yourself, given enough time."

"No, I know," he mumbled. "I guess. I just- I don't know. It felt real."

"Of course it did. That's the panic part."

Hayden gave me a little nod and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. And then, slowly and somewhat cautiously, he pushed himself back onto his feet.

"Good lad," Mal murmured, reaching over to tousle his hair affectionately. Liam was not the only one who was capable of so effortlessly evoking big-brotherly instincts in other people, it seemed. Mal raised an eyebrow at me next. "Brave kid, isn't he?"

"Yeah, he is," I murmured. We had to remember that Hayden hadn't done this before. He'd been nice and safe in New Dawn growing up, and today was probably the closest he'd come to dying even when you didn't factor in the incredible amount of trauma that came with watching your father die.

But the way he looked at us then, all wariness and uncertainty, made me think that he'd interpreted those words as mocking. He was tight-eyed and restless and tense in a way that worried me. Liam was always ashamed afterwards, and I reckoned he was too. Because that was just what boys were like. They internalised all that shit about how being strong meant having no emotions whatsoever.

"How did you know?" he asked quietly. "What to do, I mean?"

The absence of noise was very pointed. I didn't want to say. Not even if it would make Hayden feel better. It wasn't my right to share that information. Liam scuffed his foot against the grass, shifting his weight uneasily from side to side as he wrestled with the decision of whether to say anything or not.

Eventually, he cast a lingering, uncertain glance at Mal - an extra witness who had to be taken into consideration - and then finally bothered to look at our prisoner. He sounded tired. "I get them too."

Hayden eyed him. "How come?"

That made Liam hesitate. And all of a sudden, I was drawing myself up protectively and snapping, "How about you mind your own business, flockie?"

"It's okay, Eva," Liam said softly after the briefest of pauses. Then, to Hayden, he said, "It's because of some things that happened when I was little. That's all."

Hayden blinked at him. Not the answer he'd been expecting, I didn't think, because Liam never talked about it. "You... Oh. You- Is that why you left your pack?"

"Yeah. That's why," he said. "Reckon you're okay enough to leave now?"

"Probably."

Back in the car, my phone was ringing, and I'd failed to notice it because we never had the volume turned on. The vibrate function was a bit lacking, to say the least. I tried not to feel too guilty as I picked it up, knowing damn well that my mam would have assumed the worst in those long minutes.

"Are you alright?" she asked me, the very second I accepted the call.

I winced. "Physically, yes. The packmeet went a bit wrong. Well. A lot wrong. But we've got Hayden, and he's safe. What do you want us to do with him?"

There was a little pause while she thought about it, and then she just said, "Come to Haven."

"You're at Haven?" I asked incredulously. It wasn't that I was complaining - I loved Haven, but we never went there more than once in a summer.

"Yes, we are. We'll talk when you get here. Right now, I've got to get your sister somewhere warm and dry."

She hung up then. Or I did. I wasn't sure. I was still getting used to the flockie phones, which were about two decades more advanced than anything we had at camp. I handed it back to Liam before I could break it.

"What's Haven?" Mal asked.

Hayden looked up, his forehead creasing and ears pricked, all of a sudden. He'd been with us for so long that he thought he knew everything. But Haven was a closely-guarded secret.

I rubbed at my jaw. "Home. Sort of."

Mal glanced back at me warily. "And you don't want me seeing it, right?"

"Right," I said. "But I don't think we've got much choice. It's too far to run. So take the next left and bear in mind that I will personally kill you if you ever tell anyone about this place. And that goes for you too, Lloyd."

That made Hayden look at me sharply. He rubbed his neck and frowned and mumbled, "I'm not going to your camp. I'm going home."

I couldn't contain my snort. "Yeah, no. You're not, actually. What's the plan? Get your fighters and then go kill your uncle? Well, guess what? He's probably at your pack right now, telling them all a bunch of lies about you. You wouldn't make it through the front door."

He started picking at his fingernails. I'd said it with so much conviction that he was inclined to believe me. And while he sat there scowling and simmering in his anger, we didn't get any more arguments out of him as Liam directed Mal to the roundabout near Arlow.

"Here's good," he said when we were near the right place, but not too near. Haven was the only properly safe place we had left in the world - we were taking no chances with it. And Mal stopped the car obediently enough. There wasn't room for him to pull over properly, so there were soon horns honking behind us.

I gave Hayden a gentle push to get him out onto the curb. We were standing ankle-deep in a puddle of polluted filth, and I could hear him swearing as he lurched for the verge. We ended up with our backs pushing into a prickly bush.

