I didn't stand still to be kidnapped. Normal instincts during an abduction were to kick and lash out with everything and anything you could get your hands on. I was no exception to that rule. My feet made contact with flesh and bone, and I did my damn best to bite the hand of my attacker. He reacted in the much the same way that a brick wall would.

"Jesus, Sav!" a voice hissed in my ear.

I stopped struggling and hung loose in the stranger's arms. He knew my name... What the actual fudge? Then it occurred to me that I recognised his voice.

"Nate?" I tried to ask. The hand over my mouth was cutting off all the oxygen, so it probably came out as more of a low hum.

Without resistance, he turned me around so I was facing my abductor. I stared up at the familiar face of my favourite Shadowcat buddy, and a pair of green eyes stared right back. Nate pressed a finger against my lips in a final warning to be quiet, then released my mouth.

"Was that really necessary?" That was my first, quietly annoyed question.

"Yes," Nate replied bluntly.

"You know, when normal people want to talk, we call each other or Moon Goddess forbid, have a conversation in — I don't know — public!" I shout-whispered.

Nate ignored my outburst completely. "Just so you know, your friend Alex was wrong. 'Getting on the pill' as he put it, has a far lower-"

"Oh my God, shut up please," I begged.

Just for the briefest moment, a smile flitted across Nate's lips. Did he just try to wind me up? Who was this and what had he done with the uptight, grumpy boy who invaded my home? Not that I was complaining. I was also suddenly very aware of how close we were in this cramped corner.

"Try to keep your voice down because we don't have long. Niamh told me you seemed confused about my message," Nate continued as if nothing had happened.

"I am," I admitted. "I have no clue where Seb was posted, let alone what he was doing there."

The Shadowcat narrowed his eyes. "I'm sorry if I don't believe that. He was your brother, wasn't he?"

"Cousin, actually. And I was eleven-years-old," I explained.

"But you don't have any idea at all what your cousin was involved in? What, did you think his murder was random?"

Yes. Yes, I did. Cold shock spread through my body. It had never occurred to me that Seb could be anything more than a victim of random violence. Nate spoke with such indifference and insensitivity that I would have punched him if there was enough room to swing.

Even if I could have thought of anything to say, Nate carried on, oblivious. "I will take that expression as a no. Find out. Ask your parents, talk to his patrol, read his diary for all I care. I need to know who killed him."

I drew myself up to my full height, making my eyes level with his shoulders. "I may not know what Seb was doing, but I do know two things for sure. One, you're an ass. And two, I don't have to tell you jack squat."

"That is true. I have not forgotten the blood debt, but do this for me and I may just return the favour. Before the year is out, you will need my help plenty." At that point, I made a sound of disgust and disbelief. He ignored me, which seemed to be his favourite thing to do. "You are friends with the prince. Believe me when I say helping me will help him. Shadowcats are sworn to the throne — never forget that."

He put particular emphasis on the word, and for the first time it struck me that it wasn't the rightful monarch or ruler that the Shadowcats obeyed. It was whoever sat on the throne at Holyhead. Nate seemed to be trying to draw my attention to that, like it was some kind of critical clue. What the hell?

While I was caught up in my thoughts, he had slipped away again. I was left standing in a dark corner, wondering what the hell happened to my nice normal life. Good riddance, as far as I was concerned.

It was fairly clear that I needed to contact my parents. Preferably visit them and talk about it in person. I still found it suspicious how calmly they had reacted to having the back door smashed in. Almost as if it wasn't their first incidence of strange shifters breaking into the house.

My feet carried me back to the dorm without me telling them to. Four worried faces peered up at me from a corner. Apparently, I must have looked pretty dazed. Kai wrinkled up his nose. "So just out of curiosity, what were you doing with Nathan?"

"Nathan?" I asked nervously. "I haven't seen him since two nights ago."

Kai raised an eyebrow, looking mostly exasperated. "You stink of him."

