Weekly updates will now be officially Monday and Friday nights. It just occurred to me that you probably don't recognise most of the names in this book, like Llewellyn, which is very welsh. And the castle: Lle o Dristwch, does actually have a meaning. Rhys is the welsh version of Reece. Rhodric is Roderick.

After Davies died, I didn't break down like Sophie did. I couldn't afford to, not if I wanted to save others from the same fate. I wouldn't allow myself to mourn my friend until his death was avenged, so I threw myself straight back into the preparations.

I decided that if Rhys wasn't here by tonight, I'd go ahead and kick-start the rebellion, anyway, if only to stop Brandon taking any more lives. To be honest, I wasn't even sure the rogues would wait until this evening. They were angry, impatient and scared.

Tom found me when I was soaking the catapult ammunition with wolfsbane, enough to incapacitate, but not kill its targets. He was the first person I'd seen all day who looked even remotely calm and not on the verge of shifting.

There had been scuffles between Brandon's men and mine. Everyone was on edge, and it showed. One rogue boy had been beaten so badly the medics weren't sure if he would ever walk again.

"You've got to stop beating yourself up," he told me, getting straight to the point. "This is war now — people will get hurt and you can't save all of them."

"I can try," I muttered, forgetting for a moment what I'd been taught about respecting elders.

"Davies knew the risks. He got caught, and that's on him," Tom explained. "So forget it. Grieving won't help you now. We need you, of all people, focused."

"And that's what I don't understand. Why me?" I asked. It was something that had been bothering me for quite some time, especially since Davies. "You could do a better job. Anyone could do a better job."

"I don't see anyone else stepping up. Do you?" He grimaced. "Not all of us have the courage to lead. Or the support to do anything more than share our experience. I've always been an advisor, nothing more. We — the elders, that is — advised Rhodric. We would be honoured if we could do the same for you."

I didn't really know how to respond to that, so I just smiled sadly. "Well. Thank you. Got any advice about the whole Brandon situation?"

"Use your inside man for spying. No more than that. It's the best way to keep cover. And built up as many defences as you can before attacking. I'm talking ditches, stakes — the works. The idea of recording howling was good. It won't work twice on Brandon, but I'll bet you can come up with something even better." Tom soon excused himself to find Maggie, leaving me to think things through.

Ideas...

I was drawing a blank until I realised that our very nature can be used against us. Wolves' abilities can be exploited as well as utilized. For one thing, our hearing is a little too good. We also don't have hands in our animal form, which leaves us vulnerable to basic traps.

Despite Tom's suggestion, I didn't dare entrench the castle. That would be like shouting our intentions to the world. Instead, I dug out some footfall traps. Their jagged teeth were rusted to bluntness, but it would work just the same.

Then, on a whim, I rang up a hardware store and made an unusual request. Not only did I pay for the item I needed, but also personal delivery to an oddly specific woodland spot. They were sceptical until I got to three figures. Which was extortion, but it was worth it.

My next step (and don't you dare try this at home, kids) was to make a bomb. All I needed was foil, sugar, cold packs from the first-aid tent, string, candles and empty drinking cans. Those things would make a smoke bomb. Not harmful, but very annoying.

The first step was to melt the candles and dip the huge length of string in the molten wax. That worked as a fuse. Then I measured out potassium nitrate from the cold packs and sugar and used it to fill the drinking cans, poking a fuse in the top of each one.

In just an hour I had concocted thirty smoke bombs with plenty of ingredients to spare. Let's see how Brandon likes fighting blind.

I started to get pretty carried away then — tipping acidic drain cleaner mixed with food colouring on the weaker sections of the wall. It would deter anyone from climbing, that was certain. At least I was nice enough to add the dye to warn people off. Besides, acid wouldn't do as much damage to a wolf's paws as human skin.

Using a small crowd of rogues as cover, I poured spirits in a ring around all of the easily accessible sections of wall. It could be lit to form a temporary flaming barrier, to allow time to regroup when we reached the safety of the walls.

