As I passed Sam, he clutched at my leg with a weak, bloodstained hand. He was so beyond saving that it didn't even occur to me to try. It was a miracle those holes in his neck hadn't killed him already, in all honesty. But I knelt beside him and took his hand in mine.

"The kids..." he began slowly. The words were mangled and hoarse, but I understood. Just. "Are they ... are they okay?"

Oh, Goddess. He had heard that scream. Everyone within a mile radius would have heard it. But I wasn't going to tell him. I couldn't. He was about to die, and there was just ... there was just no point.

"Yeah, Sammy. They're all fine," I said, trying to force a smile onto my lips. "Thanks to you, I'm guessing. Try not to speak. We'll get you some help now. You're going to be okay, too."

My hand was shaking. I hadn't even realised I was still holding the kitchen knife until I had started speaking. I knew what I was supposed to do now. A quick death was often the last and most valuable gift we could give someone. Goddess knew it was kinder than what would happen if he was still alive when the flockies got here. But still I hesitated.

"You're not ... very good ... at lying, Eva," Sam said. "Go ... save someone else. I'm a grown-up. I think I can manage ... to die ... all by myself."

I swallowed hard. How was I supposed to answer that? He was closing his eyes, as if that would get rid of me faster. Still his breaths came in racking gasps. Sometimes, our bodies didn't know when to give up.

I didn't see my dad come over until he was knelt beside us. Gently but firmly, he took the knife from my hand. I didn't fight him.

"Bryn's in a bad way," Dad told me quietly. I knew what he was offering - a chance for me to leave. To not have to see this next part. But I shook my head, and I stayed there a few seconds longer so I could keep holding Sam's hand as the knife went into his skull.

It was over mercifully quickly. His hand went limp, and then his chest stopped rising and falling. Dad wiped the knife on his own jeans. He'd helped raise Sam, but he hadn't hesitated. I was willing to bet he'd had to do that before. We all did, sooner or later.

Cassidy, Rhodri, Poppy ... and now Sam. That was four. And there were another three kids lying on the patio, fighting for their lives.

I let my body find its own way to the ward. I had to step over Rhodri's body to reach the supplies I needed. I didn't want to look at him, but it was difficult not to. He looked so much smaller lying there than he ever had when he'd been alive. The blood around him was beginning to darken as it dried.

How could he be gone? We'd fought so hard to keep him alive after Silver Lake. He'd beaten all the odds and lived then. But it had only taken one stupid mistake, one careless slip, and that was the end of it. How was I supposed to accept that we could all die so quickly? And so randomly?

I went outside again with my arms full of fluid bags, needles, antibiotics, tubing, IV catheters, bandages and all the gauze we owned. I was bleeding on it all, which wasn't very sterile, but it was the least of our worries right then. It was all dumped onto the paving stones anyway when I knelt beside Bryn.

I eased his mouth open to get a good look at his gums. Pale pink. Not a good start. When I pressed on them, it took almost three seconds for the colour to return. Also not good. But as long as I could keep his heart beating, there was no reason he shouldn't heal himself over the next few hours.

So I got him set up with a bag of fluids to replace the blood he'd lost, and then I moved onto the next patient, who was deathly pale by then. I didn't have to examine Matty to know that he'd need a line. The blood was still spurting from his stomach, which meant it was an arterial bleed, and he'd need all the fluids he could get.

While I was working on him, we were joined by another group of survivors. Hayden and Hannah were in the lead, looking very much battered but alive. They had already shifted back and changed into their own clothes, so it was safe to assume they'd never made it far from the field.

Behind them was my mother and the remains of Emmett and Ryker's raiding team. There was only about ten of them, the kids included, so they would probably come with us rather than strike out on their own. There was safety in numbers.

I didn't even have the energy to be wary of Joel, who was carrying his little nephew near the back of the group. He looked like he'd taken quite the beating. But that didn't stop him staring at me with all his usual strange intensity. A tiny smile flitted across his lips when he first laid eyes on me. So quick I might have imagined it.

I turned my attention back to Matty. It didn't stop me feeling the weight of those eyes on me, but it did give me something else to think about. I packed gauze into his wound until my hands were drenched in blood.

