Up above is a drawing of Fion by the very talented LittleLoneWriterGirl! :D

It was a little bit annoying — travelling back the way we'd run only days before. It was also a distinctly uncomfortable journey for Rhys. He received blows and kicks from his captors at every opportunity, who all hated his guts. He had been 'abusing' females, and if that wasn't bad enough, he was a rogue too. Yes, so were Jay's group, but they were rogues in the lone sense, rather than the raiding sense.

Jay had called Rhodric immediately and arranged to meet in the middle ground of our two groups. My only concern now was that Rhodric would pick up on what we were trying to do before he gave the game away.

It was only a few hours before we were due to meet with my adopted father when Fion finally managed to get anything useful out of Jay. We had been discussing the different packs in the north and their tolerance of rogues...until I hit the jackpot.

I had been asking him about every Alpha to try and see if he had a link with any of them. Completely innocent questions, of course.

"Chris from Pine Forest?"

"He's alright, but a bit of a wimp," was Jay's only reply.

"Alpha Keith from Silver Lake?"

"Complete jerk."

"Alpha Darren from Riverside?"

Jay froze and threw me a wary look but quickly hid his reaction. This time, Fion wore a triumphant grin — she'd got what she needed, even if he didn't know it.

"He killed Darren's pregnant mate," Fion told me through our link.

Bastard, even if she had been a Luna. That explained a lot. Now we had something to show for our time with Jay's group, and a way of ensuring his rogues couldn't move against us without consequences. There was nothing like a bit of blackmail to brighten my day.

At midday, we faced off across a clearing — Jay, the six of his men who held Rhys prisoner, and Fion and I against Rhodric and eight of his rogues. I could see a twinkle of amusement in Rhodric's eyes as he took in our predicament.

"Rhodric," Jay greeted him. It was usually quite funny watching every rogue grovel in front of my guardian, but the rogue-Alpha seemed far too proud for that. "I have your son's murderer."

"Huh." Rhodric raised an eyebrow as his very-much-alive son was brought to kneel in front of him. Jay's men backed away gladly as soon as they'd let go of Rhys.

I felt Rhys speak to his dad through the pack mind-link.

"Punch me."

Most parents would probably refrain from hitting their children on two words, but as I've already mentioned, Rhodric is not 'most parents'. He gave Rhys an impressive clout, then kicked him in the stomach just for luck. Rhys made a dramatic act of groaning and rolling around, but I could see him grinning from my angle.

"As much as I enjoyed that, was there a reason for it?" Rhodric asked mentally, sounding very amused.

"I told them you hated my guts and wanted to kill me, so please just play along," Rhys replied.

Rhodric grunted. "I should give you a hug right now and see what happens. You little shit — telling lies about me."

But I could feel his underlying amusement and approval. Just as they ended their mental conversation, Jay spoke up again. He looked far more comfortable after the display of violence.

"I found him molesting these two girls near my land," Jay said, gesturing to Fion and me.

"Did you now?" Rhodric asked, struggling to hide a smile. He turned to give an order to two of his men. "Take the boy back to our camp. I'll finish him off later."

Unsurprisingly, Rhodric's men looked pretty darn confused at that. They knew Rhys very well, and also knew how well he got along with his father. But they still obeyed the order and marched my brother out of sight.

"My condolences — about the death of your son," Jay said. I began to realise that the guy wasn't so far above sucking up to people as I'd thought.

"No need," Rhodric replied flatly. "He was an annoying little scumbag anyway."

Even I had to hide a smile at that. Why would I ever want real parents when I had Rhodric? Suddenly, I saw Rhodric's grin fade. He looked at Jay for a long time. Something in his manner must have given him away.

"Do I know you?"

"I don't think so," Jay replied, instantly on his guard.

"Funny, that. You look an awful lot like Jace Lloyd's brother."

That took a little while to absorb.

"His real name's Jaden. He killed Alpha Darren's pregnant mate, but that's all we knew," I told Rhodric by mind-link. He acknowledged my information with the slightest of nods.

"You must be mistaken," Jay said finally. The way he was gritting his teeth gave away the lie, though.

"I don't think so, Jaden."

Jay growled in response to his full name. His pupils darkened as the shadow of his wolf rose to the surface. That's Alpha blood for you — too powerful for its own good. In my entire lifetime, I only ever met one Alpha who was in full control of his wolf.

