Fion made a face at me. "You're had some shit ideas over the years, Skye, but I gotta say this one takes the biscuit."

She was sat on the end of my bed, now, my legs draped over her lap. That left Leo and Rhys to sit on the other bed. A few days ago, that would have given me cause for concern, but my brother had let up since our suicide mission. They were almost being ... friendly.

"Why's that?" Rhys asked. "I kinda like it."

Such a loyal supporter, that one. He would back anything violent.

Fion cracked her fingers. "Well, for starters, you would need to get the concentration exactly right. If they die too quickly, you won't poison many before they catch on. Diluting the dose while keeping it lethal - that's tricky enough. Getting to their water sources is another matter."

I smiled at her. "We all know you can handle the science shit, so stow the modesty, girl."

Her cheeks flushed, like I knew they would. Eight years and she still wasn't used to being the smartie-pants among us. She murmured, "I mean, I'll try."

"And as for sneaking into that camp," I went on. "Well ... remind me exactly what we do for a living."

Fion looked between me and Rhys. "You two?"

"Three," Leo murmured. I gave him a sidelong look but didn't say anything. He didn't have as much raiding experience, but I doubted I would be able to dissuade him and, anyway, I wasn't sure I wanted to.

"Who else?" I demanded. It wasn't like I wanted to involve other raiders, because ... I still had a shred of pride. But we would need a few helping hands if this was going to work.

"Three's enough for one team," Rhys said. "More than enough. It'd be better if you stayed behind, Skye. You'd stick out like a sore thumb."

Because I was female - I should have thought of that. But some of the ferals would have their mates squirrelled away and, if we were careful, no one would get a second look at me, anyway. And like hell I was going to let my brother and my mate sneak into the feral camp without proper supervision.

"It's a risk," he continued when I didn't say anything. Leo only blinked, leaving the decision to me entirely. And I had already made it.

"I'm coming," I said firmly.

Nobody argued. My wolf was lurking just below the surface, ready to pounce at the first word. I was ready to fight her back. We might have been in charge, but that didn't mean that any of these choices were ours to make alone.

"And I want two more teams. Ryker and Emmett, Aaron and Connor," I decided. "If they're willing, of course."

"Aaron hates our guts right now," Rhys reminded me. I was fully aware of that, of course, but he was also the one of the best raiders in the country.

I eyed him sideways. "He'll play along, or we'll cluck at him."

It didn't matter that Aaron was as brave as they came. It didn't even matter that every rogue here knew it. The slightest insinuation of cowardice would have him off his arse and proving otherwise in the blink of an eye. It was an effective - if cruel - method of control.

We sat in silence for a moment. Fion had found a pad of paper, and she was scribbling down notes on poisons and the plants they came from. Most of them would be growing somewhere nearby, but there were a few things that might send a person further afield: to the nearest supermarket, say.

"We might kill some captive females by accident," she pointed out, her pen pausing on the page.

Yes, we might. But better to lose a few females than watch the entire northern werewolf population turn feral like so many helpless dominoes. Well, that was my opinion, anyway. I was sure Jace would disagree. And that was exactly why I wasn't going to tell him.

None of us said a thing, because there was nothing to say. And Fion dropped her head and went back to writing.

She was working for an hour, maybe longer - drawing strange diagrams of lines and letters, which she claimed were chemicals - before she paused to google something. Rhys, Leo and I had done little more than sit on our asses and talk, except to make use of a bucket of cold, soapy water about halfway through. It was nice to feel clean for once, even if my wet hair was soaking the back of my shirt.

Fion had just set her phone aside and Leo was dealing out a hand of pontoon when I felt my stomach flip and churn and squeeze itself. A ghost sensation, not a real one - it was easy to tell the difference. It was a little more difficult to follow it back to the source. Fion. Her nausea was spilling into the link again.

She seemed to be ignoring it: her pen didn't falter. But my brother dropped his hand of cards face-up and frowned. I watched them both, caution rising like a tidal wave. I was getting a sinking feeling, like someone had opened a black hole in my stomach.

"I can feel that, Fion," Rhys said suddenly. "I'm not going to pretend like I can't."

"No one's pretending," she replied without glancing up. It wasn't exactly reassuring.