Liam was soon pressed against me, one hand resting on my waist to keep me from pitching forwards into the puddle. The cars behind were either leaning on their horns or trying to overtake on a blind bend like the dumbasses they were.

"What do you want me to do now?" Mal asked.

"Go home and get the fighters ready," Liam replied. "All of them. We'll be needing them before the day is over."

***

Hayden walked without making a fuss. He followed automatically, stopping when we stopped and staring off into the distance, like he wasn't really aware of where he was. I kept a close eye on him, and I took care to kick back the brambles so he didn't take a tumble.

It was drizzling. A nice summer day had turned in the blink of an eye, and now there were heavy clouds overhead, casting the forest into gloom. I didn't have a coat with me, so I just pulled up my hood and trudged onwards, head down.

They were waiting for us at the cabin. My mother and Uncle Ollie and Nia - all stood there, sheltering at the edge of the building. No kids in sight. Hayden gazed around himself bleakly, taking in the building and the glimpses of tents through the trees.

"What happened?" Mam asked, as soon as I was close enough.

I stood there for a moment and swallowed and glanced at Hayden uncertainly. He didn't need to hear this. And I wasn't the only one thinking that, apparently.

"Come on, flockie," Liam murmured. When Hayden failed to respond, he put a hand on his back and guided him through the door of the cabin. I mouthed a thank you at Liam before he was out of sight. Better to get Hayden inside and sit him down somewhere nice and quiet than make him relive it so soon.

"They killed Jace," I said slowly. "Just bloody stabbed him, right in front of us. They'd got it in their heads that he was a traitor, and so ... yeah. They would have killed Hayden, too, but Liam convinced them to let us take him back to Silver Lake and torture him."

I wasn't expecting my mother to look so ... taken aback. It wasn't like she and Jace had gotten along. She exchanged an uneasy glance with my uncle. Wide, alarmed eyes. Thin, worried lips. A few blinks, as she was struggling to grasp it. It wasn't often I saw her caught off guard like that. Huh.

"Who killed him, Eva?" she asked with quiet urgency.

"His brother, for starters. And Vincent and Chris."

Mam ran a hand through her hair. "Right. This complicates things."

"Yeah," I sighed. "It does. I'd put in a phone call to Shadowless right about now, if I were you. Zach was pissed off, to say the least."

"Pissed enough to change sides?"

"Pissed enough that he might just kill them all for us," I said.

The glint in Mam's eyes was nothing short of diabolical. Either she'd gotten over Jace's death already, or she was doing a good job of hiding it. "Come inside. Get dry. I'll find his number."

The inside of the cabin was lovely and warm. Hayden was sat with his head in his hands. Aunt Fion had put a cup of steaming tea beside him and a plate of biscuits, and she was now gently persuading him to make use of it. Hannah was perched beside him, arms crossed over her chest as if she was cold, and her eyes were wide and distant enough that I knew she'd already been briefed on the events of the morning. It wasn't her dad who'd died, of course, but I doubted the news had been easy on her, all the same.

Beyond them, there was a semi-circle of adults around the table which included all our parents - I could tell at just a glance. The only surprise, really, was seeing Rhodri using one crutch to prop himself up while his other arm was wrapped tightly around Liam. It was hard to tell if there was more wrestling or hugging going on there, but there didn't seem to be anything malicious about it.

I slipped into one of the free chairs and bit back a smile and wondered which of them had been the one to swallow their pride and initiate it. They broke apart with some good-natured thumping, and Rhodri limped over to screw with my hair and squeeze my shoulders and just generally make my life a living hell, which was his way of saying hello. He hadn't been expecting to see either of us today.

"Yo, Eva," Bryn said. I gave him a quick grin, but he'd only served to draw attention to himself. My mother picked him out of the crowd in about two seconds flat as someone who didn't belong in the room. He was sixteen. Not a raider.

"Bryn and Ellis - out," she said. "The rest of you can get comfortable."

My little brother was gone before she'd even finished talking. He took a packet of crisps and scampered up the ladder with them, and not even a second later, I heard bickering break out up there as all the other kids demanded a share. But Bryn narrowed his eyes a bit and set his jaw and dug his heels in.

"Look," he said, "if you want me to leave, you'll have to spend the next ten minutes chasing me around the room. So can't I just-"

That might have worked. If his dad hadn't been a step behind him. Mam gave him a tiny nod. And Bryn was cut off mid-sentence when his father wrapped an arm around him and hauled him bodily out of the front door. There was some swearing and an indignant yelp, but it was cut short when the door closed behind them.

