“Stop!” I yelled at Clarke and the other guys, who were also reaching for weapons. I turned to the door. “Just a second.”

“What do you mean; ‘Just a second’?” the voice from outside the door parroted in disbelief. “This isn’t a negotiation. Open the damn door or we break it down.”

“You do and you’ll have a fight on your hands. Give me a moment and you won’t.” That seemed to shut them up, at least for long enough for me to talk to the guys. “I have to go with them.”

“No way.” Jackson shook his head. “We’re your protection.”

“If you lay a hand on a MacKenzie guard while you’re working for my dad then you’ll start a war,” I replied. “We have to go quietly or more people are going to die. A lot more. It’ll all work out. I’m not important enough to start a major incident but I’m too important for the MacKenzie to kill me.”

I could see in the guys’ eyes and in the tight clench of their fists that this went against everything that they believed. They did not back down from a fight and certainly not when they were protecting someone. Say what you liked about the Wolf Takers, and I wasn’t generally a big fan, they brought up their children with courage and loyalty. But they also brought them up to be smart and they knew that I was right, that if they resisted now they could start a war by throwing a single punch.

Clarke laid down his knife.

“I’m waiting,” came the irate voice from outside the door. “This isn’t how it’s usually done, you know.”

I walked over and opened the door. “Thanks for your patience. I am Hokkai Bailey, and I’m ready to come with you.”

“Take them all in,” the guard Captain said to the subordinates behind him.

“These men are just my bodyguards. You can let them go.”

“They helped you break Pack Law by crossing territories.”

“They’re human,” I pointed out. “That means they’re not subject to our laws.”

The Captain looked at my bodyguards with a sneer on his face. “Human bodyguards. How low the Hokkai have sunk. Is it any wonder your behavior is the disgrace of all werewolves.”

I could actually hear the fists of my three bodyguards tightening in anger at the man’s words, and I held up a hand, making sure they remembered what was at stake.

“If you arrest my guards then you answer to my father.”

“If I don’t then I answer to my Pack Leader,” the Captain replied. “What do you think I’m going to do?”

It had always been a long shot, but I was still frustrated, at myself as much as anyone else. Why hadn’t I just done as I was told from the start? True, the plan had worked and we now had valuable information to find who was funding The Brotherhood, but I had risked the start of a war and the lives of the three men who had helped me – and more. What the hell was going to happen now? And how mad was my dad going to be?

The guys’ hands were cuffed, and then, when the guards realized they were Wolf Takers, their ankles were cuffed, as well. We were all marched down to a waiting van and ushered into its dark, metallic interior. Not a word was said on the drive that followed, and if any opened their mouth to speak, they were hastily barked into silence by one of the guards who accompanied us. At the other end, we were off-loaded into an underground garage – all featureless concrete – and marched to a freight elevator.

“Take them to the cells.” The Captain indicated my bodyguards.

“Treat them well or you will answer to me,” I snapped. Maybe that wouldn’t have meant much coming from any other pretty, red-headed girl, barely over twenty, but I was my father’s daughter, and you don’t spend twenty years alongside a powerful Pack Leader without picking up a few tricks. I had a tone of authority that could make avalanches stop in their tracks, and when I spoke, these guards paid attention.

“You will come with me,” said the Captain, as the guys were ushered into the freight elevator. He said it, trying to be as commanding as I had sounded, but it was a poor imitation.

Passing up some flights of stairs and along a few corridors, drawing puzzled looks from passersby who either recognized me or were wondering why I was wearing a bathrobe, we arrived at a set of heavy oaken doors, carved in deep relief with crude scenes of carnage.

“Enter!” came the yell from within.

The door was hauled open by burly attendants and I entered the Great Hall of the MacKenzie, the most traditional of all the city werewolf packs. If that traditionalism was not evident from the large fire in the center of the room, the smoke from which rose to a hole in the raftered ceiling far above, then it was reinforced by the proud nakedness of the guards who flanked the wooden throne on which their Pack Leader sat. It was a traditional werewolf value, not to wear clothes, one that most packs had abandoned long before the Amnesty, but I couldn’t help thinking that they would have to draw their ceremonial swords very carefully indeed. MacKenzie Sean, a wiry figure with untidy hair and as naked as his attendants, leaned forward to address me.

“Are you wearing a bathrobe?”

“I left home in a hurry. Your guards didn’t give me the chance to change.”

“You may dispose of it if you wish.”

I took off the robe. Like most werewolves, I was comfortable with my nudity amongst my own kind – when humans are present, it’s hard to feel comfortable, they had a tendency to stare.

“Now,” Sean sat back in his roughly hewn seat, and I wondered about the danger of splinters, “what is an heir to the Hokkai doing in my territory without permission?”

“I am fifteenth in line,” I pointed out. “I would hardly say that made me an ‘heir’.”

“You are a daughter of a Pack Leader, that makes you an heir. For all I know, One-Eyed Jack has willed his lands to you when he dies – it’s common knowledge you’re his favorite. For now.”

“I’m pretty sure he hasn’t.”

