"Skye."

The whisper woke me, and sooner than I would have liked. I came back to awareness slowly and reluctantly. There was something heavy on my abdomen. Breathing was difficult. Not even to mention that my head was pounding like a drum.

"Skye."

It was louder this time, loud enough that my headache flared up in protest. Irritated, I opened my eyes and murmured blearily, "Whatcha want?"

It was Leo, and he looked about as awful as I felt. He pressed a finger to his lips and beckoned me to the tent entrance. Getting up was difficult, not least because Tally was lying on top of me. But to be fair, I had been squashing both of the twins. The world span as I finally eased out and stumbled into the dawn light.

Never. I was never going to get drunk again.

Leo looked me over sympathetically. "The sun's up — we should have left already. And you were thrashing ... and projecting through the link. Nightmare?"

I nodded silently. There was no use talking about it. The dreams were nothing new. They came and went from time to time, and at some point I had just stopped caring.

He was right. It was midmorning. Golden light set the forest aglow with an intensity that was more reminiscent of spring than winter. Yet no one was awake. No one except Leo, of course, and Rhys, who was crouched by the fire and looking annoying functional.

He acknowledged me with a lazy grin, then went back to stirring last night's coals. Trying to get a spark from an ember, I guessed. Everyone would want hot food before they left, and clean water was a necessity, so we needed a fire.

And that prompted another, more worrying thought. We couldn't carry water for more than a day, so we would need to fetch some before we left. And while I hadn't been scouting yesterday, I didn't think anyone had spotted running water in the vicinity. There was snow, obviously, but no one liked the taste. Besides, there was only a thin coat in this part of the woods, and it was muddy.

"Let's take a walk," I suggested, grabbing the water canteens from an equipment heap. Leo collected half of them, which I took for assent.

"You look like shit," Rhys told me cheerfully, "so don't go too far."

I showed him my middle finger before leaving camp.

We headed towards higher ground, hoping to find a viewpoint. After walking over a mile, when we were still drawing a total blank on water of any kind, I found a dry rock and sat on it, hugging my legs to my chest. Walking was definitely not going on my list of hangover cures. And as if my headache wasn't bad enough, a faint rushing sound was aggravating it.

Leo sat down too, catching his breath. We were descending a muddy slope which never seemed to end, and it wasn't all too easy on the lungs. And as if that wasn't bad enough, the snow had begun to fall again, erasing our footprints. It was fortunate that I had the mind-link to guide me back if necessary, as well as a degree of familiarity with the area. I had vague memories of Rhodric teaching us to hunt in these hills. No — I wouldn't be getting lost today.

I gave up on the aimless wandering. It wouldn't work as fast as we needed it to. So I tried something else, telling Leo, "Imagine you're an animal..."

"That's not difficult," he muttered.

"Just roll with it, alright?" I growled, and he nodded. "You're an animal in new territory. How do you find water?"

Leo didn't even hesitate. "I dig for it."

"That won't work for us — our stomachs can't cope with the bacteria in stagnant water. We would have to shift every time we wanted a drink," I sighed. Fion had drilled this into me years ago, and even the thought of those lectures made me miss her even more. "Any other ideas?"

"Does it have a smell?"

I shook my head wearily. "Well, yeah, in a sense. But we can't identify it that way, not unless we know the mineral composition of the local sources. It'd be a lot like trying to sniff out a mountain."

"For someone who's never set foot in a school, you sure know a lot," Leo said admiringly. He said it like a compliment, although I wasn't so sure.

"Fion," I said by way of explanation. "But I did go to school once, you know. Rhodric was betting on how long we'd last, so he enrolled all three of us in the local comp."

He laughed, "And how long did you last?"

"Ah, only a morning. Rhys and I reckoned that dad wouldn't make us go if we were difficult enough, which was pointless of course — he was just having a laugh. But we didn't know that, so we raised hell. Getting into fights, climbing on the roof, pulling the fire alarm and shit like that. The head got sick of us before lunch and boom — expulsion."

"How unsurprisingly," Leo drawled. "Was Rhodric pissed?"

