I was hungry. Again.

That's all I could think of as we completed the assault course for the second time. A hurried breakfast of greenery and leftover deer meat had done very little to quell my hunger after two hours of pre-dawn training in wolf form, during which I had gotten my ass thoroughly handed to me.

Not to mention that my muscles ached from a night on the floor. I had probably got four hours of sleep altogether, which you will never sympathise with until you've tried sleeping on the floor. Seriously, try it. You back aches after about five seconds. Even the thought of sleep got me whining about beds again (under my breath of course).

"I mean ... seriously. Would it kill them to give us beds? It didn't bother me all that much yesterday, not until I realised just how much I need a bed."

Alex was few paces ahead of me, but he slowed down to give me a concerned look. "Talking to yourself is the first sign of madness."

"What are you talking about? I didn't say anything," I lied. I'd been waiting quite a while to pull off this particular trick. "Are you feeling okay? Hearing things is the second sign of madness."

Alex grunted, knowing he was beaten. "I hate you."

"Stop your mindless blabbering!" the instructor shouted at us from the shade of his tree. "More running, less talking."

I hopped over the first of a set of hurdles. This morning, a frost had hardened the mud, making the footing a lot easier. Unfortunately, it meant everyone else was running faster as well. Funny how the world works.

This time I would get no lucky breaks by figuring out the last obstacle — everyone already knew. Now it was just a race to the finish between the seventeen remaining candidates. I could still see the faces of the seven who had left only an hour ago. Five of Kai's group and two of Ethan's gave in when Tammie asked if anyone would like to go home.

One day, and seven people down without even being eliminated. I supposed that those who had left were probably not very dedicated in the first place. Or maybe they realised just how difficult it was to get a place in the Moon Guard. I'll admit, even I didn't know I was signing up for this.

"Get a bloody move on!"

The instructor was not brilliant at the whole motivation thing. His occasional comments seemed intended to inflict fear into stragglers.

My hands were rubbed raw as I dangled upside down from the rope that hung across the river. Yesterday, I had struggled to support my body weight and move at the same time, but today I was getting the hang of it. I put as much weight as possible on my legs, leaving my arms free to pull myself along.

The next obstacle was one of my least favourites, the net. Commando crawling through the mud, I did my best to avoid the worst puddles. I had only just got clean clothes, so getting filthy again was not on the To-Do list. Olivia somehow managed to kick me in the face as she exited. Accidently, I'm sure.

Once I emerged, panting for breath, I could see a crowd of half a dozen people who had already finished the course, having skipped the last obstacle. I dug into my last reserves of energy to break into a sprint. The look on Olivia's face when I overtook her made it all worth it.

I reached the instructor and doubled over, completely exhausted. I had got seventh place out of seventeen candidates, most of whom were a lot fitter than me. It was something to be proud of. But I needed to be in the top five if I wanted a spot in the patrol. A hand touched my shoulder tentatively. My gaze flickered up to Kai's half smile.

"Good job," he said.

I straightened up, returning his smile. His eyes widened when he saw my face, and I reached up to touch the rapidly forming bruise across my cheek. "What happened?"

"It was my fault," I said, shrugged. One eyebrow lifted ever so slightly, telling me he didn't buy it for one second.

Alex came in seconds after Olivia. He would have beaten me if he hadn't got tangled in the net. Typical of my friend really, his clumsiness seemed to cancel out any possibility of talent. Becky was next, still cussing out a boy who caused a delay with the rope across the river. I had a sneaking suspicion that it may have been Patrick.

The instructor was jotting down our times, adding the two minute penalty for everyone. I glimpsed mine over his shoulder. Seven minutes and four seconds. Not half bad, or so I thought until the instructor started speaking.

"At the moment, our fastest candidate is His Royal Highness, with six and a half minutes." There was a brief pause as the group broke into a mixture of cheers and jeers. "We don't make a habit of eliminating candidates in this training programme. Instead, we choose the first five to fulfil a certain set of criteria. The first of those is to complete the obstacle course in under five minutes."

We fell into shocked silence. With the two minute penalty taken into account, we would have to complete the entire course in three minutes. It was impossible, and by the smirk on the instructor's face, he knew it too. Unless, of course, we could get over the impossible obstacle. What the actual hell?

"Are all the other criteria so completely unreasonable, sir?" Olivia asked.