“None of which answers my question. Heir or not, a member of the Hokkai Pack, even a wolf who simply swears loyalty to the Hokkai Pack, has no business in MacKenzie territory. Trespassers are lucky to be allowed out with their lives, and a member of the pack family entering another territory is an act of war, you know that.” He sat forward again, and for the first time I thought he might be talking to me rather than just playing his role of Pack Leader. “I don’t have to ask for a reason – the crime is pretty self-evident – but I am. I advise you to tell me what would possess you to do this.”

It was a fair question, but I had to be careful how I phrased the answer. Certainly, I did not want to say ‘well, I suspected you of funding The Brotherhood of Pure Blood’.

“You’ve heard of the attacks by The Brotherhood of Pure Blood on females who have gone with male humans?” MacKenzie inclined his head. “In the last week, there have been two attempts on my life by members of The Brotherhood. There was reason to believe that one of those attacks originated in MacKenzie territory, so I came looking with my bodyguards, who are Wolf Takers.”

“Why didn’t your father simply ask me to investigate?” asked Sean.

“My father doesn’t know I’m here. He wanted to keep me safe, I wasn’t willing to let others put themselves at risk to save me when I could do the job myself.”

Sean inclined his head again. “Your father must be very proud of you.” There was no sarcasm there, he meant it – to him, mine was behavior befitting a wolf.

“I’m sorry for entering your territory like this. It was certainly not intended as an act of war.”

Sean waved this away. “I’m not looking for war with your father. Which doesn’t mean I like having my borders ignored by Hokkai wolves but…” He shook his head. “The Brotherhood are good for no one. I’m a traditional wolf,” he stood as he spoke, displaying ample evidence that he was, indeed, a traditional wolf, “and I won’t lie to you; I find females mating with humans to be very distasteful.”

I waited – was he about to give something away?

“But we are werewolves,” Sean continued. “Werewolves take what they want. If human men are what these females – females like you – really want, then you have the right and the obligation to take them. I may not like the act, but I celebrate the strength they show to take what they want without caring what anyone else thinks. That’s the behavior of real wolves. These Brotherhood types,” he spat the words, “can you name a one of them? No. They hide in the shadows. They dare to call themselves werewolves when they won’t even come out and face their enemies. They take money from who knows where – that is their only strength. When a werewolf’s strength is his bank balance then he is no wolf at all.” He seated himself again. “I understand why you did what you did. If you were a daughter of mine…” He paused. “Well, I hope no daughter of mine would sleep with humans, and if she did, I would disown her. But if you were a daughter of mine, I would still be proud of the way you hunted down your attackers for yourself, rather than relying on others. I still would have disowned you, but proudly.”

“Thank you?” I ventured. I’d lost track of whether this was a compliment or not.

“Did you find them?”

How much did I want to tell Sean? His speech just then had sounded sincere, but by his own admission, he did not like females like me. I had to remember that I had come here to investigate the possibility of his personally funding The Brotherhood, and that still seemed like a reasonable idea. On the other hand, I needed to get out of here causing the minimum of fuss, to do whatever damage limitation was possible on my father’s reaction to this affair. I could not tell him about my schedule, about there being a traitor in the Hokkai Pack Court, but I would tell him about the chapter of The Brotherhood we had found under the church. That might even be for the best. If he was on the level then he could take that chapter out without revealing that I or the Hokkai were involved, thus not raising further suspicion.

I told MacKenzie Sean about the sting we had set up with myself and Colt, and of how and where Jackson and Clarke had located The Brotherhood hideout.

Sean nodded. “I’ll put it under observation. When there’s a good-sized group of them there, we’ll move in and kill them.”

A human probably would have had a more sophisticated plan – maybe following the members to see if they led elsewhere – but we were wolves, and that plan sounded pretty okay to me.

“Am I free to go?”

Sean looked at me hard for a minute. “You will be escorted back to your father’s territory.”

“Thank you.”

“Your bodyguards will remain here to be punished.”

I froze. “No.”

“I’m not having Wolf Takers coming into my territory and behaving like they own the place.”

“They were under my charge.”

“And now they’re under arrest.” Sean smiled, thinly. “They’ll be given a choice between prison and ordeal.”

I drew myself up. “Over my dead body. And I mean that literally. You will have to kill me to hurt them, and then you will have a war on your hands.”

Sean shook his head, his smile not moving. “You’re bluffing. You wouldn’t sacrifice your life for a bunch of Wolf Takers.”

“Try me.”

“You think I’m afraid to go to war?” Now, he was bluffing. As their traditional values demanded, the MacKenzie were a warlike pack, but they were also a weak one. They would be crushed by the Hokkai, for all their big talk.

“Let my bodyguards go.”

“Why would you put so much on the line for three humans?”

“I’m not asking again.”

Sean regarded me with an arch disgust on his face. “I see. The rumors are true then; you really will fuck anything. I’d have thought even you would draw the line at a Wolf Taker but there we are.”

I kept my cool. “Give the order to let them go.”

Sean gave the order to one of his guards, who hurried off. He turned back to me. “You make it very hard for me to have any respect for you.”

I smiled. “Right back at you, Sean.”

The supercilious expression vanished from the face of MacKenzie Sean. “You can take a message back to your father for me. Tell him, next time I won’t be so generous. Tell him, if this happens again we will meet in combat. And tell him to keep his fucking disgusting family in check.”

I just kept smiling.