The memory finally managed to make me grin. "Of course not. He won the bet. But he did ask what took us so long."

In the brief silence that followed, I longed for those times again. And there was a part of the story I had forgotten. Fion. She had gone to every lesson like a model pupil and done her work ... and actually enjoyed herself, I reckoned. But after we had been kicked out, she had followed us through the gates. Not because she wanted to, but just because we could never stand being apart for long.

She should be here now.

"Hey, do you hear that?" Leo asked suddenly.

That faint rushing hadn't got any quieter, so yes — I did.

"Yeah," I grumbled, "it's giving me a headache."

He eyed me strangely. "Me too. But what is it, Skye?"

I shrugged, still not understanding why it mattered. There were always weird sounds in the forest. We never took much notice.

Leo's pupils took a lap. "Think about it."

The next minute was a struggle to use my brain in spite of the post-alcohol sluggishness that fogged every thought. I knew I had heard that sound before, but it was my wolf's memory rather than mine that finally recalled an afternoon climbing cliffs around Blackwater Falls.

"Water!" I exclaimed triumphantly.

He just rolled his eyes again. "C'mon."

We stood up again. The water canteens now swung on a branch between us, which made them far easier to carry. I was not looking forward to the return journey, when the weight would sting my hands. It was only a few hundred more metres of walking before we emerged from the forest onto a rocky outcrop. Water cascaded over the edge and into an impressive pool below.

Everyone knew that water tastes better at the bottom of a waterfall, but the climb down was icy and treacherous. So, no — I wouldn't risk my neck for a nicer flavour. We stayed on the outcrop.

I flashed Leo a daredevil grin. "Fancy a swim?"

"I don't know, Skye," Leo snorted. He reached into the stream to splash a handful of water at me, and it was so icy that I had to squeal. "You tell me. Is it warm enough?"

"Yeah, lovely," I lied. He splashed me again and I conceded with, "Hey, is that ice over there?"

"Looks like it. I'll pass on the swim."

"Shame."

Leo leapt the stream with ease and braced one end of the stick, while I held the other. The canteens fought the current for a moment, bucking and weaving in a doomed attempt to escape the inevitable. Then the water won, of course, and the bottles went still as they filled.

Watching just reminded me of the hopelessness of my own situation.

"Do you think it's worth it?" I asked without warning

He frowned. "What?"

I lifted my end of the branch from the water and screwed the lids onto their respective canteens. The weight was oppressive enough that I had to rest it on my knee. "We need to kill the ferals or they'll kill all of us. That's obvious. But allying with the packs to do it? Doesn't that just, I don't know, go against the natural order or something?"

Leo paused, thinking about it. When he finally did answer, it wasn't as helpful as I would have liked. "Okay. As I am young and have yet to garner the wisdom of the world, all I can offer is a story with a loosely relevant moral. Sound good?"

"Not really."

"It all begins on a dark and stormy night," he continued heedlessly. "Picture — if you will — a ruined castle, shrouded in shadows and rain."

Interrupting the dramatic recital by that point seemed more effort than it was worth. But we were on a time limit. "Fast forward to something relevant."

He leapt the stream again to flick my ear. "Oh, hush. You'll like it, I swear. It's Llewellyn heritage."

"Yeah?" I asked, eager now.

"Yeah. A hundred years ago, when Caradoc Lloyd ruled the north, forty werewolves banded together. They weren't happy with their lives and blah, blah, blah. Society just didn't agree with them, I guess. So they went to Anglesey and formed their own little democracy."

Now those were people I could relate to. "They sound like rogues to me."

Leo rolled his eyes. "Patience, young one — I was getting to that bit. Some were rogues. One was a notorious raider who was wanted, well, everywhere. That was enough to make Caradoc itchy, so he found some ancient law that they had broken by leaving ... and attacked. Forty wolves against an army."

"Must have been a short battle."

