Extra chapter as promised, though everyone's probably off on holiday and not checking Wattpad by now. You all enjoying the summer?
"Welcome to the first meeting of Last Haven Council." Ollie was standing in the command room, at the far end of a long table, and addressing the six of us. "Matters for discussion today are the fortification of Lle o Dristwch and the Llyn Rogues."
"Argh, stop being so damn formal," I told him. "We're hardly a royal court."
"What am I supposed to say?" Ollie asked me with a frown.
"I don't care, just don't talk like you were raised in a mansion."
"Hi, y'all, the castle's falling down. Discuss," he tried. "How's that?"
I smiled happily. "Perfect."
It was decision time, and I had called in all the wiser, older heads to share their experience. At least, I had tried to. No one had been very interested in attending a meeting. Only Tom of the Elders could be bothered to get off his ass, which was fortunate, because I wanted a word with him anyway. He knew I suspected him of slipping the note into the cellar, and had consequently avoided my company at all costs. Until now.
"We could try building a wooden palisade around the castle. Just as an extra line of defence," a middle-aged man named Mortimer suggested. He was an old-timer renowned for being a jerkoff player in his youth. These days, karma had left him holding the camp record for the most children (and STDs, if you believed the rumours). He was the only other volunteer for council duty. The rest of the seats were filled by my family.
"They'd just set fire to it," Fion argued, correctly. "I thought we were going to rebuild completely."
Leo, who was sat directly opposite me, opened his mouth at this point. "Where are we going to find the money to rebuild an entire castle? And why bother, when we can just strengthen and add to what we've already got? Most of the stones are secure enough. Having been on the opposite side of the siege, I can testify to that."
"Well, I suppose we could reuse the rocks from the crumbled parts. That way, we'd only need mortar, cement, and people to work on it..." I added.
"Take thirty men off patrol rotation and set them to building it instead. The younger shifters can do more of the patrols," Tom offered. "Although the next topic might fix this problem anyway."
"Okay, what about the towers then? We'll need experienced builders for those," Mortimer pointed out, still butt-hurt that we had rejected his palisade suggestion.
Before we could debate over the towers, the door thudded open. Ollie had posted a few fighters on guard there, but they didn't dare move to stop the intruder. They knew what we all did. Mess with Maggie, and you didn't eat for a week.
"Having a meeting without me, are we?" Maggie asked brightly. "Well isn't that rude?"
She scraped back a seat to my left and sat down violently. We all averted our eyes, and Tom coughed awkwardly. "Margret, my apologies. We didn't know that-"
"Oh, shut up, Tomos. I don't care for your opinion. Everyone knows you're still spying for Ric."
What an interesting nickname, I mused. No one called him that. Ever. It added to the mystery of who was Maggie was. Those two certainly weren't related. You could tell just by looking at them. Maggie had had dark hair once, which had gradually greyed during my childhood. Rhodric was pure Llewellyn with light-brown hair and hazel eyes. They were different ages and had different accents. So I could only wonder how they had met, and what would persuade her to babysit for someone she obviously disliked.
He narrowed his eyes. "And you aren't?"
"Not at all," she denied. "I hate that man."
Now I was wondering exactly how many people my foster father had under his thumb. Did he know that this meeting was taking place right now? It seemed likely. Reassuring and terrifying at the same time.
"Back to the matter at hand," Mortimer interjected. He was so keen to change the subject that I immediately marked him down as suspicious. Damn, Dad. How many spies do you need? Was I just being paranoid?
Tom waved a hand dismissively. "You don't need to worry about experienced builders. We've got a gang of rogues who used to work on a construction site."
"Okay..." I tried to focus on what we'd been talking about. "Let's take a vote then. All those in favour of taking men off the patrol rotation to refortify the castle, raise your hands."
All seven of us lifted a hand into the air. Well, that was settled then. I asked Ollie, "Could you get that underway tomorrow?"
"Of course," Ollie replied. "And in Skye's preferred informal style, our next topic is whether we should let a bunch of bloodthirsty cutthroats from the Llyn Peninsula join Last Haven."
"Well that's a definite no," Fion decided. "Why is it even up for discussion?"
I asked my own question. "That depends —are they loyal?"
It wasn't permission to be here that they wanted. It was our acceptance into Last Haven. If it wasn't given, it would be hard for so many new rogues to enter camp. I suspected they would also want to join the fighters, which could shake up our existing recruits. But maybe in a good way, if they were as ruthless as advertised.
"You tell us, Skye, you're the one with the info."