Mam stood and looked around herself for a moment, looking oddly lost. It took her a while to take it all in and get her brain working. I reckoned we were all in shock today. The first thing she did was kneel beside Eira and run a hand down her limp, blood-stained fur. It didn't take long for her to come to the same conclusion that I had - Eira was actually fine, as it turned out. She'd bitten her tongue during the seizure, but that would heal up in a few minutes.

"They'll burn it," I said quietly. I wasn't talking to anyone in particular, but Mam was the only one close enough to hear. Dad was building stretchers. Uncle Rhys had carried Jess into the edge of the trees so she wouldn't see her mother's body, and he was now trying his best to stop her crying. Our patients were, for the most part, unconscious.

"The cabin?" she asked me.

I nodded. I didn't know why this - of all things - was what I'd decided to fixate on. But it was bothering me. It was the closest thing to a permanent home we had. And as soon as we were gone, the flockies would set fire to it. Just because they could.

"They're not going to burn it, Eva," Mam said quietly. "We are."

I turned to look at her. I understood the reasoning well enough, but it still stung me. The smoke would mask our escape, and it would stop a house full of our clothing falling into the wrong hands. Even an old jacket would hold enough scent to help them track us through the woods. It wasn't as if we could make a quick getaway in the cars. They were parked behind the flockie lines and would undoubtedly be under heavy guard.

"I know it's not much consolation," she continued, probably having noticed the look on my face. "But ... I don't think we would ever feel at home here again. Not after today."

She had a point. I could hardly stand to be here as it was. The feeling of safety was shattered. I wouldn't be able to lay eyes on the cabin again without remembering this exhausted, broken moment when we had found out what a few minutes of carelessness had cost us. So yes, we'd burn it, and we'd burn our dead with it because that was the closest thing to a funeral that we could offer them.

All around us, the others were hard at work getting ready to leave. Matty was being eased onto a stretcher. Everyone else was forming up with their arms full of kids and hastily-grabbed supplies. It would only be a minute or two longer before we were gone. I ran through a list of names in my head, checking each person off in turn. There were a few missing.

"Has anyone seen Liam?" I asked. "Or Nia?"

There were a lot of shaking heads. A few shrugs.

"And Rhodri," Uncle Rhys said. "I haven't seen him either."

I flinched. There was no reason why he would know about his son yet. But I didn't envy whoever was going to have to break that news. Even as I watched, Dad went over to him and began talking in a too-quiet voice. I moved my eyes away, giving them what little privacy I could offer in this shit-awful situation.

I found myself looking at Hannah instead. She was close enough to hear what Dad was saying, and she went very still very quickly. As far as I was aware, she hadn't even liked Rhodri, but he was still her mate. It probably wouldn't rest easy with her.

"We can't wait for them," Mam said. She looked at me now. "Can you run?"

"Yeah."

Apparently, it didn't sound very convincing, because Mam eyed me carefully before she next spoke. Yes, I was so tired that there was darkness tinging the edge of my vision. And yes, I was aware that some of my wounds were being a little slow to clot. But I knew how far I could push my body. I knew how many warning signs I could ignore. And I knew where my breaking point was. Those were things you could only learn the hard way, but today they were telling me that I had a few miles left in me.

"Okay," she told me. "Go find them. Nia might leave with her raiders, but I'd rather know she's safe before she does. We'll head down-wind. If they're too injured to walk, link us. I can send someone back to help you."

"I'll go with her," someone said from behind me.

And that would have probably been a welcome offer had the voice not belonged to Joel.

I stared him down. "Like hell you will."

But he wasn't asking my permission. Mam gave him a slight nod, because she wasn't aware of our constant enmity and was just happy that I would have some back-up. And honestly, I didn't have the energy to argue any more. I just scowled at him and headed into the trees at a brisk walk. He followed me without a second's hesitation. First, I could hear his boots scuffing against the leaves, and then he was alongside me, matching my pace.

"You'd seriously rather be alone out here than with me?" Joel demanded, not ten seconds into the trees. "Even with the flockies coming back? Shit, Eva. Why? I swear to the bloody Goddess that I've never done anything to you. Well, nothing that bad, anyway."

"Just shut up and walk," I snapped at him. "Or better yet - make yourself useful and shift. The sooner we find them, the sooner we can leave."