"No, not quite. It seems impossible that they held the bridge, but they did. Alone and struggling to turn every attack. But then more wolves started to trickle in, a few at a time. The ones who weren't happy with society as it was — and there are always people like that. Every few generations or so, the outcasts tend to band together and start again, like when Rhodric arrived," he continued.

I hauled the water contains upwards, deciding we had spent enough time standing still. Every minute was a waste of daylight. A flick of my hand told Leo to start walking, and he finished the story as we moved.

"So, anyway, that went on for a while. When there were more than a hundred wolves holding the bridge, Caradoc started suing for peace. I think he had realised his mistake. A treaty of some sort was negotiated. I don't know the details. And since then the mainland and the island have lived in peace. A strained peace, but what else can you expect?"

"You still haven't explained what my family has to do with this," I grumbled.

He threw me an exasperated look as he sidestepped a fallen tree. "Geez, Skye, you gotta let me finish. Caradoc died at Lle o Dristwch, the packs fell into chaos, and the shifters of Anglesey cut themselves off entirely. No one really knows much about the place anymore, except that the people who go there rarely come back."

"What do we want? Llew-el-lyns!" I started chanting. "When do we want them? Now!"

"And now for the best part of the story," Leo carried on, completely ignoring me, "the leader of the rebels was called Elmira, and she was Caradoc's daughter. She did it all so she could marry Bryn: he was actually the raider I mentioned earlier. Now isn't that a match made in heaven? Rogue and an Alpha's daughter?"

"Wait..." I said suddenly, racking my brains. "They sound familiar. Didn't they have a huge family?"

He smiled but shook his head. "That was her brother, Caradoc's son. Bryn and Elmira only had one daughter, who had several children, one of which you know very well."

He seemed to expect me to make a connection on my own. "I do?"

"I'll give you a clue. Bryn's surname was Llewellyn."

And then it was all too obvious. "No way," I breathed. "I thought that was just a rumour. But — let me get this straight — Caradoc attacked his daughter because she ran off with a Llewellyn?"

"Basically," Leo said with a shrug. "Rhodric never told you about his grandparents, huh?"

"Never." He hadn't even talked about his parents and siblings, all of whom were inexplicably missing. Not for the first time, I began to wonder what, exactly, there was to hide.

There was a pause as we scaled a particularly nasty slope, then, "Anyway. The moral of the story is that, sometimes, getting along with the packs is the only way to survive. Sometimes you have to live in peace with your neighbours, even when you'd rather not. If Bryn and Elmira could do it, why not us?"

"No," I said stubbornly, "the moral of the story is that flockies are assholes. If they hadn't started a war, there wouldn't be any need to make peace."

He scowled. "That isn't the point, Skye. It doesn't matter who started it, just— You know what? I'm never telling you a story again."

The water canteens swung wildly as I laughed at him. From there, the conversation turned to lighter topics, such as last night's revelries. Although neither of us could remember the game clearly, some admissions just imprinted on the memory.

The walk back seemed impossibly fast, and we had no difficulty locating the camp once a grey plume rose above the canopy.

Rhys had coaxed the others out in our absence. They shuffled around camp and sat huddled under blankets, all at various levels of coherence. But the campfire was my first stop. It blazed impressively hot. After a few minutes crouched beside it, the feeling returned to my fingers until they felt useful again and less like sticks of frozen flesh attached to my hands.

"Couldn't be arsed with kindling, so I tipped the dregs of the vodka on it," Rhys said proudly once he noticed my admiration for the fire.

"What do we need a fire for, anyway?" Tally asked.

He snorted as if it was a stupid question. "Breakfast, of course. We're gonna make bread."

"Bread?" There was suspicion in those words, and doubt. I wasn't surprised. The newer rogues always arrived inexplicably ignorant to the secrets of surviving in the forest. How, I didn't know, because it seemed only second nature to me.

"It isn't difficult. Flour and water — that's all."

"Bullshit," Tally breathed. "If you could make bread out of flour and water, everyone would do it. Why bother with yeast and all that shit?"

"Try it before you pass judgement," I warned her, digging out a Tupperware container of flour from my rucksack. She took it reluctantly. "Get a handful, add water until it feels like a dough, then put it on one of the hot stones. And voila — you have breakfast."