He snorted. "This isn't the first time."

This time, she didn't respond. What was there to say? We had crossed the line already - he wasn't going to drop it, and there wasn't a believable excuse. Shifters didn't get stomach-bugs.

"And you didn't come to Ember with us," he went on. "Look, I might not be as smart as you, but I'm not stupid. If you're ill, and you're not telling us-"

Fion dropped the pen and turned to stare at him. The nausea in the link was being replaced by raw panic and fear. I may have promised not to tell him, but the truth was going to come out all by itself. And it couldn't have chosen a worse moment.

Rhys felt it, too, because he shut his mouth, swallowed, and tried a gentler tack. "I mean, I can't help worrying, okay?"

I picked at my nails, because - shit, Fion had taken a deep breath. She held it for a moment, looking for the world like she was drowning in the air. And as she released it, somehow, she found the courage to say, "I'm not ill, Rhys. I'm pregnant."

I literally watched his heart shatter into a million tiny pieces.

Well, in reality, it wasn't so dramatic, but that was my take on the situation. He went through the motions - a silence spanning a few seconds while he processed it, hurt flashing in a vicious wave and finally the overwhelming, terminal emotion. Confusion.

"Who?"

She forced a laugh. "If I tell, are you going to go and throw punches?"

Technically, it wasn't a lie, it was an avoidance. But I doubted Rhys would care for that distinction if he ever found out, and I was willing to bet he might when the baby was born with a pair of shiny hazel eyes.

Maybe we could try convincing him that he was the father. There were more than enough drunken blackouts to choose from... ... No, wait, that was a terrible idea. Forget that.

Rhys shrugged carelessly. "Do I know him?"

Fion just shook her head again. This time, the lie was undeniable. And, oh, she was miserable. A few harsh words away from tears. And I wasn't the only one who saw it - my brother rounded on me while she calmed herself down. "Did you know about this?"

Aw, shit. It was one thing to have an argument between my siblings, quite another to have me at odds with Rhodric Llewellyn's son while I was trying to keep a rogue army in one piece. If Rhys got royally pissed at me, the rogues would be forced to choose or just slink away, and both of those options would end with the ferals murdering everyone. There had come a time when bickering with my sibling could have deadly repercussions.

I met his eyes warily. "Yep."

And I watched the hurt deepen on his face, and I wondered if I'd just lost something I had always taken for granted - a generous helping of trust. Rhys and I had been through too much shit together to fall out permanently, but it hadn't occurred to me that there were ways to wreck relationships aside from losing them.

"Who else?" he demanded.

Leo said nothing. We were telepathically linked, so he must have had some idea. But I thought it best not to mention that, especially since I wasn't sure.

"Maggie found out yesterday," Fion muttered. "Sophie, maybe, I dunno."

It had to sting. It had for me, and I had been the first person to know. We'd always shared everything with each other, from the most amazing things to the very, very worst. But what had happened to Fion seemed to have crossed that line - it was just too screwed up to have a normal conversation about.

Rhys didn't know that, of course. He thought she had just slept with some stranger on a whim and been too ashamed to admit the consequences. His next question was, unsurprisingly, "How far along?"

Fion's eyes didn't leave the ground. "About two weeks."

Another lie, because it would be far too obvious if she gave the real dates. But two weeks ago had been when Rhys had been locked up in New Dawn, which was the most plausible answer ... and the most hurtful.

He seemed to be waiting for something else - an apology, an explanation, something else altogether. But Fion closed her mouth, chewed on her lower lip, and said absolutely nothing.

She didn't deserve this - far from it. And I knew that a handful of words could end the argument, could have them reconciled in a heartbeat. And one of those words was Brandon. But I kept my mouth shut, too, because I had promised.

And Rhys left.

Fion sobbed once. She managed to smother the second one, but I wrapped my arms around her anyway. I could feel the dampness of tears where her face rested on my shoulder. Her misery was seeping across the link unbidden, and even that little taste of it set my own eyes to watering.

I kind of wanted to punch him. He didn't know, and it hadn't been intentional, but my sister was crying and the only other person to blame had been dead and cold for weeks. As if sensing the turn my thoughts had taken, Fion took three deep, slow breaths, and she wiped her tears away with a sleeve. She was very good at that. We were all very good at that.

