"We need to be further east," Ellis told me matter-of-factly. "That's what Nia said. We should be as close to the Riverside border as possible."
Bryn made a face. "Nah, nah, kiddo. If we run into him, he's gonna be all weirded out and get suspicious. Your book learning is useless out here, El. If anything, I say we go further west."
"What he said," Rhodri muttered. "No one's dumb enough to cross by Riverside, because then you've got both packs on your arse, and Lloyd knows that."
I stepped over the bone fence. One of my trainers snagged on a ribcage, and I had to lean down and tug it free, doing my absolute best not to touch it, because it looked human. There were shifter remains on every pack's bone fence, of course, but I did see one skull which was so rotten that only the teeth and some of the lower jaw remained. It must have been decades old — pre-dated the war, even, so that was weird.
"Quiet, the lot of you," I told them all when my feet were firmly planted on New Dawn land. "I'm leading the raid, and I say we cross here, so guess what? That's what we're bloody doing."
My little brother bounced on his toes. "But Nia said—"
"Shut up, El," the three of us said in unison.
Sam was next to cross the fence. He didn't want to be here. He thought he was doing a good job of hiding it, but he hadn't smiled once since we'd got out of the car, and he kept looking over his shoulder. Ellis didn't want to be here either. He was being bribed with the promise of some scientific journals or something along those lines.
Bryn and Rhodri and me — we did want to be here. Trespassing was always a laugh. It was the circumstances that made me uncomfortable.
"Do you hear that?" Rhodri asked as he stepped over to join us.
I didn't. Not at first. But when I cocked my head and concentrated, I could make out a low whining sound further down the fence.
"Bloody drones," he said. "Emmett was telling me about it. They fly them around the border a couple times a day."
"Dumbasses," I muttered. "Ain't gonna catch nobody."
Rhodri shrugged. "True, but that's not the point. If you cross the border and they work out where you are, they can use the drones to keep eyes on you. Outrun the flockies all you like — you can't race a bloody drone, and they've got infrared cameras on them so you can't hide, neither."
New Dawn would be the death of us. They already had miles of electric fence at the easiest crossing points, cameras hidden in trees and even a few infrared tripwires. There was a reason we didn't raid here without thorough planning and strength in numbers. Neither of which I had today.
I scratched the back of my neck and threw a nervous glance in the drone's direction. "Well ... shit, I guess. Wanna shake a leg, lads?"
Bryn decided to use a tree branch to swing himself over the bone fence because mediocracy was beneath him. Finally, Ellis picked his way gingerly between two deer carcasses. Screw strength in numbers and proper planning — I had a motley crew of children and civilians, and our only plan was to get real close to the Alpha and then get spectacularly busted.
Into the trees we went. We walked for nearly a mile before the patrol found us. We'd been sloppy deliberately, but my pride was smarting all the same. They would have found our scents not even a minute after we'd crossed the border, and they had followed it all the way to the fern-covered clearing where we had stopped to let Bryn tie his shoelaces.
"Surrender nicely, now, and we might just let you live," a voice drawled from the trees, and was the first I knew of it. All five of us turned fast enough to give ourselves whiplash.
The patrol had us surrounded, more or less. They had shifted back when they'd seen we were in human form, so they were all wearing the trackies and oversized shirts that New Dawn stored in hollowed-out trees all over the territory.
Two scouts, three fighters, and none of them looked ranked. It was five against five. Ellis was hopeless at fighting, but Rhodri counted for at least three ordinary wolves, so we'd be fine if it came to violence.
"Blah, blah, blah," I told him. "You're only making bullshit threats because you're too chicken to fight us and you're hoping your friends will get here before it comes to that. So excuse me if I'm not bloody scared, alright?"
The leader of the flockies sighed heavily. "Last chance, sweetheart."
"You guys really don't know when to give up, do you?" I laughed. "Yo, Bryn — has he linked anyone?"
As I said it, I hooked an arm around my little cousin's shoulder and messed up his hair while he closed his eyes and tried to listen to the whispers. It took him longer than usual because he'd been out clubbing last night and he was still hungover.
"He's linking right now," he growled. "The Alpha, no less."
Brilliant. Perfect. So far, so good.
"Well, that's our cue," I drawled. "We'll be off now. Tell Jace we said hi, would you?"
"Tell him yourself," someone said behind me, and I nearly had a heart attack right there and then.
I'd known he was close. Nia had guided us to within a hundred metres of him, but there was something about seeing a six-foot-tall guy standing right behind me that really got the blood pumping. It wasn't the sight of him that made my heart skip a beat, though. It was the gun in his hand. It was, of course, pointed at me.
This had not been part of the plan. Behind me, Rhodri let out a low and vicious growl which was ignored altogether. Jace was smiling faintly as he took the safety off. I noticed that he had his son with him — the young Alpha in training, due to take over the pack in a few months. I didn't know his name, but he was even taller than his father and had the same dark hair and arrogant blue eyes.