Rhodric's files were heaped on the table in front of me. Dozens of them. I flicked through to find one which mentioned the Llyn Rogues, then gave read aloud hesitantly, "Their leader died under mysterious circumstances a week ago. Oh, and look —Rhodric's drawn a happy face by that paragraph. I think that means he didn't like the guy anyway."
"He didn't," Maggie sighed. "Imagine an older, more powerful Syd Jacobs."
Needless to say, all of us shuddered at the thought.
"Blah, blah, blah," I continued, skipping over the incident report. "There was some evidence of mutiny, but it was never proved, so..."
"We would be wise to turn them away," Tom finished.
"I was going to say what does it matter? They're just looking for safety in numbers. Besides, what kind of person kills their leader, then goes to a lot of trouble to find a new one, only to kill them too?"
"Any rogue ever," Tom told me. "You know that."
He was right. Most of my kind didn't really give a damn how many bridges they burned. We were hard to satisfy and volatile —never a good combination. I wouldn't trust these Llyn guys as far as I could throw them.
"They can't be much worse than the men we've already got. I say let them join and keep an eye on them. As long as it's not our throats they're cutting, they'll be useful," Maggie pointed out. She hadn't been born or raised rogue (you could just tell) so she wasn't as suspicious as the rest of us.
"Maybe she's right," I commented. "Thanks to Brandon, we're short on fighters."
"I wouldn't trust men like that as far as I could throw them," Mortimer protested. "For all we know, they'll be backstabbers exactly like Brandon."
"That traitor?" A man, who had been lounging unseen in a stairwell that led up to a tower, spat on the floor. "That's what I think of Brandon Llewellyn. No one's in a hurry to play copycat, believe me. And I wouldn't worry about your back. If I was going to stab you, I'd want to see the light to leave your eyes."
The first word I could think of to describe him was tough. He was stocky and of average height, arms corded with muscle. Pale hair topped a gaunt, bruised face. A long, ugly knife hung at his belt, unsheathed and unhidden, as if daring us to attack him and face the consequences.
So appearance wise? Not my first choice of companion. But that wasn't how I liked to choose my companions.
"Emmett, I asked you and your men to wait in the tower," Ollie complained. He didn't make much of an effort to sound angry. And considering the man in front of us, I didn't really blame him.
"We got bored," Emmett explained with a shrug. "What's taking so long?"
"We're deciding if we should let you join, and right now, you're not helping your case," Mortimer warned.
"Really?" he mused. "Because I don't see Rhodric anywhere. Since when did you start making decisions without him?"
Tom calmly rearranged the folder, his pursed lips not giving anything away. "Since we had a change of leadership."
Shock —pure, numbing shock. That was the only way I could describe Emmett's expression. I knew how he felt. My father was renowned for stubbornly clinging onto his little corner of the world. Packs rose and fell around him, and Rhodric was always left standing.
"I think you'd better explain. If he was dead, I'd have heard about it."
"Not dead, just missing," Tom said. I stared harshly at him, exposing the lie. A person isn't missing if someone knows where they are, and I was sure as hell that he did. The Elder ignored me.
"This room is half pups and half has-beens. So who's in charge now, huh?" Emmett asked.
I slouched back in my chair and lazily raised a hand. "That would be me."
The rogue's eyes slid over me dismissively. "You? Very funny."
"Yes, I think it's hilarious," I agreed without a smile.
He snorted, obviously still not getting it. "I can't even imagine hundreds of rogues being bossed around by a teenage girl."
"Well, fortunately, we don't have to imagine," Leo said mildly.
Emmett frowned as he took the meaning of the words. Then he froze, staring at me open-mouthed. That moment. That was what I lived for. A smug smile crept across my face.
"You're a pup," he snarled.
"Can't deny that."
"You're a girl."
"Great observational skills, buddy."
"You're going to get your head ripped off."
"You're welcome to try. But if it was that easy, don't you think someone would have done it already?" I pointed out.
A stony silence.
"Well," I began dramatically, "aren't you going to bow?"
Emmett wasn't impressed or in a hurry to oblige.
"Kneel?" I tried. It was only half mocking. Now he had so blatantly insulted me, I needed to push my weight around. Or I might be facing a mutiny by next week. "No? That's quite disrespectful."
"Respect is earned." We all pretended not to notice that his hand was drifting slowly towards his knife. "I won't be ordered around by a child."
Well, although I been trying (not very hard) to avoid a physical confrontation, it looked inevitable at this point. I stood up, scraping my chair against the floor as I did so. The werewolf population of the room winced. "And how do you earn respect in your group?"
"Combat," Emmett replied bluntly. I was edging backwards to intentionally corner myself so he would try his luck.