"Tell me, how is Darren these days? Has he got over the loss of his mate yet? Maybe I should check in," Rhodric continued. It was spoken as a threat and Jaden knew it, because he would have attacked Rhodric on the spot if two of his men hadn't held him back.

Then all of a sudden, Rhodric got to the point. "You know, you've caused me quite a few problems, Jaden. You're giving rogues a bad name, with all the shit you've been up to. And whenever you stray too far west, you're trampling on Ian's favourite campsite, and Ian won't stop whining about it. It's been months now. I've got a headache. So I suggest you stay in one place and you keep your head down from now, and in exchange I will refrain from calling Darren and telling him exactly where you are."

"I really hate blackmail," Jaden muttered. He cooled off enough to push his men away.

Rhodric just stared at him, not dignifying it with a response.

"Fine," Jaden said roughly. "I'll do it, but one day you're really going to regret crossing me."

"I'm sure," Rhodric said with a slightly amused expression. "Rhys, you can stop skulking in the shadows now."

Rhys walked out of the trees alone. Somehow (and I had a sneaking suspicion how) he had managed to ditch his guards and lose his restraints.

"Kids, you can come over too," Rhodric continued, grinning at Jaden's confusion.

Both of us, who had stayed quiet throughout the encounter, walked to Rhys's side. Our brother put an arm lazily over each of our shoulders and winked at Jaden.

"You're going to forgive your son's murderer?" Jaden asked incredulously. Damn, this guy was a little slow.

"They didn't tell you? Oh, I'm sorry. My son is very much alive and kicking, much to my disappointment. You're looking at him. The girls are his sisters," Rhodric replied, before turning to dramatically leave an open-mouthed Jaden standing alone in the clearing.

***

"Of all the stupid ideas, Rhys, I swear you always choose the worst. Suicide? Really?" Rhodric asked his son with an exasperated smile as we re-entered our camp. Well, I hadn't looked at it that way...

"He didn't know that I'm me," Rhys replied, before frowning how those words had come out.

"Well it worked, didn't it?" Fion asked. The mission had been a success as far as I was concerned. But then again, our missions were always a success.

"Damn right it did," I said happily. I hadn't even had to spend that much time being nice to Jaden.

Rhys gave me a weird look. "You're in a good mood, Skye."

"Winding up Alphas always puts me in a good mood."

"Me too," Fion added. "There's not much special about them really."

I know, I know — we were prejudiced assholes most of the time. But to be fair, it comes with the job description of rogue. Annoying packlings was our entire reason for existence. And the packlings hated us right back.

As soon as we entered the camp, Rhys's groupies instantly got on our case. He had recently acquired a group of strictly female stalkers, who followed him around all hours of the day, hoping he would turn out to be their mate. I didn't blame them, not really, when most of their mates had turned out to be spineless shitheads and the leader's son was the next best option.

We managed to get away from them when we moved to the castle, but, during the summer months, those girls were the bane of our existence. They loved to glare at me, despite knowing I looked at Rhys like a brother, not like that

Luckily, when Rhys had discovered girls, aged about fifteen, he'd been smart enough to steer clear of this pack. It had only taken a few clumsy relationships for him to get bored, and as far as I knew he'd been single ever since. As had Fion and I.

"How was your trip?" one girl asked, fluttering her eyelashes at Rhys and getting way too close for comfort.

Good thing my brother wasn't dumb enough to fall for it.

"Great, because you weren't there," Rhys replied, giving her an indifferent look.

Oooh. I could feel the heat from the burn metres away.

"Let's go find your girlfriend," I told Rhys, not because he had one, just to get the hordes of fangirls off his back.

"Oh yeah, come on," he replied, grinning widely when his stalkers didn't follow us.

Rhys gave me a relieved smile "Thanks, Skye. I was worried they might die of creepiness."

Fion sighed. "Well, you can hardly blame them. There's not much eye-candy around here. And have you looked in a mirror recently?"

"I don't need to — the fact that I've got so many demented stalkers says it all."

I punched him in the arm. "I bet they only pretend to like you to get a chance to talk to me."

The look on Rhys's face made me burst out laughing. "Relax, relax. I was kidding."

A group of drunken rogues stumbled past. One of the disadvantages of summer camp — all the jerkwads were around. These particular men were some of Syd Jacobs' minions. They pushed through the middle of us, and Fion found herself firmly tucked under the arm of a lanky rogue.

