Half-term! So much extra time to write. You can expect another chapter at the end of the week. (Yes, that's three in a row, you lucky creatures). I'll be starting to write the Luna of Rogues sequel soon, and you can expect it by this summer.

By the time Lee and I had managed to haul our asses to the other side of the table, about a third of the combatants were on the floor. We stepped over two Betas and found Vik doing his best to break the Riverside Alpha's jaw.

Between us, we managed to catch hold of his shoulders and drag him backwards. I dropped Vik facedown on the ground, half underneath the table, and pinned him with an arm across the back of his neck before he could twist around and punch me.

"Sit on him," I told Lee. "I'll get Ivan."

"He'll actually kill me, Joe," Lee complained, but he did it anyway.

I waded back through the combat zone, occasionally pausing just long enough to kick and shove men off each other. When I reached Ivan and Cornell by the back wall, I had to pause just to snort, because they had apparently attacked their own guards so they could keep fighting — all four men were lying around unconscious or bloodied up.

Neither of them seemed to be winning, per se, but Cornell was fighting with the sort of wild rage that got people killed, so I pulled Ivan over backwards between blows and took his place. The Lowland Alpha had just enough time to frown as he processed the change in opponent before I ducked under one punch, caught the next, and delivered a kick to the back of his knee that any rookie should have seen coming.

His leg buckled, but he didn't fall, so I pushed him into the wall and crushed his throat into the bricks. He didn't stop struggling without air, but his struggling wasn't half so violent. It was too easy. The mainlanders fought with brute force: none of them bothered to think.

I could hear the scuff of feet behind me, and I knew Ivan had picked himself up. He was level-headed enough not to wreak havoc at my back, but I didn't like it, all the same. Having a stranger stood behind me was vulnerability on a scale I didn't often reach.

"Are you done?" I demanded. "Overgrown toddlers. Except you're not fighting over a toy — you're fighting over a real bloody human being. And guess what? Neither of you own her."

Ivan raised his eyebrows. Cornell was staring at me with a mixture between hatred and intense puzzlement. Maybe he'd never had a random guard from a barely legitimate pack call him out on his shit before. Or maybe he was starting to recognise the plucky guy who'd searched a rogue stronghold for him. Who knew.

The fight was breaking up, now — as guards managed to get hold of their Alphas and the Betas broke away like faithful hounds. Lee had let Vik onto his feet, and the dark-haired young Alpha was watching me with thinly-veiled hatred.

"You can let him go," Ivan told me, nodding at Cornell. His wording was careful, I couldn't help noticing. A suggestion, not a command. He must have figured it out by now.

I let Cornell go.

He took a quick, gasping breath and then massaged his throat. His eyes were dark, his chest rumbling silently. Interestingly, he didn't make any move to attack me, although his wolf was making it abundantly clear that he wanted to.

"Joe," Vik said, a warning and a recall.

Thinking he was safe — I wouldn't dare disobey my Alpha, now would I? — Cornell snarled, "Does this disrespectful piece of shit belong to you, Lloyd? I want him out of the packmeet."

I felt a grin tugging at my lips, and I didn't try all too hard to hide it.

"Yes, I think that would be a good idea," Ivan murmured. His eyes were looking into my soul again, and his mind was nudging at mine. Instead of slamming my walls into place, I left them wide open, thinking back to what Dafydd had said. He stayed well clear, after that. It smelt like a trap.

"Joe, out," Vik snapped.

I stared at him for a long time. Long enough to let him know in no uncertain terms that I wasn't obeying his order, just that it was convenient for me to go outside at that precise moment. A coincidence, not a submission.

Then I said, "Sure," and walked out of the church.

What happened after that, I had absolutely no idea.

***

I had been sat on the grass for nearly twenty minutes, throwing stones at a particularly twisted root, and it wasn't getting any more interesting. If I really strained, I could make out the noise of voices inside the church, but their words escaped me. I couldn't get any closer without someone seeing me from a window.

"This is boring," Eira grumbled inside my head. "Think of something to say already."

"I'm not in the packmeet anymore," I laughed. She had, of course, missed all of that excitement. "Got kicked out."

She went silent for a moment, examining the emotions running across the link and the stemming flood of adrenaline. "Were you ... fighting, Ric?"

"No, I was stopping the fighting."

"You got kicked out of the packmeet for stopping a fight?"

"No, I got kicked out of the packmeet for being too good at stopping the fight."

"Bloody hell, Ric," she muttered. "Come find me. We'll go back to the castle."

"Good idea. Let's take Vik's car."

She considered it for a moment. "We'd have to break a window."

"You think that arrogant bastard locked it?" I asked her, grinning. And five minutes later, I pulled up beside Eira in a BMW which didn't belong to me. Instead of climbing in, she opened my door and gave me one of those damned pleading smiles.

"Can I like, maybe..." she began sheepishly.

I rolled my eyes. "As soon as I see your licence."

"Hey, come on, I've got a provisional and you're allowed to supervise."

"Insurance?"

"You don't have insurance either," she reminded me. "And we're driving a stolen vehicle, so that's the least of our problems, really."

I had realised that already, and I didn't care really. I just liked making Eira think sometimes, because when she had the motivation to use her brain she could cook up some convincing arguments. I climbed into the passenger seat, and she took my place.

"Didn't check your blind spot," I told her sarcastically as she pulled off. She managed to flip me off halfway through a gear change.

To be honest, she didn't need my supervision. She would have passed her test years ago if not for the theory. While both of us were shit at reading, I had always worked doubly hard to make sure no one noticed that weakness. Eira had never made a secret of it. She'd tried and failed once — and then decided it wasn't worth the effort when everyone let her drive, anyway, because she was royalty for Goddess' sake.

