I know it's been a while *hides in corner* but I've been on holiday. Courtesy of Make a Wish, so shout out to them. The genies really are magical. The updates should be back to normal now (I hope). Every other week, and maybe a bit more often.

So how are we? Good? Tired? Hungry?

Team Nate? Team Kai? Team Wyatt? (god, I hope not)

Simply don't care and want to get on with the plot?

Make your choices now. But choose wisely.

How Kai had gotten a phone, I had absolutely no idea. Maybe he talked an older guard into letting him borrow it, or maybe he had smuggled it in. Either way, I didn't care about anything except hearing my mother's voice in my ear. It had only been a few weeks, but so much had happened in those few weeks that I felt a completely different person had said goodbye to her outside Evarlin valley.

"Hello?" she asked when I dialled the number.

"Hey." I grinned like a Cheshire cat. "It's me — Sav."

A brief silence. A choking sound that sounded like a relieved sob. "Savannah. Goddess knows how I've missed you. How is everything? Are you getting along okay?"

"It's great, Mum. I'm really damn great," I replied. Kai had left me alone on the balcony for privacy. With the moon in the sky and the stars lighting up the world, I had rarely felt so at peace.

"It's been quiet in the house, you know. Your father and I hardly know what to do with ourselves anymore," she told me.

I had to cut her off, much to my shame. "Just put the catching up on hold for a moment. I'm sorry to do this, but I need information."

Confusion and interest. "Of course. What is it?"

"It's about Seb, actually," I almost whispered. For five years, my parents had hardly spoken his name. It was one of those taboo subjects I was afraid to breach. My aunt Lydia had given birth to Seb when she was very young. Unable to look after him, she'd asked her sister to raise him, who was already starting a family. Consequently, Seb had been as much my parent's son as their nephew.

"What about him, honey?" she asked in a cautious, strained voice.

"What was Seb involved in?" I asked. This time, barely concealed anger jumped to the surface. Didn't my parents think I deserved to know what Seb had died for? He had been closer than a brother, my best friend in the whole world. I wasn't some kid to be coddled anymore.

"I don't know what you're talking about, Savannah."

It felt like a lie. The last five years of my life were starting to feel like a lie.

"Yes, you do. You're still going to pretend? I watched him die, you know. I watched Seb die, and no one ever told me why." I kept repeating his name — it felt important somehow.

She drew in a sharp breath, though I couldn't tell if it was anger or fear through the phone. "He was part of the Moon Guard, but you already knew that, didn't you? I don't know what else to tell you."

"Why don't you start with how he knew Nathan Silveryn?" I shouldn't be talking to my mother that way, but in that moment, I didn't care. I thought I had every right to be angry.

"Who's Nathan Silveryn?" She wasn't even bothering to feign confusion any more.

"The one who broke into our house last week. But you already knew that, didn't you?" I threw her own words back at her.

"Sav..." Mum said with hardly concealed fear in her voice. If she was using my chosen name, then things must be getting serious.

"Please just tell me."

A long sigh. "Promise me you won't do anything stupid."

"I can't promise that, Mum. I promise I won't do anything unnecessarily stupid," I replied.

"Okay. Good enough, I suppose. Seb was on the guard rota the day King Quinten was assassinated. They had sealed off the rooftops, closed down a mile radius, and there were guards everywhere. But the king got shot, and the assassin got clean away. Seb had a suspicion that it was one of his comrades who fired the gun. Specifically, a young Rochester on his patrol," Mum explained slowly.

I remembered a sandy-haired young man named Marcus. His features screamed Rochester, but I could hardly believe it. That guy had bought me sweets when I was a kid. Could he have killed the king in cold blood?

"So Seb started investigating, trying to link the assassin to Wyatt Rochester before the Queen was forced to marry him. He even organised a rebel band, during the time when it looked like the Rochesters might take power by force. We were proud, of course, until..."

"It's okay," I agreed. "I know this next part."

But she carried on anyway, even though her words were muffled by sobs. "At some point, he must have asked the wrong person the wrong question ... and they killed him for it."

My windpipe tightened, squeezing off the oxygen. Seb was always been a loyal bastard. Far too loyal, and I'd told him so several times. It was just like him to do his job a little too well.

"You were involved too, weren't you?" No one could know that much from bystanding.

"Our home was a safe house for the loyalists. They used to arrive in the dead of night, bloodied up from scraps with the Rochesters. We'd patch them up as best we could and hide them. But all that stopped when Seb died. Your father and I couldn't risk losing you too."