I had to fight my wolf to look Jace straight in the eye and say, "Coward."
"What would you know about cowardice?" he laughed. "You're just a kid."
I shrugged. He was like thirty-something, so he'd probably call Sam a kid, too. Age wasn't just defined by numbers. I'd seen more in my seventeen years than most people had seen in a lifetime, and I'd grown up fast and messily because of it. I didn't feel like a kid. I hadn't for a while now.
"Then you're pointing a gun at a kid, aren't you?" Sam asked quietly.
"This, here," Jace began, waving his other hand at the gun. "It doesn't protect me. It's not for my benefit. It's a way to stop you five doing anything stupid so I won't have to hurt you."
Lying shit. I didn't buy it for a second. I hawked and spat at his feet and watched his finger twitch towards the trigger.
"Go back to your patrol route," he told his men. "I'll take it from here."
They exchanged incredulous looks. If they left, it would be five against two, gun or not, and you could never be too careful when it came to rogues. But an Alpha couldn't be disobeyed, so they trudged back the way they'd come without a word of argument.
Jace risked a glance over his shoulder to check that they were out of earshot before he jerked the gun in Rhodri's direction. "On your knees and put your hands behind your head. That goes for you, too, gentlemen."
Sam and Bryn, that meant, and both of them obeyed grudgingly. Rhodri just blew out. "No."
Dumbass. He was supposed to be on good behaviour — it was the only reason he'd been allowed to come. The group had been picked very carefully. Bryn was lovable, Ellis was a cowardly little nerd, Sam was as gentle as they came, and I was too chill to get on anyone's nerves. Rhodri was the odd one out, and the one most at risk of getting himself executed.
"You're willing to let her die to spare your pride?" Jace asked quietly.
Yeah, Rhodri. Are you? I didn't give a shit if his wolf was playing up or if he just wanted to make it realistic. It wasn't worth the risk. Admittedly, though, he'd probably be the one who paid with his life, because if Jace killed me, his problems would get worse, not better.
"You're not going to shoot her," Rhodri laughed. "It's against the law, and you're too bloody soft."
"Ah. Maybe you're right. Maybe I won't," he mused. He didn't seem surprised by the defiance. He just moved the gun onto Bryn and watched Rhodri's entire body tense. "Yes, there we go. He's your brother, isn't he? But he's still a kid, so we have the same problem with the legal side of things..."
Sam was next to face the barrel.
"Now, your friend here looks grown to me, and he's willfully trespassing. I would be well within my rights to put him to death," Jace said, dangerously quiet. "So, young man, do you want to rethink that answer?"
Rhodri got onto his knees and laced his fingers at the back of his neck, but there was a new emotion washing the anger out of his eyes now. Hatred. Because the Alpha had threatened Bryn, whom Rhodri adored, and Sam, who had never harmed another person in his entire life.
With a satisfied nod, Jace turned his attention to Ellis next, who looked like a rabbit in the headlights. "You, kid — you're going to turn out their pockets for me. There are five of you, so I want five knives and five lighters."
"El isn't carrying," I tried.
He shook his head. "Bull. Shit. Five knives, five lighters."
Ellis was visibly shaking as he set a pocket-knife and a lighter on the ground. They weren't his. Nia had lent them to him because we'd known they wouldn't believe a raider was unarmed. He made the rounds — relieving the boys of their shit before coming to reach into my pockets.
"Left side jacket," I sighed. Ellis knew I was left-handed because we'd learned to write together, but he didn't really understand the mechanics of knife placement. "Watch yourself — it's a switch."
He found it and added it to the pile. It wasn't my good knife, because I was sure as hell I wouldn't get it back. Once Jace had counted his plunder, he sent his son over to pick it all up. The gun had moved back onto me at some point, so I was doing my absolute best to keep still despite the fact that I had a wedgie and I needed to piss.
Once they were satisfied that we were unarmed, he lowered the gun a fraction and put the safety on. "We're going to walk to the pack house now. On your feet. Single file. Slow-walk me and I'll put a bullet in your shoulder."
The boys got back up. Ellis had opened Bryn's jacket in the search for his inside pocket, and he'd managed to get the zip stuck while he was doing it back up, so he was fiddling with the damned thing and cursing periodically. The five of us formed a messy line in front of Jagoff Senior.
"Reckon we'd go even slower if we were leaking all over the place," I muttered under my breath. If the Alpha heard me, he pretended otherwise.
"See the two taller boys?" Jace asked his son. "You're going to keep one eye on them, because they're the spitting image of Rhys Llewellyn and they're likely to be just as stupid. Keep your other eye on the girl."
"She's tiny, Dad," the pup-Alpha said disdainfully, looking me over.