While she was busy carrying out those instructions and Rhys was occupied with watching and laughing, I took a tour of camp. Emmet and Ryker were packing away the tents, the twins were curled up under a tree, letting out occasional groans, Aaron's gang were sat in a sullen circle ... and Sophie was alone, running a whetstone along a knife blade and seeming not to notice how everyone winced at the scraping sounds.

"Alright?" I asked her as I passed.

She replied, "Yes," while somehow managing to sound the exact opposite.

I took it for a dismissal and kept walking until I reached the twins' tree, where I crouched down very close to their ears to shout, "Lovely morning, isn't it?"

Tally shot me a venomous glare — she was lying just beyond them, I could see that now. But Kevin actually made a whimpering sound like a dying animal and his twin asked hoarsely, "Could you maybe whisper?"

"No," I yelled, raising the volume another peg. Unfortunately, it was loud enough to piss off Aaron, who proceeded to call me a truly unrepeatable word. And — of course — that snagged my brother's attention, and soon the camp was resonating with bad-tempered name-calling.

Leo, who had been mature enough to restrict himself to glaring so far, caught my shoulder as I walked past. The water bottles had disappeared; they were probably packed already. "We have a problem."

"Oh, we have no shortage of problems," I muttered and glowered at the boys. Their loud argument was only making the twins retreat even further into their hangover shells, and we were late enough as it was.

He too eyed Aaron. "Are you going to punch him, or can I?"

"If you want your face broken, sure — go ahead... Actually, don't. I'm the one who has to like your face." My head tipped to one side, contemplating it. "So what's the problem?"

"Well... Do you want the good news or the bad news first?"

I loosed a resigned sigh. "Ooh, multi-choice, my favourite. Let's go with the bad first, because I'll need something to cheer me up afterwards."

Leo paused, then, "You know we were drunk last night."

Dry sarcasm frothed, as so often happened when I tired or in pain or both. "You're right! I do know that."

"You know we do stupid things when we're drunk."

"Chop, chop, skip the brain fart, please."

"Hungover Skye is mean," he complained, eyes narrowed.

"And hungover Leo never gets to the damn point," I retorted. It was good-natured arguing, of course. I couldn't imagine ever actually being angry at my mate. We shared a permanent mental tether which made pissing each other off nigh on impossible.

"Hey, give me a break, I'm working with half of my brain cells here."

I prodded his chest derisively. "That's still more than I've got."

For a moment, we stared at each other, the thin air between us cracking with tension and something else altogether. It was almost a relief when he closed the distance to steal a kiss and smile at me. "Bullshit. Now, do you want to hear the problem?"

So easy. It was so easy to get distracted when my mate was beside me. I nodded.

He reached into his back pocket and produced the squad phone. It was an ancient Nokia, battery removed to discourage any kind of tracking, and our only way of contacting home. We were out of Fion's range here, so technology had to replace the mind-link.

"I don't know exactly what happened to it last night — where it was an accident or the frost — but it doesn't work anymore."

Not good. Not good at all. That phone was important. We would need to contact Jace after liberating Ember Pack for logistical reasons, Fion was expecting daily check-ins, and most importantly, without the phone, I couldn't play Flappy Bird when I was bored.

"And the good news?" I asked despite a horrible sinking feeling.

He was starting to wince already in preparation for my wrath — not a good sign. "I don't think we'd get signal up here anyway."

I couldn't hit him, not when he was looking like a nervous puppy. So my eyes rolled instead. "Define 'good news,' Leo."

"It makes the bad news less bad," he said defensively. I couldn't find the heart to argue.

Things went smoothly enough after that. We needed a phone, and that happened to be non-negotiable, so I distorted our route to include a human town which would have plenty of pockets to pick even if there wasn't a shop.

It was a tremendous effort to persuade everyone to start walking, but we managed it after making a violent example of the twins. They were very good sports, I had to admit, even when they were being dragged by their ankles. And once the others were on their feet, they walked impressively quickly (if not always in a straight line).

