“You did WHAT?!”

There was no doubt that One-Eyed Jack was a scarier person than MacKenzie Sean. He was louder, he was more powerful, he was more threatening and had a track record on following through on his threats with graphic accuracy. But he was also my daddy.

“Do you mind not shouting? I’ve had a really hard day.”

“YOU’VE…?”

“Easy Jack.” Farley Castleford laid a calming hand on my father’s shoulder.

I watched as Dad clenched his fist and beat it against the much-pummeled arm of his chair a few times as his face turned a deeper shade of scarlet and he fought for whatever self-control he could muster.

“I did do it all for the right reasons,” I pointed out, when it looked like he had calmed down a bit.

“The right reasons?” He seemed to be repeating what I said an awful lot. “You almost started a war, but you did it for the right reasons?”

“I think the chances of war were very slim indeed.”

My father shook his head. “They all said; you overindulge her; spare the rod and spoil the child. I didn’t listen and now look where we are.”

“Tell me you wouldn’t have done the same.”

That was usually my killer argument in these situations. The truth was that I was very like my father and when he was my age. He’d never done what he’d been told to do.

“Well, I wouldn’t have gotten caught,” Dad grumbled, at length.

“But you’d have tried to track down the people trying to kill you,” I pressed.

“Yes, of course, I would,” snapped my dad. “Honestly, your grandad once told me he hoped that one day I would have a child like me so I would know the hell of being a parent to a child like me. He’d have loved you.” His eyes now shifted from me to the three Wolf Takers who stood by the wall. They were none the worse for their brief imprisonment by the MacKenzie and, even now, in the face of my father’s rage – a rage that had quelled whole armies – they seemed calm and unflustered. It took a lot to scare a Wolf Taker. “Would someone like to explain to me how you interpreted ‘protect my daughter’ as take her into another pack’s territory and use her as bait? Anyone?”

“The best way to protect her was to take down those trying to kill her,” Jackson spoke without even a quaver of fear, and I felt an odd pride in him as he did so. “We didn’t let her go there, she went of her own accord, but the truth is; she had a good a plan.”

“I have hired men to conduct an investigation,” snarled my father.

“With respect, Pack Leader…”

“Screw your ‘respect’,” Dad snapped. “I’m a wolf, you’re a Wolf Taker – there’s no ‘respect’ needed.”

“With respect,” Jackson went on, unruffled, “how is your investigation going? Have they found anything?”

Dad looked away. “It’s early days.”

“They’ve found nothing so far,” Uncle Farley confirmed. “Or, at least, nothing worth anything.”

“Perhaps we could share what we’ve been able to find out, largely thanks to your daughter’s plan, and to her bravery.”

He gave a quick précis of events, ending with our discovery that there was a traitor somewhere in the upper echelons of the Hokkai Pack Court.

My father looked aghast. More than that, he looked… old. It was painful for me to see the father I loved, through all his faults, suddenly aging as he realized that one of his own most trusted advisors had aided in the plot to have his youngest daughter killed.

“Farley?” He looked to his friend for help.

“You’re sure about this?” Uncle Farley asked Jackson.

“Unless you can think of another way that schedule might have found its way into the hands of The Brotherhood.”

“Was it accurate?”

I nodded. “It was from a week ago. My day’s aren’t as regimented as my older… as the more direct heirs. But what they had was accurate to the minute. It was my schedule.”

Farley turned back to Dad and nodded. “That seems to settle it.”

“When I find the person responsible,” Dad growled under his breath, “then the things I will do to them will contravene the laws of God and man.” It was always his response in situations like this to issue blood-curdling threats of a hideously graphic nature, but even that now seemed somewhat half-hearted, delivered in a grim undertone rather than his usual bellow. He turned his eye back to me. “No more risks, Bailey. And no argument. I’ll get you new bodyguards, ones who are more able to look after you.”

“No.” For the second time that day, I was determined to fight to protect my guys. “I want them.”

“You didn’t a few days ago,” my father grumbled.

“Well, I do now.”

“Of course you do now, they’re just what you want in a bodyguard; bloody useless in keeping you where you’re supposed to be.”

“In our defense,” Colt piped up, “an army couldn’t keep your daughter where she’s meant to be.”

“It’s a credit to her father,” added Clarke.

“We couldn’t have stopped her from leaving unless we’d chained her up,” agreed Jackson.

Dad rolled his eyes. “Well, I could have told you that. Chaining her up was a perfectly valid option. Didn’t I make that clear? Next time, chain her up.”

“Daddy, I like them, they protected me when I’d put myself in danger, and they can kick serious ass.” I watched my father’s face as he fought over the decision within himself. Perhaps on another day he would have argued further, but I like to think I still would have gotten my own way in the end.