"You're right, Hayden, but she looks like Skye."
I'll admit I shivered a little. I hadn't inherited Mam's blonde hair, and the grey eyes were far less noticeable, so no flockie had ever made the connection before. The pup — Hayden — gave me a second and much warier once-over, and I glowered at him. He was handsome for a flockie, but I was going to forget that because I was pretty sure he was a distant cousin on my Dad's side of the family.
They made us walk three miles in total bloody silence. By the time we saw the outline of their giant freaking mansion of a packhouse, I was limping along to try and avoid upsetting my overflowing bladder any more than it already was.
Weirdly enough, Jace made us wait in the trees while he mind-linked. We were staring at a side-entrance to the house, separated from the gardens behind by a chain-link fence, and it was a safe guess that it was the door to the prison. Even as we watched, the guards outside left their posts and disappeared to the front of the house.
And only then did Jace make us keep walking. He was trying to keep our presence quiet, then. Mam had been right. He didn't think his pack members would approve of whatever he was going to do with us.
We were guided towards the prison door. I reckoned the Alpha's arm must have been aching from holding the gun, but he didn't lower it an inch as we descended the steps into the dismal, gloomy corridors beneath the packhouse. It smelt of blood and death, and I felt a little shiver run down my spine. My wolf had her hackles up even before we saw the rows upon rows of cramped cells.
Most of them were full. There were probably nine or ten rogues in this room alone, and very few of them would see the sun again. At first, they stared at us in that bored, disinterested sort of way — seeing but not really processing.
"Shit, guys," one of them breathed. "They've got the Llewellyn boys."
That got his friends' attention. They came to the bars of their cells, and they rattled them and shouted abuse as Jace and Hayden passed them. It was not the usual rowdy taunting — there was too much dismay in their voices, but it soon got so loud that my ears rang and I couldn't even hear myself think.
Jace didn't even try and make them shut up. He just herded us down the corridor, turning into another smaller section where the guards' station was. It was empty but for one guy who gave Jace a thumbs up without even looking up from his newspaper. The sight of a grimy toilet stall behind him made me think about my full bladder, and then I couldn't stop thinking about it.
"I need to piss," I told them sullenly.
Jace spared me the barest, most scathing glance imaginable. "Hold it."
I'd expected no less. Rogues didn't have basic human rights, so I could wet myself for all they cared.
On the other side of the guard station, there were a few more cells, but only one of them was occupied. It was a boy about our age who was lounging on his mattress. And I could have recognised that copper skin and inky black hair a mile off.
"What the ever-loving hell are you doing in here, Rhodri?" he breathed, scrambling to his feet at the sight of us. "They gonna kill you for sure."
Rhodri kinda shrugged at him, and they managed to bump fists through the bars.
"Alright, Bryn? Looking mighty fine today, my lad," he said next. They fist-bumped, too. "And Eva! We nearly got the whole crew, I see. Where's your boyfriend?"
"Go and screw yourself, Turner," I said. He was from Syd's crew — one of the only decent ones, might I add, and we'd slept together on several occasions. I hadn't known he'd got himself caught. "He's not my boyfriend."
He grinned at me. "Aw, don't be like that, babes. I just wanna know if I'm in with a shot."
I stopped for a moment to squeeze his hand. "In your dreams, boy."
"This is not a social gathering," Jace warned us. "Move it."
I was too slow to obey, and he shoved me. I clipped my shoulder on the bars and let out an involuntary yelp, not because he'd been particularly rough, but because I hadn't been expecting it. Rhodri turned around so fast that I had grab hold of his collar and wrench pretty hard to stop him wringing Jace's neck on the spot.
And all the while Hayden hovered behind his father and looked uncomfortable with the whole situation. He kept clenching his jaw and chewing on the inside of his cheek — clearly, he was not completely down with the regime yet, so perhaps there was still hope for him.
We were sent through a security door and into another hallway. This was one was wider. Better lit, too. The moment the door closed behind us, Jace asked incredulously, "Your names are Rhodri and Bryn?"
"Yeah," Rhodri muttered. "Haven't you been getting our Christmas cards?"
He shrugged. "You're joking, but I used to know your family quite well. Did you know that? We only lost touch after a ... misunderstanding."
"After you betrayed us, you mean," I said quietly. "Came and slaughtered us in our home."
"Is that what Skye told you? She was lying," Jace laughed. I fumed, too stunned even to snap back, and his attention turned back to the boys. "Anyway, I can't help but wonder what your dad was thinking. Your names are a death sentence, and I'm surprised you've lived this long, to be honest."
I wasn't listening to him. I was busy staring back at Turner through the grimy, wire-laced window in the door. He had gone back to lying on his bed, and he was tossing an empty water jug in the air to amuse himself.