And when I next glanced back at my mother, I saw that she had her phone to her ear. She didn't have to ask for silence. And in a room full of shifters, there was no need to put it on speakerphone. We'd all hear both halves of the conversation.

"Hello, Zach," Mam said, when the call finally connected. There was a note of satisfaction in her voice. "Been a while, hasn't it?"

It took him just seconds to recognise her voice. And then he made a tutting sound in the back of his throat - a strange blend of surprise and satisfaction. "Skye Llewellyn. Your timing is ... almost suspect. I should hang up on you, really, but I will ask first, just on the off chance you feel like helping me out."

"Ah. See, but given that you've spent the last two decades trying to kill me, why would I want to help you out?" Mam drawled.

"Because it's flockies I'm killing today, believe it or not. We're going over to Silver Lake to start a war."

I raised my eyebrows very sharply. Looked over at Liam, all scandalised like, to find him grinning back at me. On any other day, that wouldn't have been funny, because it would have been our problem to solve. But I reckoned my mother had a handle on it. It was lucky we'd called him ... or we might have had some very panicked mind-linking from our flockies when Shadowless had started slaughtering them to find Hayden.

"I wouldn't, if I were you," Mam said.

"Do you want to help attack them or not?" Zach asked impatiently. He'd ignored those last words - presumably because they hadn't been what he'd wanted to hear. "I don't know if you've heard, but Mason Vaughan is dead, and there's a puppy in his place. Barely eighteen, I'd wager. He won't be hard to outmanoeuvre."

"Actually, I think you'd be hard-pressed to win that fight on Silver Lake turf," Mam said, the amusement in her voice evident. "Liam isn't as green as you think he is."

"And how would you know that?" Zach demanded.

"Because I helped raise him."

The silence was so, so satisfying. Mostly because I could just picture the look on Zach's face. He might have been in the process of swapping sides, but he was still an Alpha, and that meant it was fun to wind him up.

"He's actually right here with me now," Mam went on, "and I think you should probably have a word with him before you start any wars."

And with that, Mam passed the phone to Liam, who had a little grin on his lips. He was sat beside me, so I suspected the quiet undertones I'd been hearing down the phoneline were about to get a whole lot louder.

"Hey, Zach," he said, managing to sound vaguely serious.

"What the ever-loving hell is going on?" a furious voice demanded. And sure enough, I winced. My wolf didn't need to be within a dozen miles of the Shadowless Alpha to know that he was riled up.

"Just to like ... clear the air between us," Liam began, "no, I did not know they were going to kill Jace. And no, I am not going to torture Hayden. No point, really. I already know where all the rogues are camped. I know what they're planning. And I know who the flockie traitors are. Mostly because I am one."

"Stop running your mouth for a second and listen, why don't you?" Zach snapped. "I don't give a shit who you're working with, pup. Let Hayden go, and maybe I won't burn your pack to the ground. That's all I have to say to you."

So grumpy. I couldn't say I blamed him. He'd had a trying afternoon ... but then ... hadn't we all?

"You can attack Silver Lake if you really want. I guess. But I don't think my Beta will make it easy for you, and it would also be a colossal waste of time, given that Hayden is not there," Liam told him.

"If you lay so much as a finger on him, I will peel the skin from your bones," Zach said, dangerously quiet.

"Are you not listening to a word I'm saying?" Liam asked. "He's fine. You can ask him yourself if you want."

Liam passed the phone over. It took Hayden a moment to take it because he was hardly paying attention. But once Hannah had given him a gentle nudge, he pressed it against his ear and managed the quickest, most half-hearted smile I had ever seen in my life upon hearing his cousin's voice.

"Yeah, I'm okay. They're friends, I guess. It's not ... what you think. You don't need to be worrying about me. Honest," Hayden said. There was a slight pause, and then he followed it up with, "No one has a gun to my head. No one's even looking at me funny - I swear. I'm safe here, which is great and all, but I don't want to be safe right now. I want to be killing Alphas."

Now, that was what I liked to hear. Before he could say anymore, my mother held her hand out for the phone, and Hayden only hesitated for a heartbeat before handing it over.

"Seems like both of you have a decision to make," Mam said into the phone. "On one side, you have me and all my rogues, Lewis Fletcher's pack, and Liam's pack. On the other side, you have Jaden, Vincent and Chris. That's three all. Your two packs will tip the scales."

"Lewis too?" Zach mused. "You really have been busy, haven't you? It's a good thing Vincent doesn't know, or there would be three Alphas lying dead in that church."