Joel looked a little taken aback by my tone, much to my frustration. Hadn't he worked out that I hadn't wanted to be saddled with him in the first place? He rubbed at the back of his neck and eyed me warily and murmured, "Alright. Nia and Kendrick, right? Shouldn't take too long. Nia was going south, last I saw her. I'll start there."

He stopped walking to take his clothes off and shift. I kept going, because I did not want to see the show, and frankly, I didn't want to see him at all. We'd cover more ground if I was in my fur, too, but I wanted to give my wounds a few more minutes to scab over before I tore them in the shift. So I started searching in a different way.

I couldn't reach Nia through the mind-link. Like ... couldn't even find her. It was as if she didn't exist. And there were a few reasons why that might happen. Obviously, it wasn't because she was too far away from me. Which left us with two options. Dead or unconscious. Lily would have been a sobbing wreck if the bond had broken, so I was willing to bet that Nia was somewhere in these acres of woodland. Out like a light. And I had no way to find her except wandering around like a lost sheep, which was going to take a very, very long time.

I tried Liam next. Our minds touched after only a second's thought. He felt close, and we didn't need any words to convey the sheer relief we were both feeling. He was okay, and so was I. Smiling a little for the first time in nearly an hour, I adjusted my course slightly so that I was heading directly towards him.

It was only a minute or two before I saw him. He'd only managed to get one arm into his jacket. The other was tucked carefully against his side. He was covered in blood, same as me, but the difference was, most of it was his. And since he was the better fighter by far, it was probably safe to assume that he'd been taking on two or three flockies at once to get so injured. Probably this entire time.

When he got close enough, I closed the distance quickly and embraced him as gently as my desperation would allow. He wrapped his uninjured arm around me and pulled me closer still, and I felt his chest rise and fall in one, big steady movement. It wasn't very long, as hugs went, because I stepped back again, all too aware of the time pressure.

A handful of rogues were behind him. Half had shifted back, and half padded around on tired paws. I recognised some of them from my time with Nia's raiders and others as the surviving members of Syd Jacob's raiding team. It seemed like everyone was scattered and wandering around aimlessly.

"Is everyone alright?" Liam asked me. He meant our family.

"No. Not everyone," I said. And as unfair as it was, I didn't want to say any more than that. If I said it out loud, it would be real. So I just let the silence sit for a moment, and then I asked, "You haven't seen Nia, have you? I can't feel her."

He shook his head slowly. "Not since it all kicked off."

"Okay," I said, running a hand through my hair in frustration. "Where have you been? That'll narrow it down a bit."

"I was trying to come to Haven, but I got caught up fighting before I got half a mile. And after that, I was looking for Vincent or Jaden or someone else important to kill. Reckoned they might back-off if I managed it."

"And did you?" I asked, because that would have explained why the flockies had buggered off at such high speeds. It wouldn't have been the first time he'd killed an Alpha.

"No," he said slowly. "I got close, but then something happened. Something weird. I don't know what it was, but it scared them, and they pulled everyone back, but I think they're about to change their minds about that. They're forming up again. We really need to go. Whatever happened, it was all the way south, past all the camps. Maybe that's where Nia is."

"Maybe," I agreed. If someone had done something weird and terrifying enough to spook an entire army, it was safe to assume a Llewellyn was probably responsible. And Nia would be my first guess of them all. Not that there were many left.

As I turned away from Liam for the first time, I saw the wolf who had been watching us with unblinking eyes. Joel. Of course. He couldn't have gone very far from me in the first place, if the sound of voices had brought him back so soon.

Liam seemed to notice him the same time that I did, and the two of them ended up staring at each other for a long, uncomfortable moment. I was sure Joel would have preferred that we'd found Liam in pieces if we'd found him at all. Still, neither of them were in any mood to fight today. A few heartbeats, and they both averted their eyes in that stiff, polite way that guys did when they were trying to forget the hierarchy.

Joel turned a tight circle on the spot before taking off at a steady trot. He flicked his tail as he went, and I knew he wanted us to follow. Maybe he'd found Nia's scent already. He was certainly heading in the most promising direction, because the sun was on our right.

I shifted back into my wolf with some reluctance. Liam followed suit after having a few quick words with the other rogues to send them off into the trees, given that they had a few kids with them and our mission could take a long time. Once that was done, he limped alongside me. I wouldn't have been surprised if there was something broken, because he wasn't putting much weight on that forepaw.