"Don't you dare execute that boy. He's barely seventeen," I said vehemently. If I remembered correctly, he had actually turned nineteen last winter, but that white lie could save his life.
Jace shook his head. "He killed one of my men. He'll be tried with the rest of them."
I took a step towards him and let my eyes flash black.
"Legally, I can execute sixteen-year-olds for murder," he reminded me.
Rhodri spat on the ground. "Why? He was only defending himself. We're only ever defending ourselves."
"Yeah, what're we supposed to do?" Bryn threw in. "Stand still and let you rip our throats out?"
And suddenly we were all clamouring around him in a tiny, furious little lynch mob, shouting and spitting curses. Jace actually had to take a step backwards to keep a safe distance. I could see the thoughts racing behind his eyes as he tried to decide how to make us shut up.
The noise level climbed steadily. Even Ellis was trying to recite a particular paragraph of pack law about self-defence. We were drowning him out, but I appreciated the sentiment. Sam was the only one of us who kept his mouth shut.
And it was Sam, quiet and well-behaved, whom Jace hit with the butt of his gun as an example to the rest of us. He crumpled onto his knees, stunned, before Bryn managed to catch his shoulder before he fell any further. There was a shallow cut seeping blood down the side of his face.
We fell silent. Not out of fear or respect; it was a sullen, heavy silence. There was something very abhorrent about Sam getting hurt for doing nothing at all. He'd been punished for our misbehaviour. Rhodri, the most volatile of us, tried to lunge at Jace for a second time. Again, I managed to put myself in the way, but just barely.
"Enough!" Jace snapped. His thumb flicked the safety switch. "Next time you try that, he'll eat a bullet."
He was letting his wolf lean on us, and the weight of that — the sheer force he could exert... For me, it was like being flattened with a steam-roller. For Rhodri, it was nothing short of a challenge. He had to fight his wolf tooth and nail to keep a shift at bay. He wouldn't win that fight, and he knew it.
"Geez, man, there's no need to be so pissy," Bryn drawled. He was helping Sam back onto his feet. Somehow, he seemed to have shaken off the dominance display like a dog would shake off water. "It's another week until the full moon, you know."
Jace raised his eyebrows, and his lips twisted into a scowl which I didn't like the look of one bit.
"This is funny to you, isn't it? Do you want to know just how funny I find it?" he demanded, shoving Rhodri forwards viciously. My cousin tensed but leashed his temper enough to take it. "Well?"
The mood had changed so drastically and so fast that I failed to grasp the seriousness of the situation until we changed direction. Instead of the routine cells, he was leading us towards one large chamber. Long-dried bloodstains crusted the floor, and the nearest wall was a set of cast-iron bars. It was big enough to fit an entire raiding team, let alone the five of us.
"Any other pack. Any other Alpha. This is where you would end up," Jace told us. He yanked open a low door and herded us inside. The horrible clang of the door closing echoed around the strange space. A key turned in the lock.
I couldn't help but notice the small, barred windows which looked into other cells. Shifters sat in a few of them, staring down at us with empty eyes. Witnesses. I felt an unusual flicker of fear. This was a demonstration — a performance. And I had a sneaking suspicion that we were about to be made an example of.
"We're going to play a game," he said roughly. At this point, I honestly couldn't tell if this was real anger or just an attempt to scare us, so I decided to play it safe and use mockery — a rogue's textbook response to pretty much everything.
"Monopoly?" I asked hopefully. He ignored me, but I reckoned his scowl got deeper, if that was even possible.
With the gun now unnecessary and pointing at the floor, I felt my heart slow down a bit. We were all trying to act like we didn't give a shit, but that was getting harder by the second. I slung my arms around Bryn and Ellis and pulled them close for a bit of reassurance. Rhodri stood in front of us all protectively, and I could hear his heart thumping from a pace away.
Jace leant against the bars of the cell opposite. "Next month, decimation will become pack law. When a wolf is caught trespassing with intent to cause harm, or a wolf with the Last Haven tattoo is captured, we will be legally obliged to pass this sentence."
"Let me take a wild guess," Rhodri snapped. "Death. It's nothing new."
"Oh, but it is. You kids seen The Hunger Games?"
We nodded automatically.
The Alpha inclined his head. "Good. It works a lot like that. You fight each other. The last one alive goes free. Everyone else ... well, I suppose the 'last one alive' part is quite self-explanatory, isn't it?"
I swallowed. This had not been part of the plan. Admittedly, I didn't actually know what the plan was, because Jace was a tapper and my mental walls weren't full-proof, but I did know it didn't include us ripping each other to shreds. If this was scare-tactics, it was working, and I felt myself brushing against my link to Liam reflexively.
He nudged back, asking what was wrong, and I could feel his worry swirling across the link in dizzying waves. I didn't bother trying to explain. It was comforting enough to feel his mind against mine.
Bryn spat on the ground. "That's sick."