He didn't worry me. Because every word that had come out of his mouth had convinced me of something. He was afraid. Completely, utterly terrified. And I wasn't a mind reader—I didn't know why, except that it obviously wasn't me. Maybe it had something to do with his dead leader, or the ferals who seemed to be harassing everyone except us.
Either way, scared opponents didn't exactly inspire fear in me. So I didn't see much harm in fighting, and let my wolf out enough to piss him off. "What are you waiting for then?"
At long last, Emmett made his move. He made his intentions very obvious, because he underestimated me just like everyone else. He drew the knife from his belt backhanded and swung it at my throat. Quite fast, actually.
Well, at least he wasn't toying around. I appreciated that in an opponent.
I easily sidestepped the blade and kicked his shin while I was at it. Emmett stumbled, throwing a frustrated punch at me. With adrenaline coursing through my veins, I decided to take it. Dodging would leave me out of range, and he had a longer reach. His fist hit my gut with bruising force.
Then it was my turn to attack. I used my right hand to pull out my own penknife, and used it in a clumsy attempt to stab him. Emmett, looking slightly off-put at the utter uselessness of my efforts, did the obvious thing and caught my arm. He could now safely use his own knife to counter.
Or so he thought. Of course, that was exactly what I had wanted. Emmett had been so focused on blocking the obvious threat that he had forgotten about my other hand. He didn't notice Leo's switchblade until the tip was pressed against his chest.
Emmett tensed up automatically, which only puffed out his chest, so the blade dug in even more. I really have no idea why that was everyone's response to a knife threat. Go figure, buddy, you made things worse for yourself. Just chill.
It had all gone down in the span of a few seconds. I felt my chest rise and fall erratically as I struggled to remember how to breathe. Emmett wasn't nearly so shaky. He let his knife clatter to the floor to lift his hands in surrender, glaring daggers at me all the while. He spat at my feet.
I looked over my shoulder at a table surrounded by impassive faces. No one had moved —they knew it wasn't necessary. Such faith in me.
"Go on then, little girl. Kill me if you have the guts," Emmett invited, and I growled at him. "Oh, you don't like being called little girl?"
"I'm just embarrassed for you," I lied, because he was right, of course. "You're insulting yourself. You've been disarmed by a little girl."
"She's got you there," someone laughed.
This newcomer was different. He was a rogue too, and he stood in the stairwell at the head of a group of similar men. No doubt they wanted to know what all the commotion was about. He was lean and tall in his early thirties, with not even an ounce of extra fat on him. Long, dark hair hung over olive skin, which only brought out his eyes — brown and mischievous. One of them was swollen nearly shut, like he'd been in a fight. He looked like my kind of person.
"Shut up, Ryker," Emmett retorted.
Ryker just laughed again. "A Llewellyn pup who can beat you up and outwit you. Tell me, do you think her existence will improve your eternal bad mood, or make it worse?"
His only reply was an eye roll. With the situation diffused and having proved my point, I slipped the knife back into my pocket and returned to the table. My wolf was still tearing at the seams, because she wasn't so easily placated. Her instincts tended towards homicide, of course.
I sat on the bench next to Leo—the only person who could calm her down. As soon as he put an arm around me, my wolf's mental growls turned to purrs. The mate bond had its advantages, even though I wasn't marked yet.
"You're her mate?" Emmett asked incredulously. Our proximity must have given it away. "I attacked your mate in front of you, and you didn't even try to protect her? What kind of male are you?"
"I'm the kind of male who believes in gender equality. And I don't really understand how Skye gave you the impression that she needs any kind of protection," Leo replied with his usual calm. I actually didn't think it was possible to piss him off. That chill was flowing across the mind-link, soothing my wolf's volatile temper.
Then the thing I expected least happened. Emmett burst out laughing. "No, I suppose she didn't." He turned to me. "You've earned your respect with interest, girl."
"Welcome to the pack," I replied, making a snap decision. I liked him, and now he had backed down, there would be no danger of a challenge. "Just try to save the knife fights for flockies in future. It would be a shame to have to kick you out now that we're getting along so nicely."
"Don't worry about that —we'll be good as gold." Ryker added a wink and I knew he had understood my veiled threat.
The command rooms cleared quickly after that. Everyone suddenly remembered that they had places to be, or things to do. With the issues solved, there really wasn't any reason for them to stay. Except one person...
When Tom got up to leave, I quickly positioned myself in his way and smiled sweetly. "Could I have a word? It'll take two minutes."
His reluctance was obvious. He actually winced. "Yes, I suppose so."