In just an hour, we stood on a hill crest, staring down at the little settlement. It was decorated for Christmas with strings of lights, and in the very centre of the shopping centre was a towering, glittering tree. People moved around like streamed of brightly coloured ants. I didn't like it, not one bit. Werewolves and crowds didn't mix well.

While I thought about the best way to acquire a phone, everyone around me kept chattering. Although I tried to filter the noise out, a single name dragged my thoughts from the town. My brother was talking to Sophie, and missing any semblance of the caution everyone else used with her these days.

"Hey," Rhys was saying, "didn't Skye say unmated or both mates? Where in hell is Davies, anyway? I haven't seen him since I got back..."

I froze. Shit, shit, shit —

Hadn't anyone told him?

"You don't ... you don't know, do you?" Sophie asked chokingly.

"Know what?" he asked. Unsuspecting.

I let out some creative curses under my breath before saying, "Rhys. Come over here for a second, kay?"

There was no sense making Sophie deal with this. As it was, we were already attracting too much attention, and it was unnerving the others. Aaron watched with a honed attentivity. He had been the one to get through the border where Davies failed, I remembered. No doubt he blamed himself as much as I did for sending them.

Rhys came without a fuss, though his eyes were wary now. It wasn't difficult to realise that something was very wrong here. The rest of the group was staring at us. I stared straight back until they all remembered how interesting the ground was.

Rhys waited for an explanation the same way I would wait for a punch  — slacked muscles and tension in everything else. "What's going on, Skye?"

"Davies," I began, then stopped again. I hadn't needed to do this before. Not for someone I had cared about. "Davies. I thought you already knew, or I'd have—"

"He's dead?" he asked, too sharply.

I didn't even have to nod. Our link betrayed the answer as soon as it crossed my mind, along with far more detail than I would have willingly offered.

"My brother killed him." Not a question.

"He ordered it," I admitted.

"My brother," Rhys repeated, and set his jaw, "really was a steaming heap of shit, wasn't he?"

You don't know the half of it. I was careful not to let that thought spill over. I had promised Fion, after all. Instead — because eight years had taught me a few things about handling Rhys — I prodded his chest roughly and growled, "He's dead, Rhys. You're welcome to blame him — hate him, even. But that doesn't help us save Ember Pack, does it?"

Ryker and Emmett must have used their amazing powers of deduction to realise that privacy might have been a good idea, because they began herding the others down the slope, much to their disappointment. That left my brother to stare at the city in a worryingly empty sort of way and me to stare at him.

"I know, but" —he finally met my eyes— "I should've... It should've been me."

Ah. Now, I realised, a lot of things made sense. Rhys seemed to think that Brandon had been his responsibility, both to restrain, and when that failed, to kill. I also knew he had only admitted that to me because Rhodric was gone and Fion was at home. And I was older, after all, although those three months had never felt so long before.

"Maybe. But that's on me, not you. I didn't wait around for you to get home — I didn't have that much time. So stop feeling guilty and do your damn job. Or do I have to pick someone else to come into town with me?"

Finally, that worked. Nearly every rogue was a good thief, but I couldn't work with anyone else the way I needed to. Rhys and I had done this together a hundred times, since Fion didn't have the predisposition for stealing. And while Aaron and his minion probably could have pulled off a heist, why let them have all the fun?

"Don't be stupid. What are we waiting for? Let's get this over with." His body went slack again. Aside from the way the mind-link pulsed with angry grief, you wouldn't know anything was wrong.

We were used to death — and that was the horrible, unforgivable truth. It was a weekly occurrence for an acquaintance to die raiding or scrapping. Rhys had dealt with more than his fair share of bereavement — as had most of Last Haven in the last month. I didn't have to worry that his grieving would disrupt anything, but anger was an entirely different matter.

There wasn't any need for goodbyes, although Leo gave me a smile as I went past. Five minutes in the town would be all we needed. I lead the way down the hillside, dodging fallen branches and brambles. Rhys's footsteps were a reassuring beat behind me.