"Is that a threat?"

"Of course not," he said sarcastically. "Because we're all friends now, aren't we? Just like old times. I'll call you back when I've got my men together, and then the two of us will go and raze some packs."

He hung up. Mam went to lean against the counter, bracing her arms against the wood and rubbing at her face. "Somehow, I'm getting the impression that he's not thrilled to be allies with us. But it doesn't matter much, does it? We're better than the murderous pricks."

"Are you?" Hayden snapped. "You'd be stupid to think I'll forget your part in this. The things you made him do are what got him killed. He warned you - hell, I warned you - what would happen if you kept it up. Releasing the prisoners. Voting on the rogue side. Even talking to you. It's the reason he's dead."

Oh, he was angry. He was very angry. I could feel his wolf slam into me - an accident, probably, but the force was enough to make a little shiver run down my spine. Once he grew into that wolf, he'd probably make a decent Alpha. But today, he was not in a room full of flockies, and that force of displeasure ran smack-bang into several brick walls.

Nia was one of them. Her eyes flared, and she leaned forwards in her seat, her whole body thrumming with energy. My mother didn't take him so seriously. She pulled out a chair and sat in it, crossing one leg over the other and then regarding him with a bemused smile. The message was clear, in my opinion - he could throw around challenges all he liked. She wasn't interested.

"I don't really mind what you think of me, kiddo," she said mildly. "I stopped trying to play nice with Alphas when your father burned my home to the ground and rounded up my friends and family like animals. Besides ... before very long, it'll be Nia you're dealing with, not me. And until then, I think you're sensible enough to keep the peace."

Hayden just stared at her.

I hated all this. Almost as much as Liam did, if the look on his face was any indication. We couldn't afford to be fighting amongst ourselves right now. Maybe Mam realised that, too. She leant forwards in her chair, and when she spoke again, her voice was slow and steady.

"You have a choice to make, don't you? Us or the people who smiled and called him a friend and an ally and then put knives in him. I expect you'll make the right decision for your pack, Alpha Lloyd. You can't fight them all alone."

Hayden's eyes were so very, very blue. And so very wide all of a sudden, because that was the first time anyone had ever called him an Alpha. I didn't think it had actually occurred to him, amongst all the chaos, that the title now belonged to him. It would have been his in a few months anyway ... but having it thrust upon him so suddenly ... well, I didn't envy him.

"I'll accept your help," he said slowly. "But only for my pack's sake, and when this is done, I want nothing more to do with you."

"Fine with me," Mam replied. "Have you got someone who can advise you? Not just about pack stuff, mind. I want people who know about fighting."

"He's got me," Hannah murmured.

Mam managed a smile for the first time since we'd arrived. "I know, pup. And you're fierce enough, but I want seasoned adults, because that's who you're going up against."

"My mother knows the pack inside-out," Hayden said wearily. "She can advise me about most things. And my aunt will help with the fighting. She's trained and everything."

Mam exchanged a sceptical glance with my dad. It was clear that she wasn't impressed by the prospect of Hayden starting a war under the guidance of a single adult with some combat training.

"Right," she said carefully. "Well, I'd give you Ollie, but I need him. And I'd give you Rhys, but your entire pack knows what he looks like and who he is. Fion's my best tapper. And Nia has her own raiding team to lead. So we might just have to hope that your aunt has got brains in her head."

"She has. It runs in the family."

Mam snorted fondly and clapped him around the shoulder. "Sure, it does, pup. Take this. Call your mother. Tell her you're safe, and then I'll take you home myself."

She tossed the phone into his lap.

"I don't actually know her number," Hayden murmured. When we all just stared at him, he just tapped the side of his head, as if it was obvious, which I supposed it was. We were often at different ends of Snowdonia because we were so mobile. But Hayden had probably never gone ten miles from his mam before we'd kidnapped him.

Suddenly, I was not filled with confidence. Hayden was sweet and all, but he was also pretty naïve when you got past the stony exterior. We were seriously hoping that a seventeen-year-old boy with limited life experience could help us win a war. Why, oh why, did the flockies think that leadership was a heritable quality? And to the extent that they'd rather have a kid with genetic qualifications in charge than a grown adult?

But maybe I was a hypocrite. Liam wasn't much older than he was, and I was perfectly happy having him lead Silver Lake. Perhaps because he seemed so grown in comparison.

"I do," Hannah said wearily. "Give it here."

He handed it over readily enough, and she gave it back the second she'd dialled the number. It rang for a long, long time. Hayden was frowning before a minute was up, and I got the impression that his mother was rarely far from her phone.