The only thing left to do was neutralise the guns, which I was planning to achieve with our inside man — Leo. He came to meet me in the temporary bomb storage room when I sent an inquiring mind-link.

"Damn, Skye. Where exactly did you learn how to do this?" he asked, examining a smoke bomb closely.

"Rhodric showed us a few things. But the explosives ones are our own design. The scientific principles involved aren't actually that complicated. Fion's a genius," I replied casually, completely unaware that making bombs was not a very normal teenage activity.

"An evil genius, maybe. So where do I fit into your scheme?"

"You're going to take the ammo out of the guards' guns," I told him, and he frowned.

"How I am going to get hold of their guns?" He was now picking at the mortar between the stones on the wall.

"Tell them it's a routine weapon check, or anything. I don't care what you say, as long as they can't shoot us tonight," I said.

"You're attacking tonight? Am I fighting with you or staying undercover?" Leo sounded unusually alarmed, until I remembered that fighting for us would put his mate in danger. That wasn't fair on him, and I remembered Tom's advice.

"Stay with Brandon for now. Just try and find an excuse not to join in the fight. I don't want to have to kick your ass, even if it's just for show." I gave him a grin.

"Hey, I'd be doing all the ass kicking!" he protested. "Not because you're a girl, either  — I ain't sexist. I've been training since my first shift."

"Maybe you would beat me, then. I'm not all that keen on training," I mumbled to get him to put his guard down.

He smirked and took his eyes off me for a second to watch a sparrow nesting in the eaves. I used his distraction to launch a sharp kick to the back of his legs and a punch under his chin. Once that had sent him to the ground, I knelt on his arms and put a hand lightly on his throat.

Leo eyed his predicament with sensible alarm. When he caught sight of my teasing expression, he groaned in defeat.

"Who's the badass one now?" I asked.

"You. Definitely you," he admitted.

Now I was the one smirking, as I stood and helped him up. "I trained with Rhodric and Rhys every afternoon since I was nine. You're stronger than me — true. But, as Athena says, even strength must bow to wisdom."

"It's nice to meet a female who doesn't rely on her mate to defend her," Leo said, though he was still rubbing his chin resentfully.

"Well, I don't even have a mate yet. But if I did, I'd tell him to stay the hell out of my fights," I replied. He blinked, then smiled at that. "And before forget to tell you, make sure you aren't in your wolf form when the fighting starts."

"Why is that? You got some weapon of mass destruction that only works on werewolves?"

"Yup," I replied bluntly. "If you value your eardrums, don't shift."

Leo eyed me strangely but didn't comment. He froze in the mind-linking kind of way for a minute or so. "Brandon's calling me about something. I'll stay in touch, though."

I felt oddly disappointed. Once Leo had left, I noticed a small package left in the entrance. One of my minions must have delivered it while we talked, quietly so as not to disturb me. Inside was a small black box with a single red button. I pocketed it for later, deciding it would be safer not to test it beforehand.

The weather started to turn for the worst — the first of the winter storms brewing. Droplets of rain began to fall, followed by strong winds and distant rumbles of thunder. I wasn't sure if that was good or bad for us. The visibility and conditions would be poor for both sides, so it didn't really provide an advantage. I could only hope that after years in the mild west, Brandon's men wouldn't be as accustomed to storms.

After that, it was just a waiting game. I needed Rhys to contact me before we could start the attack. Lunchtime passed, then the rest of the afternoon dragged tediously by. I was considering getting my supper when I finally felt a tickle through the mind-link.

"Skye, you there?" Rhys asked.

"Sure am. How close are you?" I replied, barely able to contain my excitement. Finally, we could do something. Even fighting for my life was better than waiting around.

I felt his relief at our mental reunion. And oddly, pride. "We'll be half an hour, I reckon. You can start now if you want. I've got a hundred rogues. Will that be enough?"

"Should be. Between us, we'll outnumber them three to one. Oh, and stay in your human forms if you see smoke." I cut off the connection and opened my eyes without giving him a chance to reply. Someone had arrived.

