After dinner, the four of us returned to sit about the fire in the main living room of the guys’ house. I sat in my makeshift bed, the covers up over my legs, Clarke took his habitual chair to one side of the fireplace, while Jackson took the opposite one and Colt made himself comfortable seated on the floor.

In the event, it wasn’t that long of a story.

“We were part of the raiding party that hit a Brotherhood base in Arctic territory early this morning,” Jackson began. “We took several prisoners who are with the Arctic Pack now, but I don’t think they’re high ranked enough to know anything. From all we’ve found so far, no one outside of the very top of The Brotherhood knows where the money comes from. They funnel it down to their grass roots members with a few specific edicts like ‘kill Hokkai Bailey’. Other than that, the leadership leaves the membership to their own devices. They don’t care what gets done in their name as long as members stick to the core principles.”

“It’s a good way to run a group like that,” put in Colt. “They get the maximum amount done for the minimum amount of organization, and when people get caught, they can’t reveal the plans of other chapters because they don’t know them, and can’t reveal who’s in charge because they don’t know that either.”

“Smart,” I growled. I hated it when the bad guys were smart. It was somehow very unfair.

“More important than the people is what we found there,” Jackson picked up the thread again.

“More copies of my schedule?” I guessed.

“A map of Hobton,” said Jackson. “Stamped with the logo of the MacKenzie.”

There was a long silence as this information sank in to Clarke and I. This was the place we had come so they could not find us. The place they would never guess we had come to because what sane wolf would? This was where I was supposed to be safe. Not only was I not safe, but I had succeeded in putting innocent people in danger.

“I still say this is the best place to be,” said Colt. “Even if they know you’re here, they’re not going to attack a Wolf Taker village. They’d lose too many people.”

“They’re fanatics,” said Clarke. “Fanatics don’t care how many die on either side. And their leaders certainly don’t give a shit. The bigger question is, how did the MacKenzie know where we were?”

“The general feeling is they must have followed you,” said Jackson.

“General feeling?” I asked.

Jackson shook his head. “I don’t know about any of this. Whoever is running things has gone to a great deal of trouble to cover their tracks, then they leave a map with the pack logo stamped on it?”

Clarke considered this. “I gotta tell you, Jackson, if anyone followed us then these guys are better than we thought, ‘cause I didn’t see a damn thing.”

Jackson nodded glumly. “I don’t know what to think, and it doesn’t really matter. Hokkai Jack has seen the evidence and is preparing for war.”

A cold feeling prickled across my skin. War between werewolves. And largely because of me.

“Look, however they found us,” Jackson went on, “and whatever happens next, our job remains the same; keep Bailey safe. I think Colt is right; this is the safest place. The problem is going to be convincing the village council not to throw Bailey to the wolves.”

“I’m not staying.” As ever, I made my own decisions, good or bad.

“Bailey…” Clarke began.

“You saw that kid this morning,” I rounded on him. “I’m not looking at something like that again. I’m not having people put themselves in danger for me.” Enough were already going to lose their lives in the city.

“It’s what we’re trained for,” said Jackson. “The whole village. It’s who we are.”

But I shook my head. “This village was not trained to protect anyone like me. And they don’t want to. I saw their faces this morning. If you have to talk them into protecting me and one of them gets killed… Well, it’s not happening. I’ll tell you that now. We don’t know what sort of numbers The Brotherhood might throw at us. So far, it’s only been a few guys but they’ve been one step ahead of us at every turn – who knows what they’ll do next? No one else is dying for me. No one.”

I think the guys would have liked to argue on but they had heard the determination in my voice. They’d heard it before, and they knew me well enough by now to know that it meant my mind was made up and that this was what was happening.

“Do you have an alternative plan?” asked Jackson. “Going back to the city isn’t an option with war coming. No way your father would allow it.”

“My family has a mansion in the country,” I said. “It can’t be that far from here. It’s off the beaten track and surrounded by woodland.”

“We shouldn’t tell anyone we’re going there,” said Clarke. “No one but your dad. Just in case.”

I nodded. “But we tell everyone that we’re leaving here. Otherwise, The Brotherhood might attack anyway.”