The first few streets were okayish. All we had to do was watch out for cars and ignore the few pedestrians. But at the fringe of the shopping centre, I stopped in my tracks to scan the crowd. So many people, so many faces.

Here — I didn't belong here. This world was the sole provenance of human beings, and even our presence was an intrusion. Villages, I could handle. But a town? A concrete maze packed with strangers? This wasn't right. And yet ... we needed a phone.

I tugged my shirt hem over my knife until it was hidden, then shouldered my way into the throng. Even with my brother at my back, I couldn't feel completely at ease here. It was a wolf thing — not wanting strangers getting too close and not wanting to intrude into someone else's territory. The little part of me that enjoyed trespass was a rogue thing, and now it was annoyingly silent.

There was an Apple store at the heart of the festivities — not the most desirable location for what we had in mind. One look at the formidable security system had Rhys reaching the same conclusion. He tapped my sleeve and indicated a man in an expensive suit who was flashing his iPhone for the whole world to see. His stance marked him as an authority figure, which made my fingers itch in my pockets.

Oh, how I would love to steal from someone with too much money. The reality was that expensive phones were easier to track and always reported as stolen. And today, we really couldn't afford to be running from the police. Which meant — Goddess forgive me— that stealing from the poor was the only feasible option.

My eyes scanned the crowds with a wolf's precision. One girl caught my attention, head down and sufficiently shy-looking. She wasn't likely to report anything. She'd just assume she'd dropped it and spend the rest of the day futilely scouring the ground. I let my gaze follow her until Rhys noticed.

"I hate this," my brother grumbled aloud, echoing my thoughts. "It feels wrong."

He was strangely solemn. Normally, the prospect of theft would have him grinning at the very least. Though these were hardly normal circumstances.

We marked the girl as she made her way through the crowd. Her hair was a distinct shade of reddish-black, which made her easy to follow, however hard she had tried to hide it under a beanie. I felt another stab of guilt. Something about the way she picked up her feet after each step reminded me of Fion.

Without words — we had done this far too often to need them — Rhys and I split paths. He went straight on, while I flanked left and picked up the pace until I was far ahead. Turning around to walk against the flow was difficult, and it earned me a lot of dirty looks, but soon I was walking backwards, straight towards her.

I thumped into her just as Rhys reached her back. Her eyes had been glued to the floor, so our collision must have looked accidental. We untangled ourselves without hardly looking at each other, while the crowd parted around us.

"Sorry," she stammered automatically. Human beings were so nice. I could knock someone on their ass, making it obviously deliberate, and they would still apologise. Was that a weakness, or a strength?

I muttered my own 'sorry' and ducked my head before she could memorise my face. Easy, so laughably easy. Who would suspect the short blonde girl? Another minute of walking, then Rhys's shoulder nudged mine. We were in the open streets now. Cool air kissed my face and neck.

"Head down," I told him in an undertone. "There's a security camera on the right. Did you get it?"

My pocket suddenly felt a lot heavier. Good. We had got lucky. It didn't often work first time; it was almost impossible to guess where someone keeps their phone. Coat pocket had been the winner this time, it seemed. But by the Goddess, the weight of that phone was incredible. I hated it almost as much as I hated myself in that moment. Because we had victimised someone who hadn't deserve it, no matter how necessary it had been.

Sometimes it was too easy to forget that we were the bad guys.

Even as I thought that, a hand closed around my arm. I looked up to see the dark-haired man from earlier, his suit not even ruffled. And he had a partner — dressed identically and approaching from the other side of the road. The animal part of me recognised that they were trying to corner us and slipped into panic mode.

"Sir, madam," he said firmly, but quietly. "Would you mind coming with me?"

I started getting a hella strong FBI vibe. Except that I lived in Britain — where there was no FBI, and the equivalent agency wasn't notorious for chasing petty thieves.

"If you wouldn't mind telling me why," I snapped back.

"North Wales PD." The closer one flipped out a badge and, to my dismay, there didn't seem to be anything fake about it. "You're under arrest."

Oh.

What?