"He'll forgive you," I assured her, "and then you two can raise the kid together."

She avoided my gaze.

"Fion?" I asked with a stab of self-doubt. "I thought you two were like ... I dunno, dating? I still find that weird, by the way. You might not be related by blood, but you were related in my head."

To my surprise, she had to choke back a laugh. "It wasn't quite like that, Skye. We were, I don't know- We were flirting. That's all."

And now I was wondering if I had made a big deal out of the slightest of sideways glances, or if Fion was just downplaying it to make me feel better. "Were?"

"I tried, for a while..." She sucked in a breath. "But he looks like Brandon, and I just... I don't think I can."

I hadn't even thought of that, dammit. Brandon had looked more like Rhodric, and Rhys had a shadow of something else - his mother, I guessed - but if there hadn't been an age difference, they might have passed for twins.

"I'm sorry, y'know," I murmured to her. "You don't deserve any of this shit."

Fion nodded - barely more than a twitch of her head. It was at that point when she seemed to decide she had received as much comforting as she could stomach. She sat up, pulled her paper back towards herself and began scribbling again. This time it was a list: a shopping list of poisonous plants and other hazardous material for Ollie or one of his minions to find. She didn't even bother looking up to say, "Look, I'll be fine. You guys should go organise our distraction."

No thank you. I was not in any mood to canoodle with Jace Lloyd and his extended family.

"We don't have all day, y'know," she added.

That sounded more like the Fion I knew - utterly no-nonsense and rational. She wouldn't put up with us hovering while she was in this kind of mood, which I knew from experience. So I stood up, tugged my t-shirt straight and left the tents with Leo on my heels.

***

I led the way to Jace's tent. There was a good deal of noise coming from within - bad tempered arguing, and three distinct voices. Jace, Jaden and Zach Lloyd. Three Alphas, three unyielding willpowers. Oh, this would be fun.

This time, the guards were low-ranking New Dawn minions: I supposed the three deadliest wolves in all seven packs didn't need much protection. They must have been warned about me, because they took one look at us and the closest opened his mouth to announce my presence.

Before he could get past the first syllable, I pressed my finger to my lips and grinned. He was torn, clearly, between doing his job and obeying a direct command. By the time he had finished deciding he didn't have to listen to me, I had pulled the tent flap out of the way and ducked inside, Leo at my heels.

They noticed me in a heartbeat. There would be no sly eavesdropping; whatever the argument had been about, it would remain private for the time being. Three impatient faces turned to stare at us, and they all spoke in unison:

"Not now, Skye."

"Get out, bitch."

"Scram, sweetheart."

I smirked, letting the words wash over me, although Leo seemed to be taking offence on my behalf. "Oh, save it. You can bicker later."

Zach cocked an eyebrow. "What's so important?"

Such a friendly, attentive audience. With their patience hanging from a thread, I got straight to the point. "I need to you to haul your feral and hunter prisoners here. Put them in vans and have them delivered by the end of the morning. You're going to ransom them back to any feral with a scrap of authority."

"No. We're not adding to their forces. That's just plain stupid," Jaden spat derisively. He was still harbouring a grudge against me, I reckoned. Well, let him. It could fester and turn him bitter. His opinions weren't worth a shit either way.

Jace was quicker to look for my motive. "What for?"

I shrugged. "Ice-cream sundaes, for all I care. Just keep the ferals looking at you."

"And while they look at us, what are you going to be doing?"

And here came the lies, because Jace was far too righteous to agree to mass-murder. Jaden and Zach might have liked my plan, but the former hated my guts and the latter was too slippery to be trusted to keep the information from his cousin, so I was flying solo.

"I need to talk to someone," I sighed. Lies are so much easier to swallow if they come reluctantly, sugar-coated to look like truth.

Jace seized on the omission immediately, as I had known he would. "Who?"

I said nothing, not deigning to answer. Too quick, and he would get suspicious. Too long, and he would realise that I was baiting him.

"Who?" he repeated, this time with a touch of impatience.

I chewed on my lip and admitted, "Rhodric."