“That’ll make it much easier for them to follow us…”

“I don’t care. We’re not leaving this to chance.”

We finally agreed to a compromise where we would tell people we had left Hobton only once we were on the road, so by the time The Brotherhood knew we were leaving, we would already be on the move and they wouldn’t be able to follow us. But to the people of Hobton, our departure was certainly no secret. Though we left under cover of darkness, we were watched by that silent group that had stood vigil all day, their faces set in grim expressions. It didn’t feel good to me, I could only imagine how it felt for the guys, who knew every face that stared at them in judgment. Would they ever be able to go back home again? I hadn’t meant to hurt them – they were the people in the world I least wanted to hurt – but they had been hurt nonetheless.

It was not a long journey to the Hokkai estate – named by my father as Dun Shiftin – but we took a circuitous route so as to further confuse any who might be watching us. We were getting paranoid about being observed but, as Colt said, that was probably the safest way to be. It was in the early hours of the morning that we drove through a set of grey stone gates that looked more as if we were in Merrie Olde England than the U.S. Beyond the high walls languished a sprawling forest, where, during the season, my father invited friends over for hunts of the various game animals that lived there. My various siblings and I – full, half and who the hell knew – had often discussed whether larger game was also hunted there. People who angered my father had habit of disappearing, and while wolves couldn’t kill humans as indiscriminately as they had in the good old days, the police still turned a blind eye when those who disappeared were better off gone. Rumor had it that many a crime boss had woken up, dazed and confused in a wood, not knowing where he was, and the last thing he saw in this life was a pair of wide open jaws. Apparently, they were usually given a gun, too – just for the sport of the thing.

“This place is vast,” commented Colt, staring out the car window.

“All the better to lose you in, my dear,” said Clarke.

We drove through the wood, along the idling driveway, for at least ten minutes before the trees started to thin out into pasture, and beyond that, the sun just starting to rise behind it, was the house.

“How long have we been driving?” asked Colt.

“Few hours. Why?”

“We appear to be in a Jane Austen novel.”

“Dad had the whole thing transported over from England, brick by brick,” I said, not sure if I was proud or ashamed.

“We don’t have architects over here?” wondered Clarke. “Wait; Jane Austen?”

Colt nodded. “What?”

“Just never figured you for a Jane Austen fan.”

“Pride and Prejudice is a masterpiece. Northanger Abbey I could take or leave.”

“I like Sense and Sensibility,” I said. “The bit where…”

Colt put his hands over his ears. “Don’t tell me, don’t tell me, I’m reading it now.”

“You are full of surprises,” mused Clarke, shaking his head.

We pulled up on the wide expanse of weed-strewn gravel that washed up against the front of the house.

“Got a key?” asked Jackson.

“Of course. What would we do if I didn’t?”

“Break a window that was shipped over pane by pane from England.”

I unlocked the door and the guys wandered in, staring about them in grudging amazement. To me, Dun Shiftin was just a weekend home that we hardly used – I had grown up with it and was used to it. It now occurred to me that, to three people who had grown up in the type of homemade wooden house we had just left, this place might be quite impressive.

“What do you think?” I asked, flicking on the electric chandelier that illuminated the huge entry hall and the sweeping stairway that led to the upper floors.

Colt shrugged. “It’s got its charms.”

“Roomy,” Jackson admitted.

“Not what you’d call cozy, though,” put in Clarke.

“But nice,” Colt concluded.

They were winding me up but there was a kernel of truth in their critique. The house was extraordinary, but it seldom felt like home because it had seldom been a home. Houses absorb the personality of the people who live in them, the happiness of a family, the exuberance of a young couple; Dun Shiftin stood empty most of the time and it felt as if that emptiness had seeped into the walls.

“Let’s get a fire going,” suggested Jackson.

It was amazing how quickly a fire and the presence of all four of us in the living room, huddled about the fireplace as though the room was much less vast than it was, made it feel like home. Or maybe it was the people I was with who made it feel like that to me. I tried to suppress the feeling. Even if it was something that I wanted – and my own misgivings about the word ‘relationship’ remained – it was not something that could ever happen given our different backgrounds.