Jace smiled. "Oh, I agree, but you idiots will still come raiding, won't you? Nothing we can possibly do to you is sick enough to stop you trespassing and stealing and killing, but the other Alphas have yet to realise that. You all complain that we kill you, but you are the ones who cross the borders. You started this, not us."
He had a point. This had gone so far beyond us making a living. We raided them to punish them for what they were doing to us, and they had to answer the raids with more violence, and so on and on it went in an ever-shrinking, ever-more-vicious circle.
I couldn't help but notice that Hayden Lloyd wasn't breathing. He kept looking from his father to us, clearly wondering if he would really make us do it. I was wondering that myself.
"What are you waiting for?" Jace asked, lifting the gun once again. "You clearly thought five minutes on my land was enough fun to risk this, so now you'll take the consequences. Shift and fight."
Goddess above. This was so incredibly screwed up.
"We're not going to kill each other. Let's get that very clear right now. You can't exactly prod us with hot irons, you prick," I spat at Jace.
The boys nodded their agreement vigorously and crossed their arms over their chests.
"I can't?" He lifted his eyebrows. "I'm sure I could, but there's a less barbaric alternative. If you don't play the game, you all die."
Well ... screw him. It would almost be worth it — refusing and sitting our arses down and making him do it himself. If this went much further, I would have to mind-link Mam for extraction, and that would be game over, so I reckoned we needed to persuade Jace to give up on this little display. It wouldn't be easy. He thought that he could save our lives if he could scare us badly enough.
"It'll be interesting to see who survives," Jace went on. His gaze settled on Ellis. "Maybe you'll let the boy win. But, then again ... maybe not."
I would let Ellis win. I knew that without even thinking. He could be a bit self-righteous at times, but he was thirteen years old, and he was my little brother. And Sam would probably do the same. If Rhodri decided he wanted Bryn to survive, we might have a problem, but not even Bryn himself would cooperate with that plan. All hypothetically, of course, because Jace was just trying to scare us and we weren't going to do it.
"I sincerely hope you're screwing with us, mate," Sam said, "because killing the kid here would be very, very illegal."
"I wouldn't be killing him. You would," he pointed out. "But, as of next month, that law is changing, too. They're going to legalise the execution of fourteen-year-olds for trespass and ten-year-olds for murder."
Rhodri laughed and thumped the bars, which made Jace blink if nothing else. "Does it make you guys feel big and strong — murdering little children?"
The Alpha lowered the gun for a moment to sigh at him. "I can't speak for my fellow Alphas, but I will be voting against the amendment. Their argument, I'm told, is that kids can kill. Or worse — grow up. Become like you lot, fighting your parents' wars. None of you are old enough to remember what happened at Lle o Dristwch, and yet here you are."
"I'm old enough." Sam's voice was enthrallingly quiet. "I was there when you butchered the camp. Six years old, but I sure as hell remember that. Children died there, too. Some of them were my friends. They weren't trespassing, they hadn't hurt anyone. They were just in your way."
"That was not condoned. If the people responsible were caught, they would have been punished," Jace said. There was a shortness to his tone now that made it evident he was losing patience with this argument.
Sam shook his head. "Bullshit, and you know it. No one was punished. I'll bet no one was even reprimanded."
"I think we've got side-tracked here," Jace said, an avoidance if I ever saw one. "Weren't you kids about to kill each other?"
He lifted the gun once again and pointed it between my eyes. I could have reached for the mind-link with half a thought, but I held off. We hadn't done all of this shit to fail at the first hurdle and watch our raiders die to get us out of here.
"You've made your point, alright?" I growled. "We get it. We're terrified. Whatever."
He only stared at me because that lazy effort hadn't convinced him even a little. His finger closed around the trigger.
Hayden swallowed hard and spoke up at long last, "We do need them out of here before the shift change, Dad..."
For all the good it did. Jace just looked at his watch and shook his head. "We have another twenty minutes. That's plenty of time for them to fight, I should think."
I couldn't help noticing that Hayden was getting too close to the bars. He was still wrestling with his conscience, and he'd come within an arm's length of the cell. I dug my fingernails into Ellis's shoulder and gave him a firm nudge in Hayden's direction, and I showed him what he needed to do across a carefully guarded mind-link.
I saw Bryn's eyes widen as he overheard what I was saying. Smart boy — he'd catch on. It took him approximately ten seconds to grasp my plan and slip a disarming smile onto his face. He was very good at keeping people's attention when he wanted it, and now he turned that talent to distracting Jace from his son's impending doom.
"Alright, fam. I love you all, really I do, but... Well. I love living, too," he began. "El, you've snitched on me about a billion times now. Eva, you did once put a grass snake in my shoe, and I have not forgotten that. And it wasn't fair to laugh at me for screaming, alright? I was seven."