"Let me see..." the instructor began slyly. "You have to defeat me in hand-to-hand combat, complete a variety of skill based challenges, the most interesting of which is to bring down a Shadowcat. Oh. don't all look so shocked. The whole point of the Moon Guard is that we're the best of the best."

I was screwed. Was that why Nate and his friends were here? Then the more devious side of my brain made an evil realisation. Having the Shadowcat that I needed to defeat owe me a blood debt may just come in useful. The instructor never said that the Shadowcat had to fight back.

Still, that was only one out of many impossible challenges.

"So when you were training, how did you defeat yourself?" Patrick stuttered. He sounded genuinely confused. I fought back a pained sigh.

The instructor gave him a disgusted look. "I didn't, you halfwit. I defeated my own trainer."

"Okay, so how do we defeat a Shadowcat if nobody has seen one in years?" Ethan demanded.

"They may not choose to integrate themselves into our society anymore, but they still owe us loyalty, and a representative is sent every year to test our candidates. Any other stupid questions?"

"I have one, sir," Kai said. "Well ... I wouldn't say it's stupid, but it's a question. What happens if less than five people complete all the criteria? How do you form a patrol?"

The instructor just looked incredulous. "That's never happened before."

It was hardly an answer, but it did tell me something. And by the look on Kai's face, he had picked up exactly the same thing. There was a way around the criteria — a way to complete the assault course in less than five minutes, and a way for a teenager to defeat somebody twice their age. Either that, or the previous generations were an awful lot fitter than us.

Maybe I needed to wheedle some answers out of Tammie, or any of the Guard. They might be unlikely to tell me outright how to complete the challenges, but they might at least give out a few hints.

"Alright, you're free to go for lunch. Try not to die before hand-to-hand combat please."

The group dispersed eagerly. Everyone needed a break from the intensive workout that was training. Not to mention that finding food was time-consuming and most people here were living off roots and berries. Although we had worked together that first day, the large groups were splintering into smaller teams working together. The majority of which were made up of exactly five members, hopeful future patrols for the guard to pick from.

Kai shot us all a deliberate look, nodding over at the stream. We still had the remains of the deer the Shadowcats had killed, hidden away in the woods for a feast when we shifted tonight. I didn't think I could stomach looking at the blood and gore while in my human form, and we would need to cook it anyway.

Late last night, Ben had come up with the idea of fishing. It was something we could do in the daytime, and fish were easy to cook. Inspired by this, we had spent nearly an hour turning the ring pulls from litter cans into fish hooks. Using some of her undying charm, Becky had then convinced a member of the Moon Guard to give her a length of fishing line.

Needless to say, our teamwork was on point.

"Here look like a good plaice?" Alex asked, grinning broadly.

"Oh, cod, please don't!" Becky joined in.

"You did that on porpoise." Kai couldn't resist the temptation. The allure of puns was too strong. I couldn't even think of a way to tell them off without it turning into one.

"Dolpinately," Ben agreed.

Everyone was looking at me. The peer pressure won, and I cracked a smile. "I sea what you're all doing. Maybe we should scale it back on the fish puns."

"Yeah, it's a turtle disaster," Kai added.

"Stop being such a mood kriller," Alex complained.

And just like that, all five of us burst out laughing. High fives were traded, and for a minute, we were acting like normal teenagers. The little bubble of fun floating in an ocean of pressure and stress was popped when a splash caught our attention. A fish was swimming not two yards from where we were stood. Granted it was a tiny thing, hardly even a mouthful. But it was a start.

Ben knelt on the river bank, pulling out a ready-prepared hook and line. He had revealed himself to be a Lindwell, a family sworn to House Davengard with long coastlines in their territory, also claiming that his older brothers had taken him out to catch mackerel quite often. The closest I had ever got to fishing was when Seb and I had trailed down to the weir and tried our hands at crabbing, so Ben was more than welcome to take the lead on this one.

"We add a sinker and a float to make sure the hook is at the right height," Ben explained as he added a piece of foam a short way above the hook and tied a stone below it. "Judge where you put the float by the depth of the river. In this case, it needs to be a few inches from the bottom. Then all you need to do is add the worm."

We all followed suit, struggling with the slipperiness of the line and how difficult it was to tie knots. Eventually, I thought mine was passable, but Ben took it off me and made an embarrassing amount of adjustments, all the while reassuring me that it just required a bit of practice. I think it was the most words I had ever heard him say at any one time.

