We made our way down the stairs, taking them two at a time. Rhys and I kept a close eye on Fion, although it proved unnecessary. Thanks to our speedy healing, she was steady on her feet. On the way through the main hall, we stopped to find Maggie and ask her to take care of the baby, much to her delight.

"I have questions, you know," I told her as the three of us left the castle. "Like, who have you been practising on?"

"Mostly Kyle," Fion said. "He's had a lot of time on his hands since he was paralysed, and he got bored with scraping hides and making string, I guess. Rhodric taught me how to do it, and then it was just a process of trial and error. Kyle was very patient."

Rhodric. Of course. A lot of things were now starting to make sense to me.

Fion's shift into a pale wolf took longer than usual, but that was to be expected after so long in human form. My own wolf was fighting the urge to start a rowdy play fight. She had missed her pack-sister as much as I had. The three of us had run together for nearly a decade. Our wolves may as well have been littermates. But I had to settle for scraping with Rhys, because Fion wasn't fully recovered yet and the urge to protect her came before anything else.

We ran at a slow pace, often stopping so Fion could hone in on the mind-link. There were daily scuffles in the land around Lle o Dristwch, but gunfire was rarer. It could mean hunters, if I was feeling especially paranoid. After half an hour straight of running, we skidded to a halt in an airy clearing. The smell of blood hung heavy in the air.

"Rhys, go around wide. Don't show yourself unless you have to," I ordered through the link. His ability to turn off his scent easily made him the best undercover scout I had. Unless, of course, there were humans involved, in which case he had no particular advantage and was far too oversized to be sneaky. Almost as an afterthought, I added, "Fion, take the other direction. Let me get a look at the situation before you melt any minds."

They slunk off on their respective routes. I quickly lost track of scentless Rhys, but Fion's familiar smell was a reassurance at my left side. I padded steadily towards the smell of blood. In another small clearing ahead, I could make out an unmoving werewolf body. One of the patrol, maybe. Behind him, a few humans spoke in low voices. And while I didn't know much about guns, I did know that the ones they were holding were some serious shit. Maybe even fully automatic.

I didn't stay hidden in the shadows. My midnight-black wolf materialised from the darkness on silent feet. The hunters — because I didn't see who else they would be — turned and raised their weapons. I ignored them, instead choosing to take a look at the fallen rogue. Now that I could see further into the tree line, I realised he was one of several bodies ... and that he was young. Younger even than me. But whoever it was, I didn't know him.

A note had been nailed crudely to the ribs of the next corpse. Even from such a distance, I could read the scrawled words, written in an ink of an ... unusual colour. We want Cassidy Forster. Wait, who? I hadn't thought much about Cassie in days. But with a slightly clearer mind, it was obvious. Of course they did. She was the daughter of one of their own, after all. Well, they wouldn't be getting her.

One plucky hunter decided to pull the trigger. The bullet bit the dust close to my forepaws as Fion slipped into the minds of everyone present and held them in place. Only when all of them were frozen did I deign to look up and join the mental battle. She was holding the way open, so all I had to do was project my thoughts as if it were a werewolf mind-link.

"I have a message for you, too. Cassidy Forster is alive and unharmed ... mostly." My wolf was grinning wickedly. "But she will remain my hostage. Try any more bullshit like this, and we'll send her home in pieces. And you can tell Malcolm that we're coming for him."

None of them replied, which was understandable, as they had no control over their bodies. But Fion drew my attention to one particular hunter's thoughts. It didn't take long to discern he was Cassidy's father. I resolved to leave him alive, at least for now. She wouldn't thank me for killing him.

So I asked Rhys mentally, "How many did they kill?"

"Five," he growled. "An entire patrol."

"Then we take five lives in exchange," I announced to both siblings with deadly calm.

That would fit perfectly with my plans — there were half a dozen hunters here and only one of them needed to live to tell the tale. I closed the distance and ripped out the throat of the first man even as Rhys appeared to kill a pair from behind. Fion released her grip on the dead hunter's minds to focus her sole attention on the remaining two targets. One slumped to the floor, dead on impact, while the other collapsed like a puppet whose strings had been cut and started twitching. I finished him off.