"And Nate?" The phone was shaking in my hand and I felt dizzy, but I needed to know.

"His father was one of the leaders, being the Shadowcat head of family and all that... Nathan used to trail around after him. We would leave you two to play in the garden sometimes while we talked. It wasn't all that much of a surprise when our house was broken into and Nathan's scent was all over the place. He seemed the sort to follow in his father's footsteps. But goddess knows who he was fighting to get that badly hurt."

When my wolf had used me as a mouthpiece, she hadn't lied. I might not have much recollection of it, but I had played with a lot of different children at that age. It just seemed strange that Nate could be one of them. But as weird as it felt, it made sense.

I didn't waste time after that. Saying goodbye to my mum, brushing away unshed tears and steeling myself for a walk only took a few minutes. I found a pen and a scrap of paper, barely bigger than my little finger.

This time when I went to the Silver Birch, Kai went with me. Along the way, I told him everything. When I got to the part about Seb investigating his father's death, a slow smile spread across his face — the first in quite a while.

"And Nathan wanted to know about that?" Kai asked in obvious delight.

"Well ... yes."

His smile seemed to grow and grow. "But don't you see? This changes everything. The Shadowcats are fighting back."

"What? How did you get that from Nate being a pain in my ass?" I demanded.

"You'll see soon enough. For the first time since my father died, there's hope."

I couldn't help smiling as well. It seemed yawning wasn't the only thing that was contagious. "Hope for what?"

"For a kingdom like the one I remember when I was little. For peace, prosperity and unity—" Kai's rant was cut off by something he heard in the woods ahead. In the span of a few seconds, Kai was standing in front of me protectively, a knife I hadn't seen in his hand.

A flicker of shadow moved ahead of us. I turned around to press my back against Kai's, determined to make myself useful. I could feel the tension in his body through two layers of clothing. He sniffed the air and every muscle in his back relaxed. "Nathan. It's just us."

"He knows." It wasn't a question. The green eyes glinted in the darkness, and they were looking straight at me.

"Kai isn't a threat to you or to your people," I promised.

"I know that. It took you long enough to tell him."

"You wanted me to tell him?" I asked incredulously. A slight nod. "You specifically said not to tell anyone."

"Did I?" Nate countered, a hint of a smile on his lips. He had moved into the moonlight and it fell across one side of his face, leaving the other in shadow. "My apologies. I never intended that the prince be kept in the dark."

"In more ways than one," Kai grumbled, giving Nate a rueful look as we stood in the pitch black of midnight.

"Well met, cousin," Nate acknowledged him.

Wait ... cousin? Huh? I wasn't exactly seeing the family resemblance. I went through my history lessons, putting the pieces together. Kai's grandfather had been a Shadowcat, which meant they were likely to be second cousins, maybe even third.

"I talked to my parents," I blurted out. We didn't have the time for idle chatter.

"And?"

Kai was the one to answer him. "Sebastian Fairborne was investigating the assassination of my father. He suspected a Moon Guard who could have been in Wyatt's pay. That's all we know."

"I am quite sure that's not all you know, Kaeden," Nate said sharply. The look he gave Kai then was impossible to decipher, but it made the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end.

Kai returned the look with interest and an added helping of anger. He threw a pointed glance in my direction before saying, "You're mistaken. Seb guarded me for years. He was as good as family. If I knew anything else about the circumstances of his death, I would share it."

What on earth were they talking about? I could only stand there and fidget and look annoyed, for all the good it did. 

Nate blinked at him, a dry smile spreading across his lips. "Oh, I believe you. I'm just not certain others will."

"Look, we've helped you, Nate," I said, losing patience with his games. "And now, unless you feel like returning the favour, we're going back to Evarlin."

"I do, as a matter of fact," he said. "I have some friendly advice for you. It will begin in a few days. You need the support of the Moon Guard if you want to win. Only then will my father consider involving himself."

"What will begin?" I might have got more of a response from a brick wall. Realising it was the second time I had compared Nate to a brick wall, I halted my train of thought. Maybe I was tired again.

As the Shadowcat went to leave, Kai touched his arm. "I think it's bigger than one would-be assassin. The Moon Guard's been divided for years. Rochesters, Llewellyns and Davengards. I wouldn't be surprised if Peyton was tangled up in the plot as well. Whatever you're going to do, do it carefully."

"It's far too late for that." Nate let out a low laugh. "Did you just accuse the commander of high treason?"

"I suppose I did."