Ellis inched closer to the bars. He was my weapon of choice because no one would suspect him of malevolence — he was shaking like a leaf and had been since Jace had started this bullshit.
"Rhodri... Shit, man, where to even start? Top three are probably the time you left me in a wheelie bin overnight, the time you gave me a marmite sandwich that was really full of bird shit, and the time you went and got inked without me," Bryn whined.
Even Hayden was watching Bryn now. Ellis took another step, and I could hear his heart racing along at a hundred miles an hour, but he was nearly there now.
Bryn folded his arms and turned those lively hazel eyes onto our babysitter next. "And, Sam, mate, you're awesome and all, but when you said it was 'impractical' for me to ride an ostrich into battle. I'm going to be honest now — that really hurt my feelings."
All eyes were fixed on the dramatic performance, and Ellis saw his chance. His hand snaked through the bars and seized the hem of Hayden's jacket. Unprepared and slow to understand, the boy took far too long to resist. So long, in fact, that Ellis managed to hold him in place for a second.
And a second was all we needed. Rhodri, who I was sure had been paying attention to the Alpha-to-be's lack of diligence longer than I had, closed the distance in a flash. I wasn't far behind.
It wasn't elegant, and it wasn't very well executed ... but it worked. I caught a shoulder and yanked it around. Ellis ducked down to hold the boy's ankles before he could get leverage against me. While we held him, Rhodri managed to get an arm around Hayden's throat and brace himself in the perfect position to twist.
All that before Jace could even take a step. And now that a rogue could break his son's neck in a heartbeat, he didn't dare move. He should have kept the gun on us, at least, but it hung loosely at his side. Forgotten, almost.
Ellis untangled himself from us and scrambled out of our way, breathing hard. He was met with a very rough-and-tumble hug from Bryn. It was, I reckoned, the first time I had seen them sharing affection in their entire lives, but I had more important things to worry about in that moment. First and foremost — standing between my cousin and Jace in case he ever did remember that he was armed.
Hayden's back was pressed against the bars. He was being lifted half off his feet, only supported by his neck, which had to be uncomfortable. He didn't complain, though. I doubted he had the breath to. Rhodri wasn't being at all gentle with his windpipe.
"Alright then," I said softly. "Now we're going to play a game."
Jace let out a long breath. His entire body was rigid, but he didn't let that composure slip. Not even when his son's life was hanging in the balance. "Let's not do anything rash here. What do you want?"
"The gun, for a start," Rhodri muttered. "Put it down nice and slow, then slide it over."
Jace did as he was told. It came to rest near my boots, and I crouched down to collect it. Cold, heavy, uncomfortably smooth — I didn't like guns. I was surprised he hadn't argued, to be honest. Now we had the means to kill both him and Hayden whenever we damn well pleased.
I pointed it at Jace, who hadn't taken his eyes off his son for a second. The boy was now steadily turning white.
"Let up," I told my cousin.
Rhodri looked at his prisoner and laughed. "He's alright."
I took his word for it until that sickly white colour started being replaced by blue. His hands were beating uselessly against Rhodri's arm, and his eyes were beginning to roll back into his head.
"Seriously, now," I said, swallowing hard. "Let up."
He did what I asked, but he didn't do it happily. Mam had put me in charge of the raid because I was more sensible, not because I outranked him, and that must have rubbed his wolf up the wrong way. And a silent growl rumbled through his chest which told me I might regret abusing that stolen power later.
Here was the problem, though. Liam and Rhodri's inability to sort out the pecking order between them had meant that neither of them could take charge of our little friendship group. I'd become the leader by process of elimination ... but that only worked when we were all together. Apart, I should have been rolling over for both of them.
Except that Rhodri was too lax in enforcing the hierarchy when it came to me, and Liam had never even tried, for whatever reason. It made my wolf think she could push her luck.
"I can't just let you go," Jace told us. His hands were hanging loosely by his sides, but his whole body was as tense as a drawn bow. "If you're seen leaving, you'll be killed and I'll be deposed. What I can do, however, is take you off the territory myself. It'll take an hour to arrange."
Oh dear. I was all too aware that I would have to botch this negotiation somehow, else we'd end up escaping for real and Mam would be super pissed off. I reckoned I'd get us as far as the prison entrance and then I'd accidentally eject the magazine from the gun or something. It wouldn't be difficult. I had no idea how the thing worked.
"Alright, but you're going to unlock this cage before you go anywhere," I said. "And no bloody tricks, okay? He might be a puppy, but he's an Alpha puppy, and, believe me — I'd love to shoot him."
"Cub," Ellis whispered. "That's the proper word for an infant wolf, not puppy. I'm surprised you don't know that."
I gave him a rather aggravated look. Hayden was the same age as me. Perhaps even older. I wasn't calling him a puppy to be factually correct, was I?