When it did finally connect, Hayden was wary enough that he didn't say anything at first. And neither did the person who'd picked it up. The silence stretched uncomfortably.

"Who is this?" a voice asked eventually. It was a man, and the phoneline distorted it, but I still recognised it well enough. The events of this morning had seared it into my memory.

I'd been right. Jaden was already at New Dawn. And I dreaded to think what that meant for Hayden's family. Either he was sat there lying to them or he was throwing them all into prison as rogue accomplices.

Hayden had gone very still. He sat there, fury creeping over his face, and I could sense the urge to say something. To make threats in a way he hadn't been able to in the packmeet. Maybe just to give his uncle a piece of his mind.

Mam gave him a tiny shake of her head. And he hardly even seemed to process it, but Hannah put a hand on his arm and ever-so-gently pulled it downwards before prying the phone from his fingers. She ended the call and then turned it off for good measure.

"Shit," Mam said quietly. "That's not an option, then. You'll have to sit here for a bit while we get organised for a full frontal assault of Riverside. That should be enough to get your uncle running home. I'll talk to my raiders now."

She didn't wait for him to answer, which was good, because she would have been waiting a long time. She just went to the door. Uncle Ollie followed because he was never more than half a step behind her. We were left with the rest of the parents, two very shell-shocked flockies and Rhodri.

"Have you lot had lunch?" Dad asked.

I shook my head. We'd intended to grab some fast food on the way back from the packmeet. It had been forgotten in all the chaos, and I could probably have gone the rest of the day without remembering because my stomach hadn't said a word on the subject.

"Right. We can fix that."

Dad started piling lunch foods onto the table. Haven wasn't very well stocked up, given that we hadn't been there for months, but he had some long-life stuff which might actually have originated from the Silver Lake kitchens. I snatched at a pot of noodles and saw that Dad was already opening a can of baked beans for Liam without even, like, asking him. He knew what we all liked.

I put a pan on the hearth to heat some water for my noodles. The warmth from the fire stung my arms and cheeks and chased away the tentative shivers which had begun on the long walk to the cabin. It helped having something to do - something to focus on. Anything was better than just sitting and fidgeting.

Hayden was a little trickier. The whole time we were eating, he was just sitting there, gazing into nothingness. Dad tried to get him some lunch, but he wouldn't say what he wanted.

Liam ate his way through a small mountain of baked beans and toast, but he was so restless afterwards - still hungry, probably, because he'd lost weight in the last few months and his body was fighting to fix that - that Dad put another packet of biscuits in front of him. That, of course, meant that they were also dangerously close to me, so I used a couple to wash down my noodles.

It felt weird to be doing something so normal. But at the same time, my mind was wandering of its own accord, trying to work out what would happen next. Once the fighting did start, it would be fast and messy, and I had a suspicion we weren't going to get a break for a very long time.

"Never in a million years did I think there'd be two Alphas sat in this kitchen," Dad said quietly. "And never in a billion did I think I'd be feeding them both biscuits. Do you actually like bourbons, Hayden? I think I've got cookies here somewhere if you don't."

"I'm not hungry," he said without even looking up.

Rhodri limped towards him. Hayden was sat down, so he loomed over him, and even as I watched, bewildered, Rhodri thumped his shoulder. That jolted him out of the shocky haze he'd been living in for the last hour. But it also got Hannah on her feet and glowering protectively.

"Eat it," Rhodri said roughly, dragging the plate closer to Hayden. "And then get your head on straight."

"Rhodri," Dad said. It was a clear recall, and Rhodri, who was usually so confrontational in nature, just gave Hayden one last scathing look and then sat himself down.

Dad took his place in front of the flockies. Hannah eased back into a sitting position, but she stayed on the very edge of her seat, one eye fixed on Rhodri at all times. She didn't seem to think Dad was a threat, but that wasn't very surprising when he was crouching beside Hayden with such a sympathetic expression on his face.

"I'm going to make you a sandwich now," he told him. "I suggest you try and eat it. I know you're not feeling like it right now, but once you leave here, it might be a few days before you get another decent meal. There hasn't been a pack war in living memory, but I promise you they're not civilised affairs."

Hayden stared at him. His throat bobbed once. I imagined he was beginning to grasp the enormity of it all now, just like I was. A few hours ago, the phrase 'pack war' wouldn't have been in anyone's vocabulary. Now it felt almost inevitable. Hayden looked at the food. He looked around at Hannah, as if wanting reassurance, but he didn't get any. And then he gave my dad a tiny, tiny nod.