It was when we parked beside the castle that the problems started. The ex-New Dawn members who were now part of 'Shadowless' Pack had been waiting for Vik to get back. When they saw the car, they crowded around.

But it was just Eira and me, their Alpha nowhere to be seen, and they began wondering how, exactly, we had come to possess his car. I managed to get out before the mass of bodies sealed themselves into an unhappy, confused ring around the car. Eira was out, too, but we were separated by flockies and the vehicle itself. My wolf wanted to get to her side, but that would have involved throwing a few punches.

"Where's Vik?" one of them demanded, and a chorus of echoes followed.

"Still at the packmeet," I told them.

No one looked particularly convinced. Eira shot me a look over the BMW that said that she wasn't convinced, either, and she knew I was telling the truth.

"Wanna try that again?" he asked. He was in the mood for violence. They were all in the mood for violence — I could smell the aggression all over them. After all, they had been living with rogues for weeks, and that had to sting.

I thought about calling for help from the castle. But honestly, if I couldn't handle a score of irritated flockies, I didn't deserve any help, did I? Whether Eira felt the same remained to be seen.

"I tore his throat out and left him bleeding in the mud," I said matter-of-factly. If I couldn't placate them, then I had to provoke them, because if they thought I was scared of them I'd be dead within the minute.

A smattering of growls was my answer. The guy I had been talking to let his wolf bleed into his eyes, and then demanded, "Do you think that's funny?"

"Get back in the car, Eira," I linked. She twisted her head to throw me a disgusted look even as I said aloud, "It was a little bit funny."

"We'll have to beat the smile off his face," another packling sneered.

"Needs to learn to respect his betters," the first one agreed. "Come on, then, rogue, how about it? Think you can take us?"

"Please, just get back in the car," I begged. If I had to die, fine, but I wasn't going to take Eira with me. She was going to live until she was old and grey, if I got my way. And she was going to have a litter of dark-furred devils to replace her.

"I'm not going to watch them kill you," she exclaimed, letting the link flood with fury. I understood the sentiment – honestly I did, but it still tore my heart into little pieces that I couldn't protect her anymore. I caught all that pain and threw it back at her,

"Please, Eira."

Now she ignored me. It was too much to ask: of course it was too much to ask, but I had to ask it all the same. Resigned, I returned my attention to the flockies and realised they were still waiting for a reply. I gave them a jerk of my head and a smirk which could have provoked even the most placid male. It was the unmistakable invitation to violence, the one that said pup in every language all at once.

Eira just managed to sigh before the flockie shifted.

My wolf took over in the blink of an eye, snapping my bones and shifting just as a set of teeth closed around my shoulder. I had been lucky — he had missed my jugular by an inch. Unknowing, he locked his jaw and held on, determined to bleed me out. I brought my jaws around and snapped chunks out of his front legs.

My teeth severed muscle and crushed the bones beneath. By the third bite, his legs had given out and I was supporting his weight as well as my own. So my movements were heavy, and when another body crashed into my flank and ripped into my underbelly, I couldn't turn.

Hot blood drenched my hind legs. It was move or die, because I had just heartbeats before the rest of the cavalry arrived. I twisted my neck at an unnatural angle to reach the throat of my attacker, his teeth tearing something in my shoulder as I moved. I caught a mouthful of flesh and tugged, and suddenly the grip on my shoulder was gone, the weight was gone, and the wolf at my flank had chosen a rather unfortunate moment to move his teeth to my hind leg.

I broke the coward's lower jaw and knocked him onto his back. Before I could do any serious damage, he whined a submission, beat his tail against the floor and lay nice and still. I might have done some damage anyway, but a split second later three more bodies crashed into me, another six not far behind. They had learned from their predecessors, and none of them tried hanging on. They just bit and released.

Soon, I was bleeding from a dozen places, and three of my limbs weren't functioning like they were supposed to. Another minute and the blood loss would have knocked me out. I was going to die the way my grandfather had died — ripped to bloody pieces — and that woke my anger. Instinctively, I lashed out with my mind. A few bodies flinched, or cowered back, and suddenly there was enough space to shake free of the rest of them.

And then my wolf growled his fury. He was cornered, he could smell his own blood, he knew his pack sister was fighting for her own life just out of his reach, and so the sound promised death to the next wolf to try his patience. The wolves in front of me hesitated. They had the numbers, and they could overwhelm me with ease, but none of them wanted to be the ones to get their throats ripped out in the process.

One took a tentative step backwards. There was already blood trickling form my nose and my ears, but I took a mental swipe at Eira's attackers, too. I swayed on my feet. It had helped her, probably, but it had cost me the little power I had held over the flockies.

The car was guarding my back and the bodies of three injured flockies were defending my left side, but a wolf darted forwards from the right side unhindered and plunged towards my throat, no doubt hoping that he would get lucky and end the fight in a single blow.

I caught hold of the scruff of his neck and shook him like a puppy, then sent his limp body skittering back to the others. I hadn't broken anything, but he staggered, and his back legs gave out.

Three more wolves edged forwards slowly, giving each other courage, daring each other on. I showed my teeth, snarled again and feinted at the nearest. They paused, but not for long, and I was about to launch a full-blown attack when—

A light-haired young man appeared from the woods. Alex. He looked like he had been hurrying, but not running, and I realised he must have heard the snapping and growling.

"Rhodric?" he asked uncertainly, and the packlings paused and turned to stare at him. I could have used the distraction to spill a throat or two, but I was too busy thinking frantically.

"Help Eira," I told him through the link. He had shifted and disappeared behind the car before it had even occurred to the flockies to attack him. Once he was gone, they turned back to me and resumed the game of creeping forwards to snap, several at once. I was dealing more damage than I was taking, but this tactic wasn't intended to kill. No, they were trying to wear me out.

And it was working.