He nodded approvingly. "How radical. And correct, by the way. He's been Wyatt Rochester's lackey for years."

Divisions in the guard. Plots and treason. A sandy-haired young man named Marcus, the poster child of the Rochesters. Those isolated strands of thought began to twist into a coherent rope.

"There were four of them," I murmured. "And Seb didn't fight back."

Both boys turned to me questioningly. I ignored them, delving into my memories. "He looked sad, not angry. Why...?"

I had reached the answer minutes ago, now I was just trying to prove it to myself. Because it seemed so farfetched that—

"Sav?" Kai asked cautiously. Nate just stared.

"It was his patrol. His patrol killed him." I loosed a shuddering breath at the realisation and tried futilely to stop my hands shaking. Aloud, it sounded even more alarming.

Having gone through training with my own patrol, I couldn't bear the thought of turning on them. Yet those four must have, and they had murdered their friend. It shouldn't have been possible, after all the challenges the Guard used to prevent it, yet it was.

And not all of them were Rochesters. Two were from the Llewellyn house, as far as I knew. It didn't add up. Not entirely. What reason would they have to protect the killer?

"That makes sense, you know," Nate said. His eyes were still fixed firmly on Kai with that same unfathomable accusation burning within. "If they were trying to cover up the assassination and Sebastian was asking questions... Who else was on his patrol? Except for the Rochester boy, I mean."

He'd come to the same conclusion as me. Even if it felt like he was just leading me to admit that flaw in my hunch aloud. Kai looked distinctly uncomfortable with this train of thought, and Nate seemed amused by his tense muscles and thunderous scowl.

I didn't get a chance to answer because, without warning, Nate shifted on the spot. He had heard something in the trees, and he wasn't waiting around. The huge, panther-like creature took a dozen paces into the trees before stopping to glance back at us. Go, his eyes seemed to say. Run. I'll distract them.

That was all the communication Nate provided. He vanished altogether, even his scent fading from existence. And I, quite sensibly, started dragging Kai back to Evarlin. When a series of snarls and growls filled the air, he stopped arguing.

Those noises followed us all the way back to the fortress. They changed quickly after the initial fight. Excited hunting yips, interceded by pained whines. Whoever it was, they were trying to track Kai and me through the forest, by the sounds of it. We were the prey. Nate was one shifter against an entire pack, yet he was succeeding in both diverting and disabling them.

When we got within sight of Evarlin, my relief quickly turned to alarm. The gates were grating shut, inch by inch. Cold dread coiled like a pit in my stomach. There was no reason for the gates to close. They had begun to do so when we emerged from the treeline. And the sentry made no effort to stop the process when we made our intentions to enter obvious.

Someone knew that Kai was out of the fortress. Someone wanted to keep him out, at the mercy of someone else. Wyatt Rochester's doing, I knew. He may use envoys and puppets to accomplish it, but he was the one who wanted his stepson dead. Even so, this was rash. How could they make cold-blooded murder on Evarlin's doorstep look like an accident?

Oh. Me. That's how I would do it—threaten my life. Use me as a tool to force Kai into suicide, or something close enough. Then kill me anyway, because witnesses are too risky.

I felt like a fly, caught in a spider's web. Wyatt Rochester sat at the centre, plucking the threads and setting the whole thing into motion. And Peyton, Marcus, the sentry—they were all strands. It seemed easy enough for a human: one slash of your hand and the web shreds. But when you were the helpless fly, well ... they said silk was stronger than steel.

We broke into a sprint the moment we saw those doors sliding shut. But it was a long way, and as our laps around the fortress all those weeks ago had proved, I wasn't all too good at running. Kai might have made it. He was outstripping me — probably hoping to hold the gates somehow. But when he realised I wasn't keeping up, he dropped back for me. Idiot.

"Don't you dare," I growled through my teeth. "Go, for goodness sake."

It was too late anyway. A boom echoed around the valley, and the gates stood massive and unyielding in front of us. I staggered the last few steps and slid down awkwardly until I was sat with my back to the wood. My breath came fast and uneven, after such a mad dash.

Kai stayed on his feet, firmly in front of me. I wished he wouldn't. It's far easier to give up when everyone else does too. There were faint traces of activity in the mind-link, and I hoped he was calling for help. Although what could our patrol do, with such huge walls between us?

Those yips were getting closer and closer by the second. I could almost cling to the hope that Nate would keep them away, until I heard a heart wrenching yowl. That was not a wolf's pain. It belonged to a feline animal. Nate. We were on our own.

