I wished I could take it back. I spent half of my time wanting to say things, and the other half regretting saying the things I had wanted to say. Especially this. Keeping secrets was exhausting, but I'd come to the mainland to escape my name, so I could just be Joe or Doug and pull strings without anybody watching my fingers. So much for that.

The hole in my abdomen had scabbed over long before we reached the castle. That's where we were going. Tom was driving again, and he'd set a course for Dafydd's camp, but that was far too obvious. I'd persuaded him to turn west through the link, arguing the case that it was nearer to Vik Lloyd, and we'd be needing him soon — and besides, she was my hostage. Mine, not Dafydd's.

"Dad," Eira sighed as the lorry came to a stop. It was all she needed to say, really, although we got a collection of odd looks from Mort and Lee.

"You have a dad?" the latter demanded.

"Doesn't everyone?" I retorted.

"Well, I don't know. I thought maybe Llewellyns appeared fully-formed in bolts of lightning."

I snorted in derision. "Did you now?"

"Ric," Eira said, more insistently. "Dad."

Ah, why did this have to be so difficult? I'd need to find somewhere else for Dad to stay, and it would have to be both close and far away. I looked at the faces around me and sighed. "Alright, yes, Eira, I'll deal with it. For now, everyone will have to stay away from the castle."

A dozen startled faces turned towards us at the word 'castle.' I had not told any of them, I realised, that we weren't making a beeline for Dafydd. Oops?

Lee made a groaning sound like a dying seal. "We're ... at Lle o Dristwch ...?"

I shrugged.

"Why?"

"Because I live here," I told him and grinned at the dismay on his face. Cursed my ass. Nothing awful had happened to me since entering the damn place. Well, nothing awful that wasn't my own fault. "What's supposed to happen, anyway?"

He heaved a sigh, slouching against the side of the lorry. "You die young. Not young young. Just younger than you would have. And it'll be bloody and painful and just not the death a person would want—"

Light cut into the lorry, blinding us all. Tom had opened one of the doors and glowered at us all, his eyes picking out me and Kat from all the bloodstained rogues. He folded his arms. "I would like a word, Rhodric."

"Gauze," I said. Even Eira's face twisted into a scowl, and I'd thought she knew all my tricks. Kat seemed to be trying to make herself as small as possible.

Tom's knuckles were whitening on the door handle. "What?"

"There's your word. Gauze. We'll be needing bandages, too. Needles, thread, antiseptic, tweezers — the works. I'm sure Vik will have some, and you'd get to see your sister."

I was simply not in the mood to answer questions about Kat. Once Tom had run the errand, cooled his heels and wiped that scowl from his face, maybe we would have a civilised discussion about what I had done at Lowland. Several of the shifters between me and Tom flinched. Too late, I realised I had handed out an order. And my wolf was seeping a challenge along with it.

"You want me to go and get med supplies from Vik?" Tom asked tonelessly. I didn't miss the slight dip of his head, the slackening of his stance. He had no reason to submit to me, because I had never fought him, but he was doing it anyway. Why?

I wanted to say no. But thirty rogues were watching us, and my wolf wasn't going away quietly. Can't back down now. Dammit, dammit, dammit. "You're the only one who can drive this thing. Some of these men will die if they don't get help. So, yes, Tom, that is what I want, and I can't see why you wouldn't want it too."

That easily, I had the friends of every injured rogue staring indignantly at Tom — almost everyone. Eira rolled her eyes and heaved a loud sigh; she knew this trick, at least. Tom dropped his eyes to the ground after a few heartbeats.

"I'll be back in forty minutes," he muttered.

I tried not to look surprised. Rogues — for all their reputation of insolence, they seemed awfully willing to obey me. He returned to the cab, and we began unloading ourselves from the back. Ian was carried out, the tea towels at his neck drenched red. He was awake enough to glower at me, so I reckoned he would be just fine in about an hour. The hole in my own abdomen had already scabbed over.

Kat seemed to know the drill by now. She came straight to my side and threw dirty looks at any rogue who stared too obviously. I couldn't leave her here alone. That would be asking for trouble. But ... could I take her with me?

"Honestly, Ric, your scent is all over her. I don't think he'll even notice her," Eira said matter-of-factly. I must have been spilling into the link, again.

Kat scowled and took an automatic sniff. She wrinkled up her nose a heartbeat later, obviously not liking what she smelled. There was still a smear of my blood on her neck, and we had been wrestling at Lowland and, while my scent had been off, it wasn't entirely full proof; my clothes still carried a faint scent, and it had never worked for blood. I checked for myself and found it difficult pick out her scent from mine.

"Nice thinking," I said, a little surprised. It wasn't like Eira to make my life easier.