Sure she could have put him on his ass, but of our family, Fion was the most likely to take the passive approach. In this occasion, she threw us a look that was no less than a plea for help. Times like that always made me remember why we put up with, ahem, I mean love Rhys.

He walked over to the guy, who must have been in his late twenties and punched him square in the chin. I wasn't sure if the responding crack was my brother's knuckles or the douchebag's jaw. Even as the guy stumbled backwards, Rhys pulled Fion to safety, before going back to ensure his opponent wouldn't walk for days.

Let me rewind a little bit...

When we first came to camp, we quickly realised that being girls among so many men had its disadvantages. That's where Rhys came into play — he issued a very public threat which I think went something like this:

"Anybody who touches them, I will personally geld with a blunt butter knife."

Even at the ripe age of ten, he was Rhodric's son and not someone worth crossing. Needless to say, we didn't have nearly as many 'admirers' after that

There was still had the occasional incident, although he had never completely carried out that threat, instead choosing to beat them up badly enough that their own mothers' wouldn't recognise them. It wasn't even that Fion and I couldn't look after ourselves because we really could. I personally just enjoyed the luxury of having my own personal guard dog.

I tried to keep the onlookers moving on, but Rhys's buddies just wanted to cheer him on. Out of the group, I recognised Davies, the boy who Rhys fought for my sake on our first day as rogues. It's safe to say that after that encounter, he'd become like Rhys's personal lackey.

"Get the hell away from here," I growled at all of them.

The group tried to ignore me, though they found it a little difficult when I started shoving. Let me tell you now, seven years of training with Rhys and his father had meant that my strength was not easily dismissed. When I succeeded in pushing two of them into the mud, the rest started reluctantly making a move. I could hit them, but they couldn't hit me without becoming Rhys's next victim.

Ah, don't you all wish you had a brother like mine?

When a second cracking sound could be heard that might have been the drunkard's nose, I finally dragged Rhys off him.

"Easy there," I murmured.

Rhys threw the guy one last despising glance. As always, his wolf didn't make an appearance — even when Rhys was mad, he was always in control. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is because he wasn't an Alpha. Are you getting my point and starting to hate the packs yet?

No...? Sorry. Rogue here — I'll stop now.

"You okay?" Rhys asked Fion, who nodded and smiled. She didn't get shaken up easily.

"Rhys Llewellyn, I hope for your sake it's not true that you've been fighting again."

Rhys's eyes widened and he muttered a very, very bad word. But his terror was understandable, for that voice belonged to the one person who struck fear into the hearts of all men.

Maggie.

For anyone who hasn't been paying attention enough to know who Maggie is, I will give you a one-off reminder. She's the terrifying woman who...well...

To be honest, I don't really what know her official role was amongst the rogues, but she brought some much-needed discipline to our dysfunctional group of misfits. She also made food, which made her one of the highest on my people-to-protect list.

"Um...fighting...me?" Rhys stuttered.

"Yes you, young man," Maggie said sternly, folding her arms.

"Wouldn't dream of it," Rhys replied a lot more smoothly than before.

Unfortunately, Maggie wasn't buying it all. She cuffed him around the back of the head, then started a rant. "Damned hooligan. You can't just attack anyone who disagrees with you— "

Rhys interrupted before she could even finish her first sentence. "Well, actually..."

"Not another word from you unless you want to feel my wrath in full force." Maggie was in full rant mode, not even pausing for breath. "Whatever he did, you can sit down and talk about it like grown-ups, not start a fist fight. Violence is never the answer, so there is absolutely no excuse to warrant disfiguring that poor boy's face. And if I ever, ever catch you fighting again, you will spend the next year of your life learning knitting patterns with me."

When there was the slightest of pauses, Rhys gave a dry smile and cut in again. "That poor boy was drunk and molesting Fion."

"Oh," Maggie said quietly. She patted Rhys gently on the shoulder. "In that case, you do whatever you see fit to him. Good lad."

And with that, she bustled away to return to...whatever she did all day.

"How is it that you'll face off someone twice your size without a care, but when an old woman under five feet tall is shouting at you, you look like a mouse caught in a trap?" Fion asked the question I'd been pondering over for a long time.

"Are you serious? You've obviously never been on the receiving end of one of Maggie's rants." Rhys snorted. He was giving her the clearly-a-crazy-person look.

Well...I had to admit that it was true. Apparently, Fion and I could do absolutely no wrong in her eyes. Yeah, because I was such an angel. In the next year alone, I would outdo Rhys and Rhodric combined for mischief and fighting.