“Farley?” Dad once again turned to his friend, suddenly unable to make the sort of decision he had been making all his life.

Uncle Farley shrugged. “She’s still alive, so I’d say they were doing their job. And, frankly, she does seem to have made it as difficult as possible for them to keep her alive.”

Dad nodded. “Alright. But no more excursions, no more disobedience. You stay somewhere safe.”

“Yes, Daddy.”

“The question is where,” mused Uncle Farley. “Where can she go that The Brotherhood can’t reach her? If they’ve infiltrated the Pack Court then staying here certainly isn’t an option.”

My father nodded down into his chest. “Of course. I’m open to suggestions?”

“Well,” Uncle Farley began, “it’s a bit of a desperate measure, I suppose, but… well, if we’re looking for somewhere The Brotherhood have no influence then how about she stays with humans?”

“Humans?”

Farley shrugged. “Why not? Human bodyguards have worked well. Comparatively. And I think we all agree that trusting wolves at the moment is not an option. It seems the next obvious step.”

There were areas of the city that, while they still fell within one pack territory or another, were almost exclusively human. That was probably as far from Brotherhood influence as you could get within the city.

“We actually had a similar thought,” Jackson interjected. “Though, we went a little further.”

“Further?” wondered my father.

“Outside the city.”

A crease furrowed my father’s brow into a frown. “Sounds like retreat. I don’t like retreat. It smacks of weakness.”

“It would just be temporary,” Uncle Farley pointed out. “While she’s in danger. Where did you have in mind?”

“Our village,” said Jackson, having taken a deep breath.

“A Wolf Taker village!” It was actually nice to see my father raised to real anger again, yelling at someone. “I’m not having any daughter of mine living among Wolf Takers.”

“It would just be temporary,” Farley reiterated, but my father cut him off.

“I don’t care if you just want her to pop in for tea, I’m not allowing it!”

“Is anyone going to ask me what I think?” I asked, rather sharply, as I had been so far excluded from this conversation.

“I hadn’t planned on it,” muttered my father. It was an attitude I well recognized from his treatment of my mom, but I was not about to stand for it.

“It’s my life we’re talking about, my safety. I think I ought to have some say in how it is conducted.”

“You lost all say in how your life was conducted,” my father responded, his voice raising in volume once more, “when you ignored death threats, ignored me, ignored your bodyguards, crossed into another pack’s territory, used yourself as bait and almost started a war. I feel like we’ve reached the point where it is safe to say that you suck at running your own life.”

I let his rant flow over me like water off a duck’s back. “Maybe so. But it’s still my life, Dad. Mine to live. Mine to decide how I live. And yes, mine to fuck up. Everyone is entitled to fuck up their own life, it’s the joy of being an adult.”

“And standing back while your child does it is the curse of being a parent.”

I never really thought of my father as a ‘parent’. Which sounded stupid but… I knew that he loved me, but beyond telling me how to live my life, had never done any of the usual parental things. It was strange to hear him speak like that now, strange to think that he had probably always felt like that but had struggled to show it because he was who he was, and that was a façade that could never be let down. The great Pack Leader Hokkai Jack, One-Eyed Jack, could never be anything as prosaic as a father, scared for his daughter’s safety. He must have worried every time I went out with questionable company – which was a lot – every time I brought home strange boys – also, a lot – every time I had ignored werewolf tradition to do my own thing and pissed off a whole bunch of people. And this was where it had ended up. He probably blamed himself for not speaking up, not holding me back, not treating me like a child. I hoped that he knew that all the mistakes I had made were in spite of him, not because of him, that they had been the mistakes I had wanted to make and that I would make them all again in a heartbeat. I hoped he understood that. I could have told him, but again, I was so very like him, and these things are hard to say.

“We wouldn’t tell our villagers who Bailey is,” said Jackson, and I saw my father’s eye flicker as he called me ‘Bailey’. “We wouldn’t tell them what she is. There’s no reason anyone should find out.”

“You’d lie to your own people?”

“To protect Miss Hokkai, yes.” He got it right that time but the damage might already have been done.

Dad looked at me. “Go on then; what is it you want?”

“I think that’s where I’d be safest,” I said.

“For what it’s worth,” said Farley, “I agree.”

“Outnumbered,” muttered my father.

“Since when did that stop you?” I asked.

“True,” he nodded. “But, irritating though I find it, I think you’re all right. I think the Wolf Taker village is about the safest place from The Brotherhood I can imagine.”

I smiled. “Who would think to look for a wolf in a Wolf Taker village?”

My father returned the smile ruefully. “True. If only because no wolf in their right mind would go within thirty miles of one.”