"What are you talking about?" Kat demanded. She looked between us, eyebrows furrowed. I sealed my lips and Eira started smirking. She wasn't making an effort to be nice, which wasn't unusual for Eira. She had never got along with other females.

We walked towards the castle. Eira told me a long story about how they'd used the cans to spread the flockies thin across the border before attacking. It had worked brilliantly, she said, until the Alpha had summoned a team of riflemen. Apparently he had mistaken the popcorn noises for gunshots. At that point the rogues had retreated to the lorry, and I knew all the rest.

"Where do they get the guns?" I asked after a moment.

She shrugged, a lazy twitch of her shoulders. "That kid who follows you around said his family smuggle them in from Ireland. Goddess only knows where the Irish get them..."

"America? If they had a private boat..." I guessed.

"Maybe."

When we reached the castle, there wasn't any sign of Dad. And I had begun to doubt that Kat's scent was entirely buried. To be sure, I sent Eira inside to change clothes so Kat could have my jacket. She wasn't enthusiastic. "I'll put it on when you tell me why I need to smell like you, and why you look like you're at a funeral."

I buried my impatience and tried to sound reassuring. "Our father — he doesn't like werewolves. It's not a big deal."

She folded her arms across her chest, obviously not convinced. "Is he a werewolf?"

"No."

"Then how would he catch my scent?"

I had walked into that one, hadn't I? "I mean, yes, he's a werewolf."

Her eyes narrowed. "Then why doesn't he like his own species?"

Feeling the jaws of the trap closing around me, I shrugged. "Never asked. Doesn't seem worth losing my head over."

Kat put the jacket on.

"Keep your mouth shut and stay behind Ric," Eira advised her. "He wouldn't stand a ghost of a chance against Dad, but he might buy you time to run."

"Eira!" I snapped. There was no reason to scare the girl.

"It's true," she retorted, and technically she was right. I had no idea whether I could beat my father in a fight, because I'd never had to try. I had dealt out thrashings to plenty of Shadowcats: his species was not the problem. It was the insanity. I couldn't predict his actions at all, and I relied on my brain as much as my muscles in a fight.

The gate loomed above us, beams of light from murder holes scattered around. There was a portcullis: I could see its rim, but the lowering mechanism had rusted shut. Shame. Still, the twenty centimetres of oak should be enough to keep out any number of shifters. Unless, of course, they spotted the dozen holes in the outer wall and used one of those.

"Dad," I called dutifully, having learnt the hard way that it was best not to surprise him. "Daaaad."

The courtyard looked empty. Looks could be deceiving. I scoured every shadow under the eaves, the crumbled doorways and every single parapet. The only thing to catch my attention was a mouse struggling to carry one of my walnuts. One of the resident crows circled lazily above, perhaps hoping it would drop dead.

I took a wary step towards the back room where I had left my stuff. The faintest scuff of rubber on stone made me freeze. Behind us? Forcing a smile onto my face, I turned to look at my father, who was occupying the one place I hadn't thought to look: the parapet above the gate.

Well, that was stupid, wasn't it?

"The boy ish come home," he muttered, picking at his teeth with a grubby thumb. "Took him long enough, yesh it did."

"I was busy," I said flatly.

He snorted, hawked, and spat onto the paving stones at my feet. "Buishy? Was he buishy getting himshelf a girlfriend, Jeff wonders?"

He cocked an eyebrow towards Kat, who was using all of her concentration to suppress revulsion. I hooked my thumbs into my pockets. "No, Dad. Kat is ... a friend."

And Dad smiled, an awful, knowing smile. "Llewellyns don't make friends, boy. They make enemies."

There were times, few and far between, when my father managed to eclipse all the insanity and depravity with what sounded like real, genuine wisdom. I knew better. He was just repeating things my mother had liked to say. I knew that, so why was I even tempted to return his smile?

Eira snickered, and Dad spared me from having to reply with a nod towards the gate. "Ricky, there's wolfies in the woods again."

"That's right, Dad. They're my wolfies, so no touching."

"No touching?" Dad asked sadly. "But I can look, yesh?"

To emphasise his point, he climbed down from the parapet to peer at me, waiting for his answer.

"You can look," I agreed warily. What was the harm in looking? "From a distance."

"Ricky, they're close! In the woods. No distances, no." He said it very patiently, as if I was being slow. Eira must have thought the same, because she shot me a shut-up look and opened her own mouth.

"That's the problem, Dad. There needs to be distance," she said.

His eyes narrowed in suspicion. "Then the wolfies can go very far away, yesh they can. Jeff ish staying in his castle."

I didn't need to look at Kat to know she was as tense as a drawn bow. It was thrumming across the link in dizzying waves. When my father raised his voice, he could be... intimidating. Eira and I were accustomed to it, but Lowland's Luna had never met an angered, insane Shadowcat before.

"No, Jeff is not," Eira said firmly, and so opened the floodgates.