I stuck close to him. Half because my wolf liked it, and half because I knew it would be a great deterrent to stop Joel coming any closer. For once, he was having the decency to know when he wasn't wanted. He kept his nose to the ground and paused his tracking only to cast long, mournful glances back at me under the pretext of checking that we were keeping up.

I made sure to brush against Liam every time he was looking. Him and me were packmates. We'd been sequestered together for months now, first at the lodge and then at Silver Lake, and our wolves were closer than they'd ever been.

But my wolf knew Joel too. She remembered running with him when we'd been seeing each other, and she was a treacherous little bitch, because she wouldn't have minded saying hello. Wolves didn't understand human grudges or the nuances of our bickering. The only time she had ever got the slightest bit grumpy with Joel was when he'd been picking physical fights with Liam. That, she could understand. Controlling behaviour in a romantic relationship ... not so much.

The forest began to change before we'd gone two miles. It was darker. Gloomier. Perhaps it was because the trees grew closer together here. Perhaps it was because a cloud was passing overhead. Either way, I was pricking my ears up before long, and the hackles on the back of my neck rose.

In other parts of the forest, bodies were few and far between. But here, they seemed to be everywhere. I had to step over two in quick succession, and then we passed a group of almost a dozen. There were far more flockies than rogues. Ahead of us, Joel had slowed to almost a walk. He padded between the corpses with his tail low and his head on a swivel. He was uneasy. And weren't we all?

So many dead. And none of them seemed to have a mark on them. No blood. Nothing. Something was badly wrong here.

It was right in the heart of that destruction that we found Nia. The only living, breathing person we'd encountered for half a mile. She was surrounded by a dozen bodies, and she was kneeling beside one of them, seemingly checking for a pulse. She'd found herself an oversized t-shirt and a pair of shorts.

My forehead creased, because she wasn't unconscious. Or even close to unconscious. But when I reached into the mind-link, I still couldn't feel her. It was only when she brushed against my mind with hers that I knew she still existed. But she was gone again, like a bloody ghost, the moment she withdrew. I wondered if she knew about that weirdness, or if it all felt normal to her.

She looked up at us and stood slowly. A little smile spread across her lips, even as she glanced us over, checking that all our limbs were still attached. It was only a heartbeat before that smile was gone again, and she looked over her shoulder warily. To my surprise, she pressed a finger to her lips.

Okay. Why, though? It wasn't like I was about to start howling. Instead, I sent a silent question across the link even as I looked about myself, eyeing each lifeless body in turn. Somehow, I didn't think it was a coincidence that she was the only person left alive.

"Was this... Did you do this?" I asked hesitantly.

Nia pushed back against my mind so roughly and instantaneously that I took a few nervous steps backwards. It didn't hurt, exactly, but it was an uncomfortable feeling.

"No," she said aloud. "No, I did not."

Her eyes were wide and intense, and I suspected that she was trying to warn me off replying. Right. Fine then. No linking. Maybe that was what she'd meant by her shushing. I still didn't understand why, though.

At least ... not until her gaze slid back to a particularly gloomy patch of forest, and I saw the pair of eyes glowing there. Gold eyes. Feline eyes.

Oh, shit, oh, shit, oh shit. Not now. Of all the times for him to flip out- Goddess above. Why did it have to be now? I found myself edging backwards pre-emptively, just so that I could have a metre of extra space to turn and run when he did decide to charge us.

Liam came to stand alongside me, his body between me and the Shadowcat and his head low, as if he actually intended to fight the damn thing. But then ... I supposed he couldn't outrun it. Not on that leg. And where did that leave the rest of us? I wasn't going to abandon him here.

Nia had turned to face him properly, but she hadn't dared shift yet. Joel was prowling through the undergrowth, tail swishing as he tried to loop around the massive cat. He hadn't been seen yet. There was every chance that he'd be able to take it by surprise. There was also every chance that he'd be the one to set it off, but I couldn't warn him of that without using the link.

The time for panicking was over as quickly as it had begun, when that big, watchful pair of eyes blinked at us, and then a shape materialised from the gloom as Old Jeff took a slow step forwards. It was the first time I'd seen him so still, and I took a moment to marvel at the sleek body and inky fur. It was probably the last thing I'd see before I died, so I might as well get a good look now. It would be harder to appreciate it when I was bleeding out.