The shifter I had chosen to be my second-in-command during the fight, another of Rhys's friends — Ollie, was standing in the entrance, watching me wearily. He was fiercely loyal and a dangerous fighter. You couldn't help but like him for his quiet brilliance.

"Was that Rhys? Is he okay?"

I nodded in answer to both questions. "You can tell everyone it's time."

Ollie smiled and fiddled with his phone. I suspected he was trying to play a certain song with an identical title.

"You can also tell them that if I hear any Imagine Dragons playing, the person responsible will be put on latrine duty for eternity," I warned him, and he sighed in disappointment. "Just send the mass mind-link."

He had to close his eyes for a full minute to reach the concentration needed. Contacting so many people at once was tricky, but when he finally managed it, he winced and covered his ears in a futile attempt to block out mental shouting.

I raised my eyebrows and Ollie shrugged. "They're a little excited about getting a chance to 'send those back-stabbing brutes back to the hole they crawled out of,' or something along those lines."

"Okay then. Commence phase two." Oh yes - we were actually organised enough to put our plan into stages.

Phase one was Leo conveniently looking the other way while Fion snuck out of Brandon's tent and took shelter in the castle. It should have already taken place, straight after the mind-link.

Phase two was a lot more fun. It involved the rogues forming an angry mob around the tents. Once I had walked the short distance from the ruins to the camp, I could already see large groups of people milling around. The children and the elderly used the distraction to make their way into the safety of the castle. The mob's job was to make sure they reached it without interference.

I joined the crowds and started yelling abuse at Brandon, along with everyone else. We called him every insulting name under the sun before he finally emerged from the tent. Brandon saw us, realised the threat to his well-being, and did exactly what I hoped he would do. He shifted.

All the guards followed his example in a futile attempt to restore order, creating the perfect scenario for the little black box in my pocket. What I had so painstakingly ordered was a high-frequency tone generator. In human form, we could choose whether to use our wolf senses, but once shifted, it was no longer optional.

When I jammed my thumb onto the button, it incapacitated every wolf in a kilometre radius. Brandon himself sank to his knees at the shrieking sound, which everyone in human form remained blissfully unaware of. The noise created was loud and high-pitched enough to physically cripple the werewolf population. Neat, I know.

A few loyal rogues started letting loose with the smoke bombs, guaranteeing that even when the tone generator was out of range, our enemies would be blinded. Even scent navigating was out of the question; the stench of smoke overwhelmed everything else.

Then came phase three: run for the castle and hope we could secure it before the smoke cleared. I broke into a sprint, turning off the tone generator once I got too far away. I reached the walls ahead of most of my rogues. Then I began the slightly sketchy task of making an explosive bomb.

The supplies were already waiting in position, and I won't explain in detail how to use them (because it's probably illegal), but I will tell you that it involved aerosol, sparklers and foil. I set it up at the base of the ruined tower which neighboured our defensive stretch of wall.

While I fumbled with the matches, a few of Brandon's wolves struggled out of the haze of smoke, only to break down in vigorous coughing fits. By the time the fuse caught, a dozen wolves had recovered enough to charge at me. They didn't get a chance to get any closer than that.

I turned heel and dived for cover, not really having any idea if I was far enough away. I was, as it turned out. Ollie crouched next to me, shifted and ready to engage anyone who made it beyond the outer wall. But that wouldn't be necessary, because the bomb went off with plenty of time to spare.

It destroyed enough stone to undermine the tower, which swayed sideways and toppled under its own weight. The crash shocked everyone into silence — attackers and defenders alike. A cloud of dust settled, to reveal that the rubble had fallen straight across the weakness in our defences, exactly as I had hoped it would. I then clambered to the top of the new stretch of wall and stared mockingly at the enemy wolves, who were frozen in shock.

But their leader recovered first and snapped out orders through the mind-link. Brandon's men spread into a ring around the castle, effectively surrounding us. It looked like they were willing to wait us out.

The first siege of Lle o Dristwch had begun.