Leo and Fion hovered in the doorway, waiting for me, but I waved them out. It wouldn't do to have witnesses to this conversation, because Tom would be even less likely to fess up. He might risk telling me, but a whole room full of eager ears? No way.
"Do you know where Rhodric is?" I demanded as soon as we were alone.
Tom's silence was enough of an answer.
"Tell me."
A long sigh. "He doesn't want to be found, Skye. Stop looking."
"We could help," I pointed out. "Whoever he's after — we could help."
Exasperation crept into his voice. "I know that. The number of times I've tried to convince him to involve other people ... you wouldn't believe it. But after what happened the last time, well, I understand. Your father's only trying to protect you."
"He left us to Brandon's mercy. I felt so safe."
"Safer than you would be with him," he promised. "Now I really have to go—"
I stepped into the way again. "Who is he hunting? At least tell me that."
He squirmed like a cornered rabbit right before the kill. And as he tried to leave again, I caught his arm, going out on a whim with a single name. "Malcolm."
The old man stopped moving. He let out a shaky breath and stared at me with total, unmasked fear, the likes of which I had never seen in him before. "Where did you hear that?"
"Overheard it from Rhodric, the night before he left. I didn't think it meant anything at the time, but now" —I narrowed my eyes—"let's just say I'm a teensy bit suspicious."
"Skye Llewellyn." I immediately knew I was in trouble. "Do not go looking, you hear me? Stay the hell away from Malcolm. Don't even mention his name again. You think the ferals are bad?" he scoffed. "That man is dangerous on a whole other level."
I bridled, ready to make some smartass comment, but Tom turned and went the other way around the table to escape. It didn't seem appropriate to chase after him, so I just growled to make my frustration known.
It took me a good few minutes to muster up the strength of will to move again. So Rhodric was playing hide and seek, and I didn't have the faintest clue how to find him. Short of having Fion force her way into Tom's mind, which was a tad extreme. And if I knew my foster father at all, anything Tom knew would be bogus anyway.
The light outside was startlingly bright. And the courtyard floor looked a lot whiter than it had been before. It had been snowing again, and now there was a foot of the damned stuff. Several children with shovels had been set to making paths, but it had disintegrated into a snowball fight instead. I had to avoid the missiles too, whose targets were dodging and weaving through the pillars for cover.
As I turned into my bedroom alcove I heard giggles from the eaves, then hurried whispers. Someone was lying in wait, and they weren't being very subtle about it.
Knock knock, then a slight pause. Knock, knock, knock.
I knew that pattern. From one of the worst afternoons of my life, when Fion had sat me down and forced me to endure the torment that is-
"Do you wanna build a snowman?" a chorus of voices sang.
—frozen.
Okay, I'll admit, the songs were catchy. But Rhys had taken it upon himself to pelt us with ice cubes for the duration of Let It Go, which had cured me of any obsession before it began. But that was not the case for everyone...
"Not really," I yelled back, just to humour them.
"It doesn't have to be a snowman."
"Go away, Fion." It was completely obvious who was behind it, especially as no one dared to enter our alcove except my siblings. We had made sure of that years ago, with some very evil pranks involving paint and flour.
"But Skye..."
"Those aren't even the lyrics," I protested. A crowd of girls and Kevin poked their heads around the corner, Fion and Tally included in their number.
"Come on, we can build a snow dog." Fion let out a whine. "Pleeease."
"Ugh fine. But only because I have nothing better to do," I grumbled.
I pulled on my gloves and the thickest coat I owned. My trainers were already soaked from the snow, and I didn't see any point changing them. We were short of winter shoes. Those would be one of the first investments I made with Jace's money. It was too common to see kids running through snowdrifts in converse. Or worse, barefoot.
Fion led the way to the acres of undisturbed snow in the trees. We rolled up snowballs to create a short, stumpy snowman, and then a snow dog for good measure (you wouldn't believe how much harder they are).
A pale timbre wolf, which I recognised as Ollie, walked up to our snowman and batted it with his forepaw. Although a trickle of snow cascaded off, it stayed standing defiantly. Ollie reared onto his back legs and too late, I realised what he was planning. He stamped on the snowman, which quickly became a snow pile. As we were all understandably pissed off, he turned tail and ran for the woods.
"Dammit, Ollie," I growled. I would have shifted and chased him personally if Fion hadn't beaten me to it. The two of them hurtled through the woods at breakneck speed, breaking off to scrap every now and then. I resisted the urge to aww at them.
A snowball hit my ear. It broke against my skull, leaving a trickle of freezing water to drip down my neck. Leo's head appeared briefly, poking out from a nearby snow wall. It had been invisible against the white backdrop without my mate as a visual aid. We had walked straight into an ambush.