He padded forwards. His body language was a lot more relaxed than I had been expecting. His shoulders were loose, and he paused to shake himself before he'd gone more than a few paces. Someone had torn his ear in half, and that was bleeding quite heavily, but aside from that, there was hardly a scratch on him.

Just like the flockies didn't have a scratch on them. It was becoming increasingly clear that he hadn't killed them with his teeth and claws. But how had he killed them? And how long did we have before he did the same thing to us?

He was dangerously close to Nia. If he decided to attack her, she wouldn't have time to shift before he did some serious damage. If I were her, I would have done it out of sheer, reckless panic, but she stood perfectly still, holding her nerve as he got closer and closer.

And then he was so close that she could have reached out and touched him. I could see where the dark fur on his muzzle had faded to white over countless years. I could see his wandering eye. It was weeping so profusely that it had left a tear track on the fur below.

He tipped his head to one side, regarding Nia. To my horror, he took another step closer and then began rubbing his cheek against her leg like he was some oversized house cat. And then he licked her hand. She was doing her best to keep still, but I could see the unease written all over her face and knotting every muscle in her body.

Just to top it all, the giant cat folded himself to the ground and began rolling around on her shoes. It would have been sweet, perhaps, if he hadn't just killed a hundred flockies without ever touching them. Instead, it was the most unnerving thing I had ever seen in my life.

And things were only getting worse, because apparently it was my turn next. Jeff picked himself up, satisfied that Nia was covered in his scent, and he made a beeline for me and Liam next. He did not like wolves. I knew that much. We were taking a risk by even being shifted near him, but we'd be taking a bigger risk by running away.

Liam had gone rigid. He didn't turn to face the Shadowcat as it prowled closer and closer to us, but he did swing his head around. I saw his lip lifting in an almost-snarl before he caught himself. He was torn in a constant battle to relax, and I suspected it wasn't going to end well.

It was a lot easier to be brave when it was someone else in danger. I brushed past him, doubling back so it was me who was nearer the crazy old man. And then I did what I did best and pinned my ears back and wagged my tail nice and low. I had a lot more practice than Liam did at being relaxed around threatening people - in all honesty, that was what having a submissive wolf was all about.

If I wanted to be ready to defend myself, I was going to risk being the thing that set him off. So what I was doing, really, was taking a bet that he'd killed enough people today. That he was tired out and playing nice now. And besides, we'd met before. He didn't know Liam.

I could feel his breath on my fur. He was so close that I could have counted his whiskers. He stretched his neck to sniff my muzzle, much to my discomfort. It was an effort to keep my muscles loose and my tail wagging. Although I couldn't see him, I was pretty sure Liam was standing at my shoulder, ready to lunge for the Shadowcat's throat if he set a paw wrong.

But ... he didn't. He sniffed me, and he butted his head against my cheek gently, and then he yowled, already turning away. He'd lost interest. Clearly, I wasn't as fascinating to him as Nia was.

A ray of sunlight had finally found its way through the canopy. He found it, and he plonked himself down to sunbathe there, not seeming to notice that his sprawling legs were resting on the tail of one of the wolves he'd killed. I could have sworn he was purring.

He was staring at me with half-lidded eyes. The weird thing was ... they didn't look as sharp as I remembered. There was a glazed look to them - a kind of vacancy that made me think he wasn't so dangerous, after all. Maybe he was acting like a house cat because that was the extent of his mental capacity right now. Maybe something had snapped in there.

I looked up at Nia. I wondered if she'd seen it too. And sure enough, she ran a hand through her hair, looking wretched and indecisive, but she did force a smile onto her lips.

"Hey, Jeff," she said. It was an overly cheerful tone. The kind you might use to talk to a child. "You want to come with us? We're going for a run."

The big cat turned towards her, ears pricked. And then, surprisingly enough, he rose to his feet in one smooth motion and turned a little circle, watching Nia all the while as if he was impatient to be off.

Great. So he'd be coming. And I'd spend the entire run wondering if he was about to snap my neck. Nia retreated a little way to strip off and shift away from prying eyes. I saw Joel take a moment too long to peel his gaze away from her and got the overwhelming urge to bite him. But that would have involved getting close to him ... which didn't really appeal to me.