"Jeff's castle!" he bellowed. His eyes swirled molten gold. "Jeff found it first, and Jeff wants it. Findsies keepsies."

Well, I hadn't realised he felt so strongly about a pile of rocks. That was more emotion that I'd seen from him in years. Could we could go somewhere else, I wondered? Find another defensive structure large enough to hold hundreds of fighters? There must a few more lying about.

"It's cursed, Dad," Eira said impulsively. "You sure you want it?"

My father took a step towards my sister, and I lurched into his path, flicking my scent switch mid-step. Eira seemed to realise her mistake and sealed her lips. But it was already too late. Far too late.

"JEFF FOUND IT," he roared.

He was shaking violently now, eyes empty of their usual green, and in approximately ten seconds he would shift into his dark-pelted feline form. And then I would have to shift. And then I would probably die. And once I was dead, Eira and Kat would die, too. Then a good portion of the wolfies in the woods.

Do something. Anything. I seized hold of Dad's mind instinctively. It was slippery, like an oiled orb, but I sank my claws in and held fast while he bucked and thrashed.

"ENOUGH," I linked, coating the word in volume and force. Jeff heard whispers when we mind-linked each other; it was a common trigger for his fits. But I hadn't whispered at someone else, I had shouted directly into his ear. I had taken the trigger to the extreme ... and then a bit further.

And I came back to awareness to see my father fall to the ground, a whisper of a groan escaping him. He seemed to lose consciousness a heartbeat later, but his body twitched and convulsed weakly on the cold stone. Saliva dripped steadily from the corner of his mouth.

Oh.

Shit?

I hadn't meant to—

Oh, shit.

"Did you do this?" my sister demanded roughly. We both crouched beside him, not entirely sure what to do. This hadn't happened before. He could have been dying for all we knew. And I realised very suddenly that my first-aid knowledge was limited to anything that bled.

"I... Well, yes, I think so." I tried to wrestle Dad into the recovery position. "I mind-linked him — that's all."

"Shadowcats can't mind-link, Ric. Every pup on Anglesey knows that."

I merely threw a glance at Jeff and shrugged, as if to say, 'explain that, then.' Eira must have believed me, because she stared at me with a mixture of concern and disapproval.

Kat piped up, oh-so-innocently, "What's a Shadowcat?"

Just bloody fantastic.

"Shut up."

"Not now, Kat."

She scowled and looked away, suddenly enthralled by the family of crows.

We sat with Dad for a while. He came back to consciousness in leaps and bounds, the dribbling stopped, and the shaking retreated to his fingertips. I fetched a drink and jerky for him to chew, because that always calmed him down. 'Jeff wants it' had somehow morphed into 'Jeff hates it' — a phrase he mumbled until he ran out of breath. When he finally felt well enough to stand, he was meeker than a lamb — let us lead him gently towards the gate.

I began worrying that I'd imprinted the idea of wanting to leave into his mind. If I was right, I didn't have the faintest clue how to undo it. So he would have to leave. And I felt guilt gnawing at me because the castle wasn't important at all; I had just wanted to calm him down.

No — it had not been intentional. Of course, that didn't matter to Eira, who shoved my chest when we reached the gates, quite hard. It wasn't a difficult message to understand. I wasn't wanted.

"I think you've done enough," she said spitefully. "I'll take him back to the shepherd's hut and get him settled."

I took a step away from Dad and stared her wearily. "Are you sure that's—"

She cut across me. "Don't you dare, Ric."

I gave up. My father wasn't in any shape to throw another fit, and Eira was in a foul enough mood without me picking a fight about her safety. I watched them leave, Dad leaning on Eira and keeping up a constant stream of muttering.

"Jeffhatesitjeffhatesitjeffhatesit."

It took them five minutes just to reach the forest, at which point I heard soft scuffing of footsteps as my guest approached. She was still wearing my jacket.

"Nice to know I'm not the only one she's nasty to," Kat observed dryly.

"Eira loves me," I retorted, "... mostly."

We stood in silence for maybe a minute, watching one of the crows regurgitating food for her chicks. Kat wasn't behaving like a hostage, which might have surprised me, had I not been forming a suspicion that she hadn't been very happy at Lowland Pack. Or maybe she was just putting on a brave face and making the best of a shitty situation.

Once the parent crow had disappeared and the nest's inhabitants had settled down, Kat asked, "So, do you have a cell for me? I'd like some peace and quiet."

I jerked a thumb at the intact room which contained all my belongings, including several knives. "That room. You're welcome to try to escape, of course. It's unreasonable to expect anything else from a prisoner. But... could you maybe not try today?"

The corners of Kat's mouth twitched very slightly before she settled into her I-hate-you-and-everything-you-stand-for-expression. "No promises," she said firmly.

And I supposed that was good enough.