As it turned out, there were a full dozen boys behind it, half of whom were mated to the girls who were with us. They rained missiles on us from the safety of their wall. My friends deserted me rather than face the snowballs.
As I didn't want to run away like a little girl, and there was no other obvious cover nearby, I did the logical thing and hid on the other side of their wall. Ha. Squatting there gave me another stroke of genius, and I shoved the wall. A few feet of hardened snow fell on their heads. There shouts and even a Kyle-pitched scream before they managed to dig themselves out of the snow and all charged straight at me.
I suppose I should have seen that coming.
I turned on my heel and ran, not bothering to shift. These were the only warm clothes I owned, and I wasn't in a hurry to shred them before winter had even properly started. My human form wasn't brilliant at running, sadly, and soon I heard the sounds of my pursuers gaining on me.
Someone tackled me without warning. I used their own momentum to twist around and switch our places. Consequently, my attacker took the worst of the fall, and I landed hard on their chest. I found myself face-to-face with a grinning Leo. We were both breathless with laughter and cold.
I pushed myself up onto my arms, because we were maybe a little too close. My knees sidled up to trap his arms in place, keeping him pinned under me. My wolf was enjoying our proximity a worrying amount.
"You going to let me up anytime soon, Skye?" he asked cheekily.
"No, I don't think so. I have a much better idea," I mused, then leant down to kiss him.
This time he had been expecting it and met me halfway. And as I was more experienced after that night on the tower, I felt brave enough to deepen it. I moved my legs to free his arms, and he wrapped them around me to pull me even closer. It was freezing cold lying in the snow, but when I was close to Leo, we made all the heat we needed.
Before we could get very far, something cold and wet splattered over our faces. It was a well-aimed snowball, courtesy of the twins. I looked up to see that the girls who had built the snowman and the boys from the snow wall had stopped fighting to stare at us. I probably should have been embarrassed, but I could only process annoyance at the interruption.
"Get a tent, you two," Kevin shouted and lobbed another snowball. It broke messily against Leo's shoulder.
I hurriedly climbed to my feet and helped Leo up as well. His back was caked in snow and mud from the landing. Oops. Fion and Ollie's wolves must have finished squabbling, because they were also amongst the onlookers. Fion was glaring, of course. For a while, I hadn't been sure why she was being so protective, but I suspected it might be a distrust of relationships with the entire male gender. Brandon's fault.
Even though I had only just got back up, Fion's wolf reared up to knock me backwards. I fell into a snowdrift and rose for a second time, more slowly. As I brushed the snow off my coat, she threw me a disapproving look, but otherwise left me alone.
Ollie's wolf slunk up to Leo to give him the guy look which says something the lines of nice, bro. I snorted, not really caring. Leo, on the other hand, gave Ollie's wolf a bodily shove. I wasn't sure if he was defending my honour, or just in the mood for a scrap. But if it was the latter, then a scrap is definitely what he got. My second-in-command shoved back, and the next thing I knew everyone was shifting to join in.
I ducked behind the shelter of a leafy fir tree to pull off the majority of my clothing before I let my wolf take over. She wasn't in the best of moods with me. It had been a while since I last shifted, and I had been annoying her with my failure to kill Alphas. I spend a minute calming that rage and persuading her that wrestling our packmates would be far more fun than ripping out throats.
Existential crisis over, I sprang into action. My paws kicked off powdery snow to sprint after the tangle of wolves who were heading deeper into the forest, where the undergrowth was too thick for humans. We ran in a pack of fifteen, all young and fast, so I could push the speed a lot higher than usual.
It didn't take long for my wolf to claim her rightful position at the front. Fion pushed her way to my flank, and Leo slipped in on my other side. With so much energy and excitement, our little pack should have made good progress, if it weren't for the impromptu wrestling matches every minute or so.
I had my turn with Leo's wolf when we cut back towards camp-tumbling and tackling in a snowdrift. Fion and I fought at the edge of a lake. I won both times, of course. But it wasn't really about that. We were familiar with each other, and everyone already knew their place in the pack. Play-fighting was more about fun and practice.
There was one amusing moment when the flick of Leo's tail caught his eye. He turned to chase it in tiny circles. When Leo realised what he was trying to catch, he carried on anyway, just for our amusement.
We spent the rest of the morning running the woods, until even our wolves were numb with cold and I could hear Maggie shouting that lunch was ready. I collected my discarded clothing, which was drenched with snowmelt, shifted back and changed into dry clothes.
Maybe winter wouldn't be as bad as I thought.