The cavernous dining room was no place for a convivial meal, and so we chowed down in the kitchen instead, chatting as we ate and drank, laughing and enjoying each other’s company. I could almost pretend that there wasn’t a group of werewolf zealots trying to kill me with the help of someone in my own pack. But not quite.

The other thing I could not quite forget was that I had slept with all three of the men seated around this table and I wasn’t sure if they knew it or not. Should I tell them? But if I told them then these close friends might turn on each other, might never speak again. I couldn’t live with that. I decided to keep my mouth buttoned, after all, there wasn’t any reason they should ever find out, because it wasn’t like I was planning to sleep with any of them again. Which was great, except… I really wanted to.

I tried to dismiss the desire; I was just trying to have my cake and eat it – and with cake that good, who could blame me? I had always been highly sexed and given the quantity and quality of the sex I had experienced with these three guys, it was only natural that I would want more. That was just the kind of girl I was, the kind of girl I always had been. Everyone knew that Hokkai Bailey slept around; that was how this whole damn affair started.

Except, it wasn’t just that.

It wasn’t just about the sex. The sex was awesome, as I had gotten to know my three bodyguards, my attraction had been joined by affection, and that affection had deepened the attraction into something I had never felt before; an attraction that went beyond the physical. I wanted to spend time with these guys. I wanted to hear about their days and meet their parents, and all that crap. I liked them for them.

And if they had been wolves then that all would have been fine. It would have come as a serious shock to me as I was not the type of girl who got feelings like that, but it was bound to happen sooner or later. If they had been wolves, then no one would have minded and there would have been no issue with there being three of them to one of me. That was how werewolves rolled when the mood took.

But they were human, which would be a problem for some werewolves; they were Wolf Takers, which would be a problem for most werewolves; and the fact that there were three of them? Might well be a problem for them, especially long term, given that human males were notoriously jealous and often repressed.

No, whatever pull I felt for these guys was doomed before it had even started. Which was all to the good, I told myself, because I didn’t do relationships.

Then why did it feel like crap?

“I assume,” said Colt, gazing about the living room to which we all returned after our meal, “that somewhere in this room is a drinks cabinet disguised to look like something else. Probably in a globe or a stuffed animal or something.”

I pointed. “That cabinet, there with the bottles in.”

Colt looked disappointed. “How boring. Oh well, drink is drink.”

As we all sat down around the fire, my feelings of closeness to these guys deepened.

“I…” I began to speak, struggling to find the words. “I wanted to say, how grateful I am for everything you’ve done for me, even when I’ve been difficult. And I wanted to say, how sorry I am for how everything has worked out with your family. I…” I couldn’t look at them as I spoke. “I never intended to lose you your friends or your family. I really hope they can forgive you for helping me.”

The guys looked about each other, then Jackson spoke. “Bailey, we don’t feel like we’ve lost a home or a family, we feel like we gained one. The four of us together is all the family we could ever want.”

The four of us together? Was my brain interpreting that more optimistically than he had meant it?

“We know that you’ve slept with all three of us,” said Colt.

I felt a surge of guilt. “Yeah. Sorry about that, it’s just… I like you all.”

Again, the looks were exchanged and this time Clarke broke the silence. “That’s a relief.”

“A relief?”

“Well, we all like you, too. It would be pretty awkward if you only liked one or two of us.”

Was this actually happening?

“No, no,” I quickly confirmed. “I definitely like you all. I just… I didn’t think you’d want to…”

“Share?” suggested Jackson.

“Yeah.”

Jackson shrugged. “You’ve seen Hobton. Communal living is our watchword. We share everything.”

“Even…”

“Well, not as a rule, no,” Colt admitted. “But the three of us chatted and… We can’t let you go. None of us.”

“Won’t it be weird?”

“The three of us have lived together much of our lives,” said Jackson. “We may not have gone quite that far before, but it seems like the next logical step.”

My heart could have sung for joy, but in the next moment, the voices of doubt thrust up. It was still impossible, there were still so many against us. It could not work. But those voices were stomped down again by my own strength of will. They might be right, they probably were, but just for tonight, I would ignore the voices.

Just for tonight.