Even as I thought that, Joel finally got tired of sitting at a respectful distance and came trotting towards us, heedless of the overgrown kitten. He was hopeless. He couldn't seem to go five minutes without interacting with me. I didn't want to think too hard about why that might be.

He wasn't deterred by Liam swinging his head around and giving him a warning stare. I sank to my belly, fighting my wolf all the way, and I ended up half underneath Liam, hoping that Joel would get the message. And that my wolf would get the message. We did not need to greet him. It would only encourage him.

Of course, Joel didn't get the message. He had no manners whatsoever. He ignored a lifted lip, and he ignored a growl, and he reached his nose down to sniff at my tail in a way that Liam didn't like one bit.

And just like that, they were fighting. It happened so quick that I didn't see who started it. It was all noise and no substance - snapping, mostly, but there was fresh blood on Liam's muzzle by the time I managed to put my body between them. Neither of them wanted to hurt me. And although they kept on snapping and snarling at each other, the danger was past.

Nia wasn't slow to come and help me separate them properly. Her wolf was big and imposing, and she used Joel's scruff to drag him backwards and tip him onto his back. She held him there like a puppy, her teeth around his neck, until she got a half-arsed submission. He might not have been scared of Liam, but he did have a healthy fear of her.

I licked at Liam's muzzle absent-mindedly. I didn't know what to do. I was painfully aware that it was all because of me, and I felt like an idiot for not having guessed it would happen. It was obvious that Joel was not going to drop it. Or leave me alone. Or even pretend like he wasn't still infatuated.

"You think this is a good time to kill each other?" Nia demanded through the link. "How bloody stupid can you be? Get up. Get moving."

I cast a nervous glance at old Jeff, worried that the mind-linking would have upset him. But he was now pawing at a chink of sunlight on the forest floor, utterly oblivious to us all. Even the fight hadn't set him off. Well ... great. One less problem, I supposed.

Hunting howls in the distance. They were echoed quickly by warning howls from rogue muzzles, telling the rest of us to get lost. Liam had been right. The flockies had found their nerve again, and they were coming back for more.

Joel was allowed up at last. He shot one last nasty glower at Liam, this time including me in it too, and that was all he got time for before Nia harried him into a slow, grudging run. I followed behind, keeping one eye on the big Shadowcat as he trotted alongside us.

We had a lot of ground to cover. It was more than a mile back to the cabin, and I knew the flockies would probably cut us off before we could get there. Especially with Liam limping. Still, it was worth trying, because then we could become the rearguard for our family.

Once I'd settled into running, the distance seemed to melt away. I had nothing to do but think, and that was the very last thing I wanted to be doing. Nia didn't know her little sister was dead yet. And I wasn't sure it was my place to tell her, but I also wasn't sure if it was fair to keep it from her until we did find someone more suitable.

The hunting howls sounded closer with every minute that passed. I reckoned we were cutting it close by the time the cabin came into sight. True to her word, Mam had set it alight before they'd left. The flames were beginning to lick at the walls. Another few minutes, and it would be engulfed completely. The smoke swirled towards us in a choking cloud. The wind was so weak that it was everywhere, but the majority was blowing north.

Sam and Aunt Cassidy were gone. There were faint trails of blood leading into the cabin. They must have dragged them inside to burn rather than leave them for the flockies. I stopped at the edge of the pool of blood which had been beneath Bryn, and then I turned to look back at Nia.

"They'll have followed the smoke," I told her through the link. "We'll catch them in half an hour or so if we walk fast."

"They left on foot?" Nia demanded.

"To carry Bryn and Matty. And Eira, I guess. And it's not like Jess can shift, so..."

She nodded absent-mindedly. "If we're going to be walking, let's get dressed here. No clothes where we're going."

We shifted. One of the bins of clothes hadn't caught fire yet, and I wondered if Mam had left it for us deliberately. Joel was a little slow off the mark to get his clothes and turn away, so I made a point of staring at him until he did. Even then, I felt more exposed than normal when I was swapping my fur for skin. He'd made no secret over the years that he didn't see the harm in looking. He couldn't have been further from Liam, who was allowed to see me naked but still made a point of closing his eyes when I was shifting or getting changed in front of him.