Oh, crap. I pulled my jacket off, hoping that would remove most of the scent. "You know, I bumped into someone in the corridor. That might've been Nate..."

Becky huffed loudly. "No one's buying your bullshit, Sav. Now sit down and play Irish snap with us."

"Irish snap?" I said.

"You'll pick it up as we go along. I can't be arsed to explain again," she told me.

She handed me a small pile of cards and threw down one of her own, announcing that it was an ace, even though it blatantly wasn't. I was already lost.

"Two," Ben said unsurely as he put down an eight. Okay, were we like counting or something?

Kai furrowed his eyebrows, concentrating intensely as he placed down an eight of his own. He exclaimed loudly, "Léim!"

While Alex, Ben and I stared at him in confusion, Becky slapped a hand down on the pile of cars and frowned at Kai. "Who the hell is Liam?"

"Léim," he repeated. "It's snap in Irish. We are playing Irish snap, aren't we?"

"How do you know Irish?" I asked at the same that Alex scoffed, "You're making that up."

Ben gave a half smile, as if he was used to this. "No, he isn't."

"Oh, you speak fricking Irish as well?" Becky asked.

"No," Ben replied. "I just learned a long time ago never to question Kai."

"Well, nobody has a phone to look it up," I pointed out. "Are we just supposed to take his word for it?"

"Oi, Patrick! You're Irish aren't you?" Alex shouted across the room.

Patrick's eyes widened, and he opened and shut his mouth like a gaping fish. He finally stammered, "N-no."

"Patrick is an Irish name," Alex insisted grumpily.

"And Alexander is the Latin form of Alexandros. Does that make you a freaking Roman?" I asked.

"Well ... I suppose not."

"Corban's parents are Irish," Kai said. "Corban! Tell us the Irish for snap."

"Um ... why do you think I know? Not many people can speak Irish anymore. It's something like Liam," Corban replied. He had only just returned, along with the rest of his group.

"See!" Kai announced triumphantly.

Alex started muttering under his breath. Ben gave his friend a discrete high-five and collected the cards from the centre for redistribution. Becky just stared at us incredulously.

"Irish snap does not mean playing snap in Irish. It means violence and over-complicated rules. And stop that, Ben. The cards go to the last person who puts their hand in the middle," she explained impatiently.

"To be fair, Becky, Sav isn't the only one you failed to explain the rules to," Kai said.

Becky launched into another long winded explanation that did absolutely nothing to help me out. As best I could tell, we just counted as we went around the circle, and a snap could either be two cards matching, or putting down a card with the same number that you were saying. Needless to say, Becky won every round.

The assault course went much the same as the day before. I managed to knock twenty seconds off my time, a decent accomplishment. The last obstacle still loomed large and impossible. I could see that it might be a week or more before I even got my time below five minutes without the penalty. The single rope across the river always took a minute on its own. Maybe there was some way to do it faster.

Priorities for today: Food. Sleep. Work out life's mysteries.

It was the rock climbing I enjoyed most that day. Scaling a crumbling cliff while roped to three idiots and one guy who seemed to actually know what he was doing (Kai, of course) was exhilarating, to say the least. It turned out to be teamwork because if your friends fell off the cliff, it was on you to pull them up.

"Shit, Alex, the carabiner is jammed again. Hang on a second," Kai advised him.

"Hang on. HANG ON? Are you freaking kidding me?" Alex asked as he dangled by a thin rope over a twenty-metre drop.

I readjusted my harness so it was a little less uncomfortable and watched the entertainment unfold from my moderately-sized ledge. It was the third time Alex had fallen, and he didn't seem to be enjoying it anymore.

"Was that deliberate? Did he do that on purpose? It's a little late to HANG ON," Alex muttered with increasing violence.

"I got it," Kai announced breezily.

"Great, now pull me up. The harness is giving me a wedgy."