Then it came to casting, and I was ready to give up all over again. As soon as I threw my line into the river, any fish nearby disappeared under the bushes that masked the far bank from sight. And just when they overcame their shyness and came to investigate, the slowing moving water would push my line further downstream, forcing me to cast it all over again.

"I suck at this," I said eventually. Deep down I knew that I wasn't doing any worse than any of the others, but what can I say? I was an overachiever.

"You're not the only one," Alex reassured me. Somehow he had got the fishing line tangled in the tree above his head. I wasn't even sure it had been in the water yet.

We heard an excited exclamation as Kai reeled in a decent-sized fish. It wasn't the first catch of the day, but it was the first catch that hadn't been made by Ben. I shot him a grumpy look, which had nothing at all to do with jealously. Kai answered my sulking with his usual smile as he threw his line back into the water.

I checked on mine again even as Ben caught his sixth fish. Still nothing. Ripples flowed out in all directions as the rough piece of float settled down. A flash of silver at the bank caught my attention. One of the larger fish darted out of the safety to investigate my juicy worm. I rolled onto my belly, determined not to alarm it in any way.

It wouldn't have mattered anyway. The fish took a long look and decided it wasn't worth it. My last hopes were drowned when it splashed back to its friends.

"I give up," I announced loudly. "Fish officially hate me."

Kai looked up sharply. "Why don't you try switching with me? Maybe there's something wrong with your line."

"Okay..." I agreed slowly, not quite believing him.

He wound the end of his line around a branch and took mine from me. His warm fingers brushed against my own, making me aware of just how cold I was getting. I shoved my hands into my pockets and went to sit next to the tree branch that held my new line.

Getting a little side-tracked by a sudden coughing fit from my kind benefactor, I didn't notice the float moving for quite a while. I leant over, peering at the hook beneath the surface. There was a dark shape thrashing around.

After that I got a little carried away, letting out a shriek of delight and giving the clear string a violent tug. Only when the fish was flopping around a long way from the water and the others had finished congratulating me did I calm down enough to be suspicious. It seemed a little too good to be true that a fish had taken the bait just seconds after we swapped lines.

Then it hit me. He had felt the bite and suggested the swap so I could catch his fish. The only part I couldn't work out was why. What was his ulterior motive for being nice? Maybe it was a poisonous fish and he wanted me to die from eating it. Although I had to admit, that seemed a tad farfetched.

"It's a roach," Ben told me after a brief examination. "Good job."

I directed my glare at Kai as soon as Ben was occupied gutting the catch. He was still wearing a faint smile, and he hadn't been shy in offering his praise during the brief moments when I was caught up in the excitement.

"I know you did that," I grumbled, quiet enough so the others wouldn't hear.

"Did what?" Kai's expression was pure innocence. I almost fell for it all over again.

"Don't play dumb with me. It doesn't count if you catch it first."

"Ah, shit," he wrinkled up his nose. "It would have worked if you weren't so damn smart."

"Why?" I demanded. The question wasn't only relevant to these particular circumstances. I wanted to know why he was working with me when it was pretty obvious he could look after himself. Why he had carried me to the end of the long distance run. Why he had stood up to Brylan for me. It occurred to me for the first time that all three of those questions probably had the same answer.

"Is it so hard for you to believe that I'm just a nice guy?" Kai answered my question with a question. Classic deflection tactics.

"Yes. In my experience, there are no nice guys. There are nasty guys and nicer guys." Despite myself, I was falling into the trap, letting him change the subject.

"Consider me one of the nicest ones, then."

I harrumphed loudly. "You're not getting away until you answer me. I'm fed up with secrets."

"I don't know what you're talking about. I'm an open book," Kai protested.

"Alright, I'm sure you won't mind answering some questions then." I evened out my tone, making sure not to get too over the top. "Why don't you start with how you know Nate? Maybe why the Shadowcats left in the first place?"

A satisfied smirk appeared on Kai's face, and in that moment, I knew something had gone horribly wrong.

"Who's the one keeping secrets now, Sav? I made sure not to use his name, which by the way, is actually Nathan. Only people he likes get the privilege of calling him Nate."

Alex, Becky and Ben had taken a break from fishing to listen to our arguing, all with gaping mouths and alarmed expressions.

"Did you say Nathan? As in the Nathan?"

"Isn't he the one who...?"

"Please tell me you don't know him."

After their short outbursts, none of which sufficed to give me much more information, I began to realise that I was missing something. And I also happened to be in a heap of trouble, a seemingly common occurrence these days. How in holy hell was I going to talk my way out of this one?