Three million, two hundred thousand pounds.

It was more than I had been letting myself hope for. Less than my wildest dreams had imagined. There would certainly be enough to pay the raiders who were 'guarding' Kat, with seven figures left over. I whistled long and low. "That is a lot of money."

"They're mated," Tom told me in a duh tone. Kat wiped a speck of mud from Ebony's beak and said absolutely nothing. Her expression was shut off.

I knew Cornell was rich enough that three point two million was barely a slap on the wrist. He could have afforded a hundred times more. But, still, it was a high price to pay for a female who wasn't even his soulmate. As far as I could tell, he didn't even love her.

"You got a mate?" I asked Tom absently. He was in his mid-thirties, after all. As far as I could tell, most people had their mates by the time they were my age, let alone his. And having never seen him with a female, I was curious.

He shook his head.

"Girlfriend?" Kat tried.

She got another shake of the head, this time with a helping of amusement. There was clearly something we were missing.

I dared to ask, "Boyfriend?"

"No," he laughed. But there was a new, guarded edge to his voice. "I'm not interested."

"In males or females?"

"Neither. Both."

"Huh." I was slightly taken aback, I had to admit. Only seconds later, I was wondering why I had never considered that it could be possible not to have any interest in reproducing. And there was a certain defensive look in his eyes that made me wonder if people had given him shit for it in the past. Or perhaps failed to understand.

"So I guess you wouldn't want to settle down with anyone?" Kat asked, recovering first.

He shrugged. "Not in that way, no. But I wouldn't mind companionship, I suppose."

Because he was a wolf, and it was in his nature to be with other wolves.

I nodded along. "And kids?"

Tom was loosening, lowering those walls with every word that came out of his mouth. "Not fussed. I wouldn't mind having some about, I guess."

Kat's free hand went to her stomach automatically. I didn't think she even realised what she was doing. I watched the smile on her face fall away, leaving only worry and sadness. Ebony chattered away in crow speak, but Kat didn't seem to hear. Tom and I fell silent.

"Cornell won't want it," she whispered after a while. "What am I supposed to do?"

She smelled pregnant now. It had been driving my wolf to distraction, because he reckoned he needed to protect her at all costs, even though it wasn't my kid. Yesterday at lunch I had found myself growling at a ten-year-old for jostling her.

"Ivan will take the kid. He'll have to. And you can keep the little bastard with you," I told her.

"What if he wants me to..." Kat faltered. She wiped her eyes and chewed on her lip. "What if he wants me to get rid of it?"

And, finally, I understood the tears. I slipped an arm over her shoulder and pulled her towards me, wrapping her in a hug. "Then you'll call me, and I'll kidnap your pregnant ass all over again. For good, this time. And you can forget all about Ivan."

She laughed through a sob. Ebony squirmed in her hand, spooked by the noise. "It's not quite that simple, you know. You'll understand when you find your mate. The bond always wins in the end. You can only choose how long you fight it."

I didn't have the heart to tell her that I wouldn't ever find my mate, because I didn't have one. After a full minute of silence, Tom laughed darkly and ran a hand through his hair. "So, are you going to pass it along or what?"

Yes, I was. I had promised, after all, and whatever had passed between Vik and me, I probably still owed him that much. So, grudgingly, I prepared to extend a mind-link to Lee, only to find that Eira had beaten me to it. Either she had been listening to my thoughts, or I had been spilling over again. With my sister as a living connection, I greeted Lee.

"You still with Ivan?" I asked him. We were too far apart. The words were strained, but he must have gotten the gist of it.

"Yes..." I felt him say. After that, it was just fragments. "New Dawn— Car— Where?"

While I tried to decide exactly what question he had been trying to ask, his link fell away to be replaced by a foreign, moderately hostile presence. Vik. He was just as far away, and I didn't know him so well, but he was a mind-tapper, too. Between us, we could hold up a passable link.

And I could sense his brother supporting the connection, which made me edgy. One slip, and he'd have free reign in my head, and worse, Eira's — so I had to keep my walls firm and open at the same time.

"Hello," an irritated voice began. "Did you steal my car?"

"Yes," I admitted carelessly, "but I'm quite willing to give it back."