Jaden growled his disgust. Zach nodded along - he was acquainted with my father, I believed, given that there was some history between him and Shadowless Pack. Jace, however, was giving me a look of polite scepticism. He was having trouble believing that this could be important, not that it was true. I stared straight back, daring him to voice it. Finally, he dipped his head. "On one condition - I want to speak to him myself."

It was too much. I ended up laughing at his face, at that smug surety. "No."

He raised his eyebrows.

"No, I am not taking you to see a wanted criminal," I clarified. "You want a scent and a face so you can find him easier, is that it?"

Rhodric, of course, couldn't care less who saw his face or caught his scent. But I didn't have any way to contact him unless he stopped blocking the mind-link, so Jace couldn't have the conversation he seemed to want so desperately, and I needed a reason to refuse.

"You are a wanted criminal. You have no issue letting me see your face."

"And look where that's got me," I said dryly. "Stuck playing allies with a bunch of bloody flockies."

Jace rolled his eyes. He exchanged a look with Jaden which I was sure conveyed something unpleasant about me, and then repeated. "I want to speak to him. No motives, no games. Just a face-to-face conversation."

No motives, my arse. He had one, but I couldn't imagine what it might be. Maybe something as simple as idle curiosity. Either way, he was too determined and I needed to throw him off the scent, so I spewed the most diabolical statement I could cook up.

"If you want to know what he's like, you could just ask your mother."

His face closed off seamlessly, burying any reaction before I could see it, but I would guess he was irritated. Firstly because his mother had been dead for a while, and secondly because there were rumours that Rhodric had been involved with her years and years ago. It was a stain on the Lloyd family's honour that had never washed out (although none of us had ever worked up the courage to ask Rhodric if it was true).

"We'll exchange the prisoners," Jace said after a while, and his voice was a new level of emotionless. "But the information you're getting had better be worth it."

"Jace!" Jaden complained.

"Jace," Zach mimicked. "I want to win arguments but I don't want to put any effort into it."

And they started fighting with each other all over again and utterly forgot about giving me a hard time. I began to wonder how their feud had started. Then I remembered that I didn't care. Every minute that Jaden and Zach were at each other's throats was another minute they weren't at mine.

"I'll be back when everything's ready," I said to nobody in particular. Zach and Jaden were too busy bickering over the sizes of their respective packs to pay any attention, but Jace gave me the slightest of nods. Leo and I slipped back outside, and it was only when the cold air nipped at my bare skin that I realised how much warmer it had been inside.

Four steps, and I was shivering. My coat was back at the tent - downright complacency. Leo put an arm around my shoulders and pulled me close, rubbing the goosebumps away.

"You're not going to give me your coat?" I teased.

He shook his head, smiling ear-to-ear. "No, but I'm willing to share."

"Done."

I dragged the zip down and stepped into his chest. Warm, solid, real. With my wolf purring like a kitten, I caught a handful of his shirt and pulled myself even closer. His arms wrapped around my lower back, holding the coat closed with both of us inside.

We were pressed so close that I could feel his belt buckle digging into my stomach. My head was tipped upwards for the sake of breathing, and Leo tilted his down to kiss me. Short, teasing kisses - our lips barely touching.

"I think I'll forget my coat more often," I murmured.

He smiled against my lips, and I kissed him harder, fed up with the games. So much for breathing. We must have stood there for several minutes, right in the middle of the path, the flow of packlings parting around us. My wolf was in the mood for much, much more, but we were fresh out of time and privacy.

So we resumed our journey with me tucked under Leo's arm. And as we walked, I linked Ollie. "Could you have someone at Lle o Dristwch bring our feral and hunter prisoners here?"

"Yes, of course," he said. "There aren't many. Four ferals and no hunters."

Alarm bells began ringing in some deep, dark corner of my mind. "None? What happened to that teenager? Carter?"

I felt the link go quiet for a moment. He must have been checking with someone. Half a minute later, Ollie said, "I don't know, Skye. Sorry. He's not in the cells, and he wasn't executed. His sisters are still at the castle."

My mind was full of wailing sirens now. Something was wrong. No, our security wasn't exhaustive and our organisation had room for improvement, but prisoners didn't just fall of the face of the earth. Especially human prisoners.

"Okay, well, bring the ferals." Almost as an afterthought, I added, "Except the one who arrived with Leo yesterday."