Old Jeff was still behaving himself, remarkably. But when I was pulling my shirt on, he did lean down to lap at one of the puddles of blood. I exchanged a horrified look with the others, because that was just gross. He seemed to think so, too. He made a face and spat it out again, only to settle down and start licking his paws instead.

Nia had sat down to lace her walking boots. She wasn't rushing, but I did notice that she was keeping one eye on the trees, making sure the flockies didn't creep up on us.

"Bryn and Matty ... they're hurt?" she asked me, now that we could finally talk. The language of wolves didn't allow for much in the way of nuanced conversation.

"Yeah, pretty bad," I said, pulling a hoodie over my head with some difficulty. I was starting to feel the full pain of my injuries, and it made moving ... challenging. My fingers were stiff and battered. My shoes were miles away, but I'd found a pair of Eira's trainers. They had Velcro, not laces, to make her life easier, and today they were making my life easier, too.

"But everyone else is okay, right?" she asked. I wondered if those bloodstains were nagging at her. If they had belonged to flockies, the bodies would be lying alongside them, and there was a lot of blood.

Shit. I wasn't going to lie to her. She was looking at me expectantly. Liam was looking at me expectantly. And already the silence had dragged so long that it was evident the answer was not what they wanted to hear.

"No," I said. "They're not. Sam's dead. And Cass."

I didn't even want to look at them after the words came out. Because I was already on the verge of tears, just having said it, and watching them process that information was going to take me over the brink. Grief shared was not grief halved - the opposite, perhaps.

I was well aware that it would hurt them more than it was hurting me. It had been Rhys and Cassidy who'd taken Liam in, technically, so I supposed she'd been more of a mother to him than anyone else. Sam had been closer to Nia than a lot of us. The oldest of the bunch had always stuck together.

I didn't know why I felt like crying now, after so much time in a state of shock and denial. The tears didn't even seem to come with any strong emotions attached. It was just my body reacting. And we hadn't even finished yet.

"And," I said, trying to swallow the lump in my throat. "And Rhodri."

Rhodri who was probably burning to a crisp inside the cabin as we spoke. Rhodri who hadn't been well enough to defend himself. Rhodri who hadn't even had time to realise that he was dying.

Liam had been looking shell-shocked before. He'd frozen in place when I'd told him about Cass and Sam, the disbelief evident on his face. But now he turned to look at me, ever-so-slowly, like he was begging me to take it back. And I wished I could.

Joel just made a face and looked away. In all likelihood, he didn't give a shit that Rhodri was dead. They'd never got along. I almost wished he'd say something flippant in that moment. Some snarky comment that would give me an excuse to hate him for the rest of our lives. But he did know where the line was when it came to pissing me off. He'd toe it all day long without ever stepping across.

I scratched my arm. There was another and. My intonation had made that very clear. But the next one was even harder. I found myself staring blankly at Nia. I was so numb by then that I wasn't really feeling it.

Another howl ripped through the air behind us. It was enough to jolt us all into a walk at long last. We headed into the smoke, heedless that it stung our eyes and half-choked us. It would hide our scents, and that was all that mattered right now.

Well ... it wasn't the only thing that mattered. Nia had noticed - that my eyes were on her and not Liam. The fact that we were walking only made it more telling.

"Eva," she said. "What aren't you telling me?"

I flinched, because now I'd have to say it. "I wasn't quick enough getting there. And it all happened really fast."

"Eva."

Shit. Okay then. I eyed her, and then I forced myself to open my mouth. "Poppy hit her head, and ... she's not ... um... She's..."

"No," Nia said immediately.

I shook my head and stared down at my feet. "I'm sorry, Nia."

"No, see, she can't be dead. Because she's two. And if they so much as touched her..."

The look on my face told her everything she needed to know. And the first stab of Nia's anger and grief tore its way into my mind with enough force to make me sway on my feet. She reigned it back a heartbeat later, an apology shining in her eyes. And she kept the rest of it to herself. I would have almost preferred to feel it, because at least then I'd be feeling something.

Nia didn't speak again. We walked in silence, heads down, trudging downwind as the smoke blew around and stung our eyes. A sense of hopelessness was beginning to nag at me. The howls behind us were ever-more distant with every passing minute, but I couldn't help worrying that when they did find our trail, they would close all of that distance in about twenty minutes flat without hardly trying. But we couldn't pick up the speed unless we left our injured and the little kids behind, which was not an option for just ... so many reasons.