"Too much information, buddy," he replied. Alex slowly began to ascend towards us. I stood up on the ledge to help. We were losing, given that Ethan was ten metres from the top of the cliff. He had ordered the rest of his group to belay him from below, rather than actually climbing as a team. Once he looped the rope through every clip on the cliff, they could all be lifted up with no problems. It just meant that he was the only one doing any work ... and having any fun.

We were completely out of the hearing of any hostile ears, because Kai had taken one look at the rocky cliff and chosen this as the easiest route. We might have beaten Ethan if Alex hadn't fallen off so many times. I could hardly blame him, though, given that everyone had waited for me at the cross country. We all had strengths and weaknesses.

"I overheard some of the guards talking this afternoon. They said they had been stationed in Winterusk territory," Ben said suddenly.

"Eavesdropping, Benny?" Kai asked, his voice full of mischief.

"Not intentionally," the Lindwell boy said defensively. "But they were saying the Shadowcats are up to something. There's an army gathering under the twin peaks. You don't think they're planning to invade?"

Kai smiled. "Can you all keep a secret?"

"Oh, hell yeah," Becky said.

I scrambled horizontally across the rock face, making sure I was close enough to hear whatever Kai revealed. If we had been in wolf form, four pairs of ears would have pricked up. All the best conversations took place hundreds of metres from the ground, while dangling from a cliff.

"They are going to invade. The Shadowcats will kill our menfolk, take our women for their wives and our children for slaves. Then they'll probably eat us for dinner. I mean, it makes sense right? Seeing as there are thousands of werewolves on this island and only a couple hundred of them," Kai teased.

Ben twisted around to look at his friend with a frown on his face. It was obvious Kai was joking, what he didn't understand was why.

Kai explained himself, "The Shadowcats are just like us. They aren't monsters, you know. And that army wouldn't invade us any more than we would invade them."

It was only a few hours later when I would realise he had somehow managed to make light of the situation and avoid completely answering the question. Kai had a smoothness to his speech that made the people around him take his word as law. It was never more apparent than when he was discussing politics of any sort.

A chunk of rock broke off under my foot and narrowly missed Kai's head. I glanced up to see the cliff top within arm's reach. An excited squeal and a difficult scramble later, I sat on the grass looking very pleased with myself.

I wasn't sure why Kai had asked me to go first. Some part of me assumed that it must be an easier job, but after the climb, I knew the opposite was true. I had to thread the rope through every metal loop in the cliff face, and if Kai fell from the cliff, I would be the one whose rope stopped him. Ben probably would have been a better choice as lead climber.

Even as I thought that, I heard a sharp crack from below me. Instinct made me throw myself down so I was lying on my belly and looking below. The same handhold that I had used couldn't support Kai's weight. He scrambled at the rock face, keeping himself in place for the seconds it took for me to seize his arm.

Kai's weight made me feel like my arms were being pulled out of their sockets. Over six feet of compact muscle dragging down on me. It was a miracle I didn't immediately fall over the edge. "Shit," Kai cursed, somehow finding the time to grin. "It would be easier to let me go and then pull me up with the rope."

I looked down at the nearest metal ring. With the amount of slack he had, he would fall nearly five metres before the rope stopped him. He might even bash his head against the cliff on the way down. That didn't seem like fun.

"Forget that. Just find a foothold or something," I breathed.

"Seriously, Sav, I'll be okay," he assured me.

"Screw okay, I need you to be able to walk," I snapped back.

I wriggled backwards, desperately trying to pull him far enough up so he could grab the cliff top. Suddenly, Kai found something to push off and hauled himself up. I caught a glimpse of Alex below, making a foothold with his hands. Laughing now and exhausted, I slumped down to lie beside him.

"You know, it's supposed to be the prince saving the damsel in distress, not the other way around," I told him.

"I'm actually cool with you doing all the heroics," he replied breathlessly.

Kai's hand slid across the grass to take mine. He squeezed and suddenly there wasn't enough oxygen in the world. "Thanks, Sav," he said quietly.