Then came the anger in hot, rolling waves, closely followed by grudging agreement. "We caught a lift with Ivan. When you drop Kat over, you can bring the car."

"Your men have it," I said, truthfully. They weren't just going to hand it to me, were they? No, that train had left the station.

"If it's at Lle o Dristwch, you can damn well bring it," he snapped.

"It's not here, because your men aren't here. I sent them packing for the village an hour ago."

"You did what?"

"You're flockies now," Eira reminded him. "Legally obliged to kill us."

It was tempting — oh, so tempting — to start making vague references to that conversation I had overheard at that point. But I was equally loathe to lose that advantage. I had stabbed him in the back before he could take a swing at mine: better he think I had acted ruthlessly than defensively.

The link went silent for a moment. I could feel a tension crackling below the surface, as if we had irritated him but he didn't want to start an argument. Eventually, he settled for ignoring us and changing the subject

"How much did Cornell offer?"

"Three point two million," I told him smugly. "But you can tell your brother I want three and a half out of him. Make it believable, y'know."

He snorted. "An extra three hundred thousand, to make it believable?"

"An extra three hundred thousand to avert a pack war," I corrected. "It'll be your smarmy asses on the line if Cornell thinks he's been cheated, not mine. I'm doing you a favour."

"A favour," Vik repeated dryly.

"Yeah."

He cut the connection rather abruptly, and I couldn't help laughing. It might have taken a while to learn which buttons I needed to push, but now I could wind him up in less than a minute.

I looked up at Tom. "Link me when it comes through, will you? If you can't manage a full connection, that's fine. Anything will do."

He nodded and sat himself down amidst all the wires to wait. And I realised that if I was going to New Dawn and meeting with Ivan Lloyd, I might need to look a little more presentable. Or not — because I had run out of clean clothes days ago. I settled for pinching one of the tech guy's spare water bottles and pouring the thing over my head.

The throbbing in my stomach and shoulder was being replaced by itching as it healed, and most of the smaller teeth marks had already scabbed. I checked the dressings, and there were only a few spots of blood. The stitches looked tight, too. So I pulled the dressings off, wincing as it stretched my skin with it.

And then I looked at Kat, and I came to the realisation that our time with her was up. Permanently. There were no more excuses, no more delaying. She needed to be on her way to New Dawn when the money came in.

"Let's go and get your things," I said quietly.

"You kidnapped me, Rhodric. I didn't get time to pack a bag," she pointed out.

"Oh. Right, well, yeah, then I guess we'll just leave. Someone fetch Alex."

Nobody seemed inclined to run off and do my bidding, so I called him through the link myself. Then I directed a few of Lee's guys to put the rest of the Silver Lake prisoners — except the one who'd been at Llechi, of course — in a van and scatter them around the north, seeing as their ransom was due in the next fifteen minutes.

"Car?" I asked Tom.

He scratched his head while he thought about it. "Grey seven-seater Kia, near the river. Keys are in the ignition."

"Thank you very much."

I didn't like having to ask, but there wasn't time to take a trip to the village. Once I got my share of the money, I would be able to find an old car for a couple hundred pounds. Actually — scratch that. Why buy one when I could just pinch a handful from the packs?

"A car counts as heavy machinery, you know," Alex said matter-of-factly.

He was right, but like hell I was going to sit through half an hour of taunting from my little sister because some doctor had decided I wasn't physically fit. "Ah, shit, just don't tell Eira—"

"Tell Eira what?" a smug voice demanded.

I managed to both wince and hide the misery on my face before she could get a look at me. "That eavesdropping is considered rude."

"You were having a conversation outdoors, underneath some literal eaves, and you expect me not to—"

It wasn't worth the fuss. It really wasn't. And that wasn't just my exhaustion talking. I interrupted her with, "You can drive."

So she was happy.

The four of us began the trek down to the river, but we had barely made it ten yards before I realised that Mort was lingering in the courtyard, feigning disinterest while he shuffled from foot to foot.

I could take a hint just fine. "Want to tag along?"