"Got it. I'll stop by at lunch to give you an update."

Good. It had been a while since I'd seen him, and it would cheer Rhys up considerably. And, think of the devil, I saw him as I cut off the link. He was sitting with a group of raiding friends, most of whom I could name but wouldn't start a conversation with.

Leo followed my gaze and sighed. "Do you want me to-"

I shook my head before he could even finish. "He'd punch you. Go back and keep Fion company - I'll try first."

He nodded, slipped his coat off and wrapped it around my shoulders before he left. I let it hang there, because it was far too oversized to wear properly. And then I wandered in Rhys's direction, letting the raiders get out of my way.

"Can I have a word, little brother?" I asked.

Rhys eyed me and sniffed a bit and wrinkled up his nose. I knew I smelt like Leo, but he couldn't do much more than glower. We had been at truce since the packmeet, so he had to pretend he didn't know we'd just been making out.

"Sure," he muttered. And instead of finding some quiet place to sit, away from prying ears, he just nodded at the guys around us, and they dispersed. "Whatever you're going to say ... save it. I know I'm being an ass."

"You do?" I asked suspiciously, because it was too easy.

Rhys nodded, let his head fall back against the back of his chair and didn't say another word.

"And you don't care," I surmised, a sinking feeling in my gut.

He nodded again, hardly bothering to move his head.

My brother had done plenty of shit over the years, but never this. No one had ever been able to accuse him of not caring. I was worried enough that my heart was skimming along, forgetting that it needed to finish one beat before starting the next.

"I don't like this attitude," I growled and shoved his chest, hard. "Now, I don't know what's been said or what's happened between the two of you, but you're not entitled to Fion."

"That's-" he retorted immediately. "That's not what- I don't care about that."

I gave him a flat look.

And he grimaced. "Well, I do, but that's not why I'm pissed off."

My eyebrows lifted, asking the question I couldn't be bothered to voice.

"I was in New Dawn, getting beaten to a bloody pulp, because my brother wouldn't just kill me like he should've, and Fion was off sleeping with some guy. Fine. Her choice. But neither of you told me. Because you thought, what? That I'd be jealous?"

"She wasn't trying to hurt you, Rhys."

He snorted. I knew it wasn't an answer, really, but what else could I say?

"Her reasons were good ones," I tried next, "and that's all I can say."

"Like hell. If they're so good, she could damn well explain them. But she's still lying." Rhys was shirking my gaze - he didn't want a challenge - but I could feel his annoyance landing on a new target. "And so are you, Skye."

"I made a promise," I said. "You can lie to keep a promise."

He nodded, but the scowl deepened another notch and I wondered if I had inadvertently heaped more blame on Fion. Because who else would have made me promise?

"You're right. You can. But you didn't have to make it in the first place."

I knew that all too well, and I was beginning to regret ever uttering those words. If I had just convinced Fion that he needed to know back then, we could have avoided this whole sticky mess. Oh, hindsight.

This would have been the moment for him to realise why I might have promised. But it was unfair to expect that kind of leaping conclusion, because I knew I wouldn't have managed it. The assumption was all too easy: she would have told me.

"I'm not angry, really," Rhys admitted. "Just ... frustrated."

"Then you're gonna connect your sorry ass to the mind-link, you're gonna apologise and the two of you are gonna work this out like adults," I told him, and his scowl deepened. "I'm not asking. If Rhodric was here, he'd knock you into next week."

Rhys couldn't deny the truth of that. I was sorely tempted to do it myself. Under the weight of my glare, he nodded a little and closed his eyes to mind-link. A minute or two passed while he talked to Fion and I picked dirt from under my nails.

"Did you say sorry?" I demanded.

"Yeah," he muttered, "sorta."

***

The flockie cook tent was a disappointment. The chefs clearly had no idea how to use an open fire, so the kebabs were burnt, the vegetables all tasted like onion, and the rice had become a sticky white paste. We would have done better filching the ingredients and building our own fire.

I scraped the meat, which looked like a combination of chicken, pork and venison, from the skewer and tucked in. Despite its crunchy shell, it had the best flavour, so every few mouthfuls of paste and onion, I would throw in a chunk just to apologise to my taste buds.