The pursuers skidded to a halt at the edge of the trees. They were reluctant to let themselves be seen, I realised. Attacking the prince was a crime, no matter who had given the order. There were seven wolves, some with assorted cuts and injuries. Nate had left his mark there.

In training, Nate had destroyed whole patrols. But they had been green recruits, without the faintest clue how to fight. Here now were fully-trained patrols, each of whom had taken down a Shadowcat as part of their initiation. I suspected there had been two patrols hunting us originally. And if a Shadowcat could only incapacitate three of ten wolves, what chance did Kai and I stand?

All the same, I stood up slowly. It's one thing to say you would be brave, while safe and comfortable. It's quite another to deny fear when your life is on the line. But Kai wasn't cowering, so I couldn't either.

I thought of my blades, lying discarded in my room. Too late for that now. I would have to shift eventually—teeth and claws were my only defence.

The wolves edged forwards into sight of Evarlin, slowly, reluctantly. They didn't want to risk their necks over an unnecessary murder: we would die in Silveryn territory tomorrow anyway. This attempt was just to make sure. And now we had seen them, we needed to die.

Just as I was about to break down entirely, the gates opened again. With a jerking motion which bruised my back, they grated slowly apart. I scampered out of the way, picked myself up, and dashed through the gap. Kai was right behind me. As soon as we were through, they closed again.

I stood panting and relieved in the entrance, and stared at the person who had saved my life. Zara. She had seen what was going on and physically overwhelmed the sentry to open the gates. I wasn't sure if she knew about the attackers in the woods, but by the equal amounts of anger and astonishment, I knew she had just realised just what Wyatt's minions were capable of. Coldblooded murder.

But as shocked as she was, Zara was also smart. She didn't say a word about what had happened in front of the Rochester minions, instead waving us through. "Nice walk, kids? Bit late isn't it?"

"Couldn't sleep," Kai lied. "We wanted to stretch our legs."

"Well, go to bed now. You've got a long day tomorrow."

She didn't need to remind me. Tomorrow was the foray into Silveryn territory, and with Nate lying injured or dead in the forest, we had lost our only protector. One way or another, the whole patrol would die.

Kai and I were too shell-shocked to speak as we climbed the long flights of stairs and went into our rooms without even a mumbled 'goodnight.' I collapsed on my bed, only bothering to change into a long shirt before drifting off.

I had a nightmare that night. At least, I hoped it was a nightmare, when my door creaked slowly open. A shadow stood in the doorway, dripping some dark substance and swaying in place. It took a few hesitant steps into my room, then slumped onto the floor and didn't move again.

I spent a good while curled up under the sheets, trying to pretend it was a dream—trying to convince myself that there wasn't someone in my room. I burrowed further under the duvet, as if that would stop someone killing me.

Then I got an extreme feeling of déjà vu.

"Nate?" It came out as a whisper, although I had intended to say it normally.

A huge feline head lifted from the floor to stare at me mournfully with green eyes. Oh, thank the Goddess.

Although I remembered panicking the last time this had happened, there was none of that now. Only calm relief that he was alive. For now, at least. I searched through dark, bloody fur to find the injuries, which were very numerous. Scratches and bite marks all over his coat. He looked like a human pincushion.

"You're making a habit of this," I told him sternly.

Nate couldn't reply in words, but he blinked those massive eyes and licked my fingers. I wasn't sure if that was an apology or not. It didn't really matter though—he had saved my life.

I ripped apart a shirt to make bandages for the worst wounds. But to be honest, he didn't need first-aid. His shifter healing could fix even the worst injuries in a matter of hours. No, I think he went to my room for company that night. I was happy to provide it. Nate lay down stretched out on my floor and I rested my head on an uninjured bit of fur. His pelt was soft and warm, and I found myself drifting off to the steady sound of a heartbeat.

"We shouldn't have left you behind," I admitted sleepily.

He snorted, because I was wrong. If we hadn't, all three of us might be dead. Nate wasn't much interest to those wolves on his own, which was why they hadn't bothered finishing him off. Alone, he was the Shadowcat heir: just collateral damage. But if Kai had been caught tonight, he would have been a witness to treason.

I was trying my best not to, but I fell asleep using Nate as a pillow.

And when I woke up in my bed at dawn, he was gone. It was at that moment when I realised I hadn't been wearing anything more than underwear and a t-shirt. Nate hadn't seemed to mind much. I also realised I hadn't said thank you.