His replying beam could have competed with the sun. He was happy, too. Alex was going home to his mate, so I reckoned he was ecstatic. It seemed Kat and I were the only ones who wouldn't enjoy this road trip.

***

New Dawn territory was a warzone. Technically, it had been a warzone ever since the feud with Riverside had begun in the sixties, but it had only started looking like a warzone in the span of the last week. The bone fence had doubled in height, someone had been painting the longest bones with blood, and the barrier across the main road had become a metal gate. Clearly, they were taking Lowland more seriously than their hostile neighbours.

"Welcome to your new home," I told Kat dryly. "You'll have to excuse the smell."

"The castle smells worse. So many filthy rogues wandering about..." she retorted.

I bowed my head mockingly. "Yes, Luna, we are the vermin under your feet."

From the driver's seat, Eira snorted. She had parked us with a clear view into New Dawn's entrance, yet far enough away to floor it and make a clean break should anyone come hunting.

Within five minutes of our arrival, the mind-link thrummed. It was Tom — I could tell that much, but what he was trying to say was out of reach, even with Eira helping me out. I stretched a little further, trying to make out a word or two, and — I slipped.

And I fell into some void between our minds, sinking into the blackness, and the next thing I remembered was waking up in the car, confused, disorientated, and utterly cut off from Tom. Three or four seconds might've passed.

I'd never passed out from linking before. It was the blood loss; it had to be. That, and abusing the link to defend myself earlier. It was a startling realisation — to discover that I had limitations like the next person, and that I might actually have to respect them.

"Ric?" my sister asked, twisting in her seat. She may not have sounded worried, but I knew her better than that. She had felt the whole thing: we'd been sharing a mind.

"Fine," I managed to mutter. "I'm fine."

I wasn't fine. I could hear the blood roaring in my ears, hear my own heart beating. And worse, I felt weak. Fragile, like pushing too hard might send me back into that forced sleep. But none of those feelings were going to kill me, so I wiped a trickle of blood from nose before she could see it. The familiar metallic smell filled the car anyway, just to spite me.

"Rhodric." Eira undid her seatbelt while she thought no one was looking, and I knew I had been rumbled. We had everyone's full attention now.

"I'm fine," I repeated, trying to add a touch of annoyance. Kat's eyes were as wide as saucers, Alex's were wary and Mort's were full of innocent concern.

"No, you're not," she said quietly. "You should stay behind."

I shook my head. Like hell I would sit here. One dizzy spell couldn't side-line me for the rest of the day. And I was not letting Eira face both of the Lloyd brothers on her own.

Eira's eyes flashed. "If they smell weakness, they're going to break your mind like an eggshell."

"I'll turn my scent off," I snapped, knowing full well that she hadn't meant it literally. She knew that I knew, and her lip curled ready, doubtless ready for a sharp retort.

"I could just walk from here," Kat suggested shyly. "Hand myself over to the guards."

Not bloody likely. We weren't handing her to anyone but Ivan himself. My wolf hadn't forgotten that she was pregnant. So I shook my head. "Ivan wanted to talk to us, but he's not going to like what he hears."

And with that, I unbuckled my seatbelt and climbed out of the car. The others made to follow, Eira with most of hell's fury still smouldering inside her. My hand was on Kat's door before she had even touched the handle.

"Stay here," I told her. "Alex, Mort, you look after her. First sign of trouble — bail. Don't worry about us."

After all, Alex could get into trouble. It was easy to forget that he was still a flockie with the law to uphold. Fraternising with rogues ... now, that carried a hefty punishment. And Mort was far too headstrong to keep his mouth shut around an Alpha.

So it was just Eira and me who made the walk across three hundred metres of woodland to find a spot with all the visibility we needed. It was a railway track, clear of trees, fenced on both sides and bordered by ditches. The flockies would struggle to surround the place, and with so much low, dead undergrowth, we would hear them coming a mile off.

We found a place to wait beside the fence itself. Eira found some wild strawberries and scoffed them by the handful. There were only ten minutes between calling Lee through the link and their arrival, but they were some of the longest of my life. I was dizzy, exhausted and nauseous, and my sister could feel it all through the link, if the disgust on her face was any indication.

"At least sit down," she muttered.

I just laughed.