The neighbouring tables weren't thrilled about our presence. When we first sat down, the muttering was loud and vicious enough to irk anyone so, naturally, we pretended not to hear. The packlings got bored quickly enough.

Rhys and Fion were trying not to look at each other: clearly, their so-called reconciliation was still a work in progress. She only picked at her food, and the nausea in the link was simmering away, occasionally coming to a boil. She gave up on the rice and vegetables straight away.

Without saying a word or even looking up, Rhys scraped all of his chicken-pork-venison onto her plate and went back to sullenly shovelling the paste into his mouth. He remained in that mood until Ollie arrived, carrying his own plate of food, and the two of them struck up a quiet conversation about the rugby game from the night before. My second had dark circles under his eyes, but there was a smile on his lips, so I wasn't too worried.

About halfway through the meal, I bit into a chunk of meat and gagged. It was full of a strange bitter flavour, like a pill dissolving on my tongue. I spat it out, naturally, but the taste lingered. I downed half a glass of water trying to wash it out.

My mate raised an eyebrow. "What's wrong?"

"Not sure." I tried to shrug it off. "It tasted funny... Probably nothing."

He dropped his fork, frowning. "My last piece was really bitter."

"I thought I was imagining that," Fion murmured.

Shit- Shit. I stood up, stalked over to where the food was being served. There didn't seem to be anything out of the ordinary - just kitchen workers from New Dawn sat around, eating their own lunch. I seized the tray of meat and a bottle of vinegar and took them back to the table, ignoring the cries of, "Hey!"

I put the vinegar in front of Fion first, because she was carrying a pup and so doubly vulnerable. "Throw it all up."

She didn't hesitate, and I got started on the meat to the reassuring sound of retching. The boys stood to help me. We cut into perhaps a dozen pieces, discarding each as we went. And then I spotted a glimmer of white powder. The sinking feeling in my stomach multiplied. I took a good sniff. It didn't smell like poison, at least, but I doubted anyone would slip pills into our food with friendly intentions.

"Bloody hell," Rhys muttered, adding several fouler words for good measure.

"How many did you have?" I asked him.

He shook his head. "Two, three - I don't know? They all tasted fine."

It seemed like the good karma was watching over him, but at Fion's expense. She had finished emptying her stomach and sat loosely, face whiter than sheet. She'd given the vinegar to Leo, and he was taking his turn.

"Good. Ollie?"

There was no reply. I whipped my head around to look at him, but he was just stood there, staring at nothing. Too still, too expressionless. And then a frown crept over his lips, and from there it deepened, notch after notch, until that face was showing hatred and anger to a degree I knew Ollie wasn't capable of feeling.

I'd hoped I was wrong - I really had. But the ferals had thought of poison before we had, and their goal was not to kill us. It was to turn us.

"Ol..." Rhys said warily, "don't you dare..."

There was a blackness filling Ollie's eyes. The pure, depthless shade of black which I had seen at Ember. It chased the brown from his eyes, drop by drop, until there was none left.

"Ollie," I whispered. But I knew it was too late. Just like it had been too late for Owen. His wolf and his human sides were battling it out for survival, and we were caught in the crossfire.

Fion said something to Leo, low and urgent, and he disappeared off in the direction of our tent. Good - one less person to worry about. Beside me, Rhys swore. He was staring at Ollie. They had been friends long before I'd ever come into the picture, so I could only imagine how he must be feeling.

Ollie shifted on the spot, and Rhys did the same. I was about to follow suit when the packlings around us realised what was going on and erupted into chaos. Some ran, some shouted, and about a third began shifting themselves. They didn't know Ollie, and they would kill a rogue feral without blinking an eye. I put myself in the way, feet planted and my wolf overflowing with dominance. It was enough to keep them back.

The wolves stared each other down for a few heartbeats. Ollie was skinnier and shorter by a hand. He trained with my brother most days, and I had never seen him win one of those fights. But he had all the raw aggression of a rabid animal, and that was no small advantage in single combat.

And then Ollie was charging in a rush of teeth and snarls, and the two wolves clashed in the space between tables. They rolled and writhed and snapped at each other. Some of the packlings tried to slip around me. I growled them into stillness without taking my eyes off the fight, because my heart was thundering and there was a slippery coil of fear in my gut.