Bryn leaned over and cuffed him for me. It was gentle, but it made a good warning. "Shut up, El."
"You have my word," Jace said suddenly. "No tricks. Now let Hayden go. You've got the gun — you don't need to be choking him, do you?"
Yes. First things first — take his advice and surrender our main leverage. It wasn't like we'd get very far dragging him by his neck anyway. I tugged on the mind-link, and Rhodri sent the boy stumbling back towards his father.
Jace caught his son and steadied him while he gasped for breath. He was rubbing at his throat, which looked like it was already starting to bruise. Beneath the pain and the embarrassment, I could see a little spark of hatred in those cold blue eyes now. He was furious that he'd screwed up, and that was now, of course, being directed straight at us.
"Chop chop," I snarled, pointing the gun at Hayden's chest. "Open the door or I'll put a bullet through his heart."
"Go ahead," Jace said softly.
That was ... weird. I didn't really know how to respond to this douchebag telling me that I should kill his only child. But there was a smugness to the tilt of his head and the set of his lips that made me wonder if he knew something I didn't. It didn't take long to guess what might be amiss.
"Check the mag for me, Bryn," I said, handing it over, because I ... yeah, I didn't actually know how to do that. I'd used a rifle once, and that was the entirety of my experience with guns. He took it and fiddled around with the mechanism for a moment, and then I heard a dull click. I hadn't taken my eyes off Jace.
"Yeah, it's not loaded," he told us, disgusted. "Um... This is. uh... This is awkward."
We made a good show of playing dismayed. Rhodri kicked at the bars, Sam groaned aloud and little Ellis started shaking harder. It was a good thing, really. No, we hadn't known he'd been bluffing this whole time, but this meant we didn't even have to pretend to screw up our escape.
The Alpha sighed at us and checked his watch again. Without a word, he beckoned his son, and the two of them disappeared from sight, leaving us in the cell. What the actual—?
"Um, hello? Still need to pee here," I called after them and got no reply. The corridor was at such an awkward angle that I couldn't even see where they were going. Goddess only knew how long it would take them to get back, but I knew one thing for certain. My bladder wasn't going to hold out much longer.
"There's a guard down there," Bryn said. His face was pressed against the bars, and he was squinting at a guard station further down the corridor. "Maybe you can sweet-talk him."
Perfect. He wouldn't let me out, I didn't reckon, but he would probably give me a bucket at least. I took Bryn's place at the bars and whistled loud and low. The distant silhouette looked up from the book he was reading and set down a carton of orange juice.
"Hey, you," I shouted. "Can you like ... come here? Awesome."
The guard stood up and came trudging down the corridor. The closer he got, the more confused I got, until I had to confront the harsh realisation that it was... It was — shit? A girl? What was going on here? The packs didn't have female fighters, let alone female prison guards. And yet there she was. Living and breathing. Flesh and blood.
She came right up to the bars and raised her eyebrows. I just gawped like an idiot. She was average height, with dark bronze skin and ebony-coloured hair. And if she was a fighter in spite of all the packs' sexist bullshit, she must have been one tough cookie.
"Can I help you?" she asked me.
Panicking, I shook my head and stepped backwards.
It was Rhodri who sauntered forwards and leaned against the bars and grinned at her. He could be charming when he liked, and the rogue girls usually fell for it.
"Hi," he said. "You doing alright?"
Instead of answering the question, which was so obviously a ploy to loosen her up, the girl looked him over carefully. She wrinkled her nose to check his scent, but she wouldn't find anything. It had been turned off since the bone fence. "What are you in for, kid?"
Kid? She was our age, or I was a flockie. Still, it was a good way to get on my cousin's nerves. He scowled for half a second before he managed to smother it.
"Being too pretty," he said without missing a beat. It was so rare that I got to see him flirting that I folded my arms and plastered a smirk on my face.
The girl crooked an eyebrow. "Is that right?"
"Mm-hmm."
She nodded even as she started to turn away. "Well, then, I'm going to walk away in three, two—"
"Trespass," Rhodri muttered grudgingly. He sounded embarrassed that it was something so trivial, but I reckoned that would actually work in our favour.
"So you haven't killed anyone?"
He shook his head. "Not today."
That was the wrong answer, apparently. The girl's eyes narrowed to slits, she took a step backwards, and she turned to go.
"Hey — I'm only kidding," Rhodri called after her. He ran a hand through his hair so it was all sticking up. "Sorry, alright? Would you just hear me out? Please?"
Sorry and please? He was really trying, bless him. I reckoned it had less to do with helping me and more to do with the fact that he clearly had the hots for this girl. Sure enough, she paused and threw an eyebrow upwards.
He grinned at her. "Awesome. I've got three questions. One — are you single? Two — if so, are all the men here blind? And three — my cousin here needs the toilet. You couldn't help her out, could you?"