Cassidy's father gaped at us openly. He didn't move a muscle to defend his friends, instead throwing his gun to the ground and lifting his hands. I suspected that might have been Fion's doing. My paw snapped a twig, and he flinched at the sound, before he turned and ran for his life. I watched warily until he was out of sight and then looked at Rhys.

Blood-splattered and wagging his tail, my brother's wolf towered over me. His ears were back, his head lowered ever so slightly. Both signs of submission — I had beaten him in our fight the other day. I had led the pack even before physically overpowering him, but I'd never quite appreciated that his wolf might not have agreed. Rhys had always given way for me. Now I was pushing him aside whether he liked it or not. And I couldn't decide if that was a good thing.

"Malcolm is not getting within a mile of my mate," he said through the link. No leeway, no room for argument.

But somehow, I found some. "You can't lock her away forever, you know. If I had my way, I would shut Leo in a dungeon until this was all over. He would do the same to me if he could get away with it. That doesn't make it right, Rhys."

"Cass is human," Rhys pointed out.

I lifted a corner of my lip as if to snarl at him. "So is Malcolm."

"He could kill her. It would only take one bullet."

"It's a risk all of us are taking."

At the back of my mind, I could feel Fion watching nearby. She hadn't involved herself in the argument, probably because it was about Cassidy, whom she hardly even knew.

"Have you met my father, Skye?" Rhys asked.

"Why, yes. Once or twice." My tone was dripping with sarcasm. "Could someone with a good sense of direction please show us back to the point?"

He rolled his eyes. "Dad lost his mate. My grandfather lost his mate. I don't see Maggie's mate around anywhere. One of my aunts is dead. The other one, wait for it now ... lost her mate. My family seems to be cursed, but I'm not letting that happen to Cass. I don't want to end up as screwed up as Dad."

Oh, Goddess. I hadn't seen that one coming. It took a while to swallow the lump in my throat and continue the conversation.

"You know what?" I said. "Protect her for all I care. Keep her alive if it matters so much. But make sure you don't lose her in the process. If a man tried to tell me what I could and couldn't do, I would dump his controlling arse faster than he could blink."

And Rhys himself blinked then, and I knew I had won without even trying to.

"I'm not ... I wouldn't do that," he said defensively. "Of course I wouldn't. But she's not trained, and she didn't grow up like we did, and it's screwed up to drag her into this fight. The only reason she's involved is because she's mated to me."

I acknowledged that with a weary nod, because he did have a point, and then I turned to start the run home without saying another word. In a few hours, we would all forget this had even happened. Siblings were the only people in the world who could spend all day at your throat and still have your back come nightfall. But for the time being, I was quite happy to stew in my frustration.

Fion's nose had been bleeding. I could see the smudge of blood on her muzzle, and her attempts to wipe it away had only smeared it further across her pelt. The mental fighting must have been more taxing than she was letting on. I caught Rhys throwing her worried glances every so often, but he wasn't suicidal enough to say anything. Fion knew her limits, and we had to trust her to stay within them.

"I'm going to find Cassidy. She deserves to know," I said quietly after we were shifted and dressed.

Fion nodded absent-mindedly. "I won't join you — I need to get back to Nia. But keep me in the loop, alright? I want to be a part of this now."

Once she had gone, I turned to Rhys and raised my eyebrows. He was tugging at the hem of a grey shirt, which was getting far too small. He had finished growing a few months ago, so it was muscles that were the problem. Tally had recently taken to wolf-whistling every time he walked by, which annoyed both him and her mate to no end.

"Of course I'm coming," he said.

We found Cassidy in the canteen, eating a plateful of spaghetti with tomato sauce. She was participating in a rowdy conversation with Tally and Ollie, surprisingly. Both of them scooted over when they saw us, letting Rhys take the seat beside her. We all knew better than to get between mates, especially before they were marked. That being said ... I wasn't sure how the whole human-mate thing worked. She certainly wouldn't be able to mark him, and that would leave him vulnerable to the ferals.

"We need to talk," I said immediately, shutting down their debate about the merits of time travel.

"Yeah?" Cassidy asked.

"Your father was just here. The hunters are looking for you."

She slowly put down a fork of pasta. "Did you hurt him?"

"No, we didn't," Rhys assured her. "But he killed one of our patrols."