Rhys wasn't winning, because he wasn't trying to. He could have torn Ollie's throat out whenever he felt like it, but he was letting his friend take chunks out of him. He was soon bleeding from a dozen places, his fur matted red and sticky.

One of them was going to die, and there was only one likely candidate. I would have to do something. Something to buy us a few minutes to think. Something that wouldn't kill Ollie.

The table caught my eye. It was packed with all sorts of potential weapons - knives and forks. But I frowned at the dinner plates. They were made of china, and china was heavy. I hefted one of them, letting the food fall onto the grass.

"Hold him," I called, and Rhys seized hold of Ollie's scruff. He was still thrashing, his claws ripping bloody furrows into my brother's hind legs. But he was still for the time being, and that was all I needed.

I brought the plate down where his skull met his spine, and Ollie sagged. It had been a good, clean blow: he was out cold. Rhys took the opportunity to catch his breath, panting without releasing Ollie, because he was sure to wake up at any second.

The packlings hadn't moved. They had us surrounded and they had gone back to muttering amongst themselves, but even they could see that they weren't wanted. I glowered at them, still crouching on the mud, and it was then that I saw my mate returning through the legs of a ginger-haired guy.

Leo pushed through the onlookers to reach my side. He was gasping for breath, and he handed me a syringe and a tiny glass bottle of something called Ketalar without saying a word. I didn't know what it was, but I could guess.

Fion started to approach, but I put up a hand. "No, stay there and talk me through it."

It just wasn't worth the risk. Besides, I knew the first part well enough. I screwed the needle into the syringe and drew back, watching out for air bubbles. I had to flick a few of them out.

"Four millilitres. It needs to go into a vein," Fion told me. "Try his forepaw."

Rhys reangled himself so he could lie down on top of Ollie, his full weight crushing him into the mud. One forepaw stuck out sideways, and I examined it, fumbling for the bulge of a vein under all the fur. Once I had the syringe in and I'd wriggled it into place, I drew back and saw blood leaching into the clear liquid.

Perfect. And not a moment too soon, because Ollie's eyelids were twitching by then, and a shudder ran through his body. I knew exactly how he was feeling - I'd been clocked in the same place only yesterday. I injected exactly four millilitres of Ketalar into the vein and crossed my fingers.

He writhed once, but Rhys wasn't light, and the next moment he had gone limp all over again. I'd just pumped him chock full of general anaesthetic. Rhys eased off him carefully, cautiously. He just kept staring at Ollie, motionless, the only noises being the rasp of his breath and the steady patter of blood dripping into the mud.

"It would be better if we had sedatives," Fion muttered. "But this'll do for now. We've got about ten minutes to get him somewhere secure."

"No, we need to fix him," I managed to say.

"Just kill him," one of the packlings shouted. A chorus of jeers agreed with him. They jostled each other as they tried to step into the bottlenecks between the lunch tables, a little too close for comfort.

"Yeah, get it over with," another added.

We ignored them. Even if you discounted Fion, there were three of us to defend him, and the packlings had just watched Rhys fight. They didn't have the balls to break Jace's peace for the sake of killing a man who wasn't trying to kill them.

The plate I had wielded was lying beside me, unnaturally white in the mess of blood and dead grass and earth. Stupid packlings, lugging china to a bloody war - for some reason, that was my first thought. And yet without their stupidity, we might have had to kill Ollie.

My eyes drifted next to the discarded chunks of meat. How had those damned pills ended up in our dinner, anyway? Who had managed to infiltrate the cook tents and, more importantly, exactly how much of the food had they reached? There had to be more pills out there - and more wolves turning even as we caught our breaths. As if to echo my thoughts, panicked, desperate shouting erupted from our east, about the direction of the next cook tent.

There was always someone shouting in a camp of that size, but this was different. This was the kind of gut-wrenching noise that made your skin prickle and your heart speed up. Somewhere nearby, someone was dying.

The mind-link began to fill with confusion. A trickle at first, soon quickening to a veritable flood. The shouting and panic magnified until I was wincing. It was hard to think. It was hard to even breathe. I didn't wait for the vinegar - I just shoved my fingers to the back of my throat and emptied my stomach onto the grass beside my unconscious friend.