The girl took a deep breath. Gathering strength, it seemed, for what she was about to say. Her mouth was a thin line and her eyes were dark. "Alright, pup. Listen carefully, because I'm only going to say this once."
Rhodri's grin melted away, and wariness replaced it. There was nothing friendly in those words.
"Yes, I am single, but it's actually because all the men here are exactly like you and I'm not into cocky pieces of shit," she began in a very matter-of-fact tone. "And, no, I can't help her. She pees when Alpha Jace says she can pee."
And with that, she went back down the corridor, propped her feet up on a table and went back to reading her book. Rhodri was left to stare after her, his forehead furrowed and his mouth slightly ajar.
"Well, that's never happened before," he muttered.
I bet it hadn't. Being Rhodric Llewellyn's grandson made him somewhat of a celebrity amongst rogues, so people paid attention when he spoke and generally tried not to annoy him, let alone ... whatever next-level verbal smackdown that had been. Perhaps he'd gotten too used to the pandering. It wasn't like he'd done anything to deserve it.
Bryn winced on his behalf, but I started sniggering into my hand and found I couldn't stop. The more I tried to muffle it, the worse it got, until Rhodri turned to look at me very slowly and I knew I was scuppered long before he thumped me.
I had to thump him back, and the thumps soon turned to shoves, and the shoves turned to rough-and-ready brawling within a few heartbeats. He managed to get me into a headlock, so I did the only thing I could and brought the both of us crashing down onto the cell floor. It was a race to get on top, as usual, and Rhodri won, as usual.
We were so preoccupied that we didn't notice the guard returning until she uncapped a cartridge of tear gas and threw it into the cell with a practised nonchalance. Ellis, Sam and Bryn were on their feet — they managed to scramble clear and escape the worst of it. But Rhodri and I got a face-full, and he had to roll off me and hack onto the cell floor.
My eyes were on fire. My throat felt absolutely raw. But the worst of the pain was in my chest — throbbing whenever I tried to take a breath. Once I'd started coughing, I couldn't stop. Basically, everything hurt, and I couldn't move, let alone speak. It was, if nothing else, an effective method of prisoner control.
There was some kind of vent above us sucking the stuff upwards, but it took a minute too long for me and my poor, damaged lungs. I had to just lie there, still as could be, and wait for the pain to stop. Only when the air around me was clear did the effects even begin to fade.
Between coughing fits, Rhodri looked up at the guard with complete and utter disgust. I had no sympathy for him whatsoever. He would heal twice as quick as me.
"What the hell was that for?" he demanded. "We didn't do shit to you."
She shrugged. There was a cattle prod in her hand, and she was tapping it against her leg. "No fighting. If it were up to me, you two could kill each other, but ... well, it's not."
"Fighting?" I wheezed. "We were just screwing around, dumbass."
Another shrug. "How am I supposed to know? Your kind are vicious with each other."
She wasn't half wrong. I could feel the bruises forming where Rhodri had fallen on me, but my lungs hurt much, much worse, so she could go to hell.
Rhodri rolled onto his back and groaned. "You could've bloody warned us, couldn't you?"
This time, the girl allowed herself the barest hint of a smile. "Yes, I could have."
Slowly, he climbed back onto his feet and limped over to the bars, where he spat at her feet and called her something very unrepeatable. She could have used the prod then. Could have and probably should have, because that's what I'd have done in her place.
But she just tucked the cattle prod into her belt and turned to walk away from us. We could hear her whistling long before she reached the guard station. She went back to reading her book, that smile in full force now.
"We don't use that word, Rhodri," I reminded him hoarsely.
He looked down at the floor like he didn't give a shit, but I could see him chewing the inside of his cheek. It was always been an easy tell. "Yeah, well, I just did."
The Lloyds came back within a minute. If they noticed our red eyes and hoarse voices, they said nothing, but I did notice Hayden grinning at the girl down the corridor. Between them, Prick Senior and Prick Junior were carrying five sets of handcuffs. And they made us put our hands through the bars to be cuffed one by one.
Ellis was exempt for being weak and cowardly. Sam, Bryn and I had ours cuffed in front of us, but Jace singled Rhodri out, probably for the whole neck-snapping affair. He had to turn around and stand still while the cuffs were cinched tight enough to pinch his skin. With his hands behind him, he couldn't run, let alone shift.
They took us out of the prison block through the back entrance because the next shift had already arrived, and not all of them would keep their mouths shut about captured Llewellyns. It was a long and gruelling walk, not least for Rhodri, who had Jace manhandling him the whole way. He clearly knew how to hold a grudge.
I thought he might put us in a quiet corner of the packhouse or something, but we were taken outside instead and led in a wide circle through the woods. Eventually, we saw a white building through the trees. It was large — four bedrooms at least, and there was a swimming pool out the back.
It appeared we were going to Jace's house.