We ran into the rearguard before we saw the rest of them. Ryker Sullivan had been waiting behind a tree trunk to see if the footsteps behind had belonged to friends or flockies. He stepped out once he'd got a good look at us. He was too worn to manage a smile, but he did nod us in the direction of everyone else.

It was Joel whose jacket he grabbed, once the rest of us had all passed by. I glanced backwards as surreptitiously as I could. Ryker was eyeing the fresh blood on his neck from where Nia's teeth had broken the skin.

"What happened to you?" he asked.

Joel, in all fairness, was no snitch. He didn't glance our way as he muttered, "Nothing."

"Alright," Ryker said slowly. It was evident that he hadn't bought it. He cast a lingering look at the rest of us, as if he'd guessed what might have happened. "I could use some help scouting. Stay with me. At least for an hour or so."

Thank the Goddess. I didn't hear any arguments from Joel. Not that he could argue, really. Ryker was second only to his mate when it came to commanding their raiding team. My steps felt a fraction lighter the further we got from them.

Our family was another few hundred metres down the path. They had paused for a moment - probably to wait for us, but they were taking it as an opportunity to swap loads. A few miles of forced march with a sixteen-year-old slung over your shoulders was enough to tire anyone out.

We only had one stretcher, and Matty was on it. He looked in a bad way. Bryn and Eira were both in wolf-form and much easier to carry. Even as I watched, Liam went and shouldered my sister to give Dad a break. He was trying not to use his left arm for anything, and I saw him wince as her weight settled on that shoulder.

Dumbass boy. Maybe, in a few hours, if we were safe enough to stop for a while, I would take a look at it. Until then, he'd have to manage. There wasn't a person here who wasn't injured in some way.

I heard Nia stifle a sob when she laid eyes on her parents. It astonished me - not least because I hadn't seen her cry since we were kids. But if there was ever a cause to cry, it would be Poppy. Nia went to them, and they wrapped her in their arms. All of them hugging. All of them in tears. Lily watched on with tired, reddened eyes.

I felt yet another heart-wrenching stab of grief. It wasn't fair, and it wasn't right, and I was certain that it wasn't the kind of pain that ever went away. We all lived with death, but this was a lot. Four in one day - taken from us so suddenly. Losing a kid was always shattering. And the circumstances only made that worse.

I could channel it all into anger, if I wanted. But that would be a temporary fix. Killing pack wolves was not going to undo the way Poppy had died - the way all of them had died. That would always be painful. I knew that already. Death was no picnic, but when it happened in such a traumatic, violent way, there was an extra layer to the grief.

I didn't get any greetings from my own family, but I didn't mind in the slightest. Dad had turned his attention to poor little Matty, and Mam's eyes were firmly elsewhere and so, so weary.

"Great," she said. "Jeff's here."

I was half-expecting to get told off. But she had assumed, quite rightly, that we wouldn't have brought him here, so close to the kids, if we had any other option. Either that, or she didn't have the energy to lodge a complaint. She just approached him and asked him if he'd like to take the lead. Ever-so-politely. And the old Shadowcat simply blinked his assent and slunk to the front of the group. He picked his way through the brambles with practised ease, tail held high.

He was a ticking time bomb, I suspected. But between us all, we stood a decent chance of fighting him off, and I did wonder if we'd be grateful for his presence should the flockies ever catch up with us. The way Mam was staring at him - with narrowed eyes and tension thrumming in her body - made me think she considered him more of a liability than an assent.

"Danger in front. Danger behind. This can't end well for us, can it?" she said quietly. "I'm going to watch him. How close are the flockies?"

I shook my head. "Miles back."

It was the one thing we had going for us at the moment. They were hunting down the other raiding teams and anyone who had been dumb enough to linger in the camp. But it did worry me that they weren't already heading back to their packs in time for dinner. The fact that they had stayed this long meant that they were intent on finishing this properly. They were trying to annihilate us, not just scatter us.

"How the hell did they find us?" my mother murmured. It was flat and ponderous - not a question. So I didn't feel inclined to answer it. But I was beginning to wonder that myself. They had turned up with an army, for Goddess' sake. Just hours after the packmeet. So they had clearly known where Haven was and what they would find there.

And the only way I could see that happening ... honestly? Someone had told them.