"Speaking of which..." I turned to Ollie. "We left a bit of a mess in the west woods. Would you mind...?"

He grimaced. "That depends. By mess, do you mean decomposing corpses strewn all over the forest floor?"

"Yeah. That."

"I could send Ryker and Emmett," Ollie murmured. "They seem to enjoy that kind of thing."

"Sorry, I promised them to Jace. He needs rogues to penetrate Keith's borders."

"Fine, I'll go," he sighed.

Tally shuffled in closer as Ollie disappeared, not bothering to hide her curiosity. "So Malcolm's getting braver, huh?"

"Not for long," I said. "The police will be paying him a visit any day now."

"And you're getting involved in the pack war as well?"

Cassidy didn't look like she was going to finish her meal, so I slid her plate towards myself and tucked in, speaking through mouthfuls of spaghetti. "Not really. Jace wants me to stay out of it, and I'm not inclined to argue. We're the only pack staying neutral."

"That's odd," Tally murmured. "Shadowless are fighting?"

"They're right in the thick of it," Rhys joined in. He leaned forward with interest, and I remembered his doubts about the pack war.

She frowned. "I used to be in that pack, you know. Not one of my friends has mentioned anything about conflict."

"Alpha Zach probably ordered them to keep their mouths shut. As I said, Jace is doing his absolute best to keep us in the dark."

"Skye, I'm not so sure—" Rhys began.

I stopped eating for a moment to stare at them. "I don't really care if there's something going on. Any secrets the packs might be keeping aren't our concern. Malcolm is. When he's dead, we can go about sorting out the Alphas."

Neither of them looked convinced, but I just turned to Cassidy. "So ... back to the hunters. You'll have to pick a side sooner or later. Us or them."

"You're asking me to choose between you and my family?"

"Goddess, no. We won't touch your father. But you're the easiest way to infiltrate the hunter's base. You turn up, claiming to have escaped from us or some shit. They let you in, then you help us get inside."

She folded her arms. "And why should I do that? You've killed how many people, exactly?"

Hadn't I already had this conversation with the police? I groaned. "I'm not debating morality with you. They'd love to kill us. Think about which side of the conflict your mate is on. Unless you want to leave him — which may I remind you, would be excruciatingly painful for both of you — I suggest you agree to help us."

Rhys gave her an apologetic smile. "It's true, you know. Leaving your soulmate is almost impossible. Sorry."

Cassidy looked between us with exasperation. "I don't really have a choice, do I?"

I shrugged. "Not really."

"Then I'd love to help," she said sarcastically.

"Brilliant." I beamed. "So who's on the hit-squad now? Let's see... You, me, Fion, Rhodric, Leo, Jeff, Kara and Cass."

Tally sat up straight. "You can count me in. Ollie, too. All of us want to help."

"You've done more than enough already," Rhys told her. It seemed he didn't want to risk our friends' lives any more than I did. I'd been expecting more protests about Cassidy's involvement, but perhaps those would come later.

"And I need a few people here to hold the fort if this goes sideways," I added.

"Alright," she said grudgingly. "I'll leave you to your plotting."

She stood and left, throwing me a slightly resentful look. I knew Tally just wanted to be in on the action. But this was family business, and I had no intention of involving anyone who didn't strictly need to be there.

"So I couldn't help but overhear something earlier..." Cassidy began grudgingly.

"Oh, Goddess," Rhys muttered. "It had better not be about me. Because I should warn you, most of the rumours are lies. Complete and utter lies. I never—"

"What Rhys means to say is," I interrupted before he could reveal anything truly embarrassing, "what did you hear?"

She bit her lip. "Rhodric wasn't letting that old crazy guy near the baby. Said he didn't trust him or something along those lines. But he's coming with us, isn't he? Are you sure that's a good idea?"

I waved a hand dismissively. "Oh, Jeff's harmless."

"I heard he tried to rip your throat out yesterday — and very nearly succeeded."

"Yes well" —I grimaced— "minor details, you know? Rhodric seems to be able to keep him under control."

"Isn't he some kind of psychopath?" Cassidy asked.

Rhys grinned. "Cassie, when you're trying to get somewhere in life, a psychopath is better than no path."