When I awoke the next morning, the sun was bouncing off the snow outside and forced me to blink against the sudden onslaught of light. It took me a second to remember where I actually was; for a moment, I was sure I was back in that cell, deep in that compound, and my heart leapt up in my chest and I scrambled to my feet in a bleary state, certain that I was going to need to fight my way out.

But then I saw Luke lying next to me, on the rug next to the fire, his arm tossed out where I had just been, and I relaxed once more.

I was safe. I was here, with Luke, and the two of us had fallen asleep together after making love in front of the fire. There wasn’t much left of it now, the flames reduced down to a smolder, and I stretched as I stood. We had exhausted the pile that had been on the porch, and I could already feel the cold seeping into my bones as I went about my morning business.

From the bedroom, I heard the door click, and froze; was that Anton and Ethan back already? That would have been a little too quick, surely. I hung back behind the door, heart pounding, and slowly inhaled the scents of the people who had just entered our cabin. To my utter relief, I recognized them at once as the men that I had trusted my life to.

I stepped out from inside the bedroom, aware that I was only wearing a shirt and nothing more, and faced the two of them again.

“Hey,” I greeted them a little shyly, reaching for the pair of pants that I had discarded the night before.

“Hey.” Anton shook the snow from his hair and dumped a bag on the floor in front of them; they must have stopped to shift and dress on the way back here, because both of them were swaddled against the snow. I turned my back, a little self-conscious, as I hurried to finish getting myself ready.

“Did you get everything you need?” I asked, pointing to the couple of bags they’d brought in from the cold, and they both nodded; Luke had begun to stir and sat up, greeting the others with a nod.

“Yeah. I see you two made up,” Ethan remarked, cocking an eyebrow at us. I flushed. Was it really that obvious?

I opened my mouth to explain, but Ethan only nodded approvingly and shared a glance with Anton that had me snapping it closed again.

Sneaky bastards. They’d left us alone on purpose so we could work through Luke’s anger. My cheeks flushed as I recalled exactly how much we’d worked through it.

“You want something to eat? We brought weapons back with us, but we also brought food.” Anton ripped open one of the bags and pulled out a loaf of bread and proffered it to me. “It’s not much, but it’ll keep us going.”

“Let me get the fire started again.” I gestured to the remains of the fire we’d built the night before. “That way I can actually cook something. We need something warm in our belly. Then we can make a plan as to what to do from here.”

“I second that.” Luke yawned as he got to his feet, and soon enough the four of us were bustling around each other, getting the place set up for something to eat – they had managed to grab a few hunks of meat and some vegetables along with the bread, and it was more than enough to make a decent meal with. We cooked in silence, but it felt companionable, despite the tension and fear that was still raw and present between us.

“I’m so glad you’re all back okay,” I sighed as I handed out plates of food to the three of them, sitting down with my back to the fire and letting it warm me through. “When I heard you coming in this morning-”

“We’re fine. It was an easy run, actually.” Ethan shrugged. “I thought it would be worse. We did catch the scent of something, though.”

Ethan shot a glance at Anton, who seemed to fire him a firm “cease-and-desist” glare back, but Ethan just shrugged. I frowned and looked between the two of them. Luke was oblivious, too busy tucking into the food we’d put in front of him.

“Oh, yeah?” I prompted Ethan, turning my attention to him. I knew that Anton wouldn’t tell me if he didn’t want to, but now that Ethan had brought it up, I was pretty sure that I could coax it from him.

“Yeah, we did,” he nodded cautiously, mopping up some of the stew with a chunk of bread. “I’m pretty sure we came across a trail left by some of the guys from your old pack.”

My appetite vanished at once and I stopped eating.

“My pack?”

What the hell were they doing this far out here? It didn’t make any sense. The Kellum compound was so far away from here that they would have had to come out of their way to find it, out of their way to-

“Oh, shit.” I shook my head. “They’re looking for Cora, I bet. My friend who has been captured. They’ll be out here trying to find her if she’s gone missing.”

“Yeah, that’s what I figured.” Ethan shrugged. “If things ended as badly as you say, we could do without running into them, to be quite honest. Pretty sure they’re just going to get in our way and we have enough enemies right now.”

I fell silent, picking at my food some more. I knew I needed to eat, but something was niggling at me hard, and I couldn’t shake it.

It was a stupid idea. One that was almost certainly destined to fail, but desperate times…

“Or we could go find them,” I said flatly.

Anton raised his head and looked up at me with an expression of sheer incredulity in his eyes. I knew he was the alpha. I knew he was the one in charge, but that didn’t stop me bristling at the way he was looking at me right now. I could do without that glare, the one that told me that he was pretty certain that what I had just suggested was the dumbest shit he’d ever heard in his life.

“No, we can’t,” he corrected me grimly, spearing his fingers through his hair before blowing out a weary sigh, as though it pained him to say it as much as it pained me to hear it. “They exiled you, remember? They just left you out there in the middle of a war to die. You can’t just go back to them with your tail between your legs and beg them to change their minds and to welcome you back into the fold.”

“I’m not-” I snapped, and then took a deep breath. We didn’t need to be fighting now. No, I needed to find some way to get Anton to see my point of view. Because I was pretty sure what I was suggesting was the only chance that I had of making things right and getting Rafe back. “I’m not doing it for me or so they welcome me back,” I assured him. “And I hear you, I do. But if we go back there, talk to them a little bit, maybe they will help-”

“You think they’re going to listen to anything you have to say, after you sold them out?” He cocked his head at me. I knew he didn’t mean to be an asshole, but I had to press my lips together to keep from lashing back at him. I didn’t like being talked to like I was an idiot – it reminded me of too many times when I had been back home, when I had been trying to get involved with my father’s work and he had brushed me aside like I couldn’t possibly understand what he was talking about

“I don’t know,” I admitted. “But I do know that the MacLarens have one of their packmates, someone who wasn’t cut out, like I was. Someone good and loyal,” I swallowed hard past the knot of pain in my throat as I thought of Cora, “and I’m not sure my father can turn his back on her and not seem like a complete and utter monster to his people. That will be the kiss of death for him. They’re not perfect, but many in the pack have good, if misguided, hearts.”

“For all you know, he could kill you for even trying,” Ethan pointed out, and I felt my shoulders sag. As if I needed reminding.

“He could,” I murmured, dropping my gaze once more. “But I don’t think he will. I think we could appeal to their sensible side. You’re three very strong, healthy males and I’m pretty sure that any pack would at least have to hear you out before dismissing you outright. They’d be idiots not to.”

“Yeah, well, maybe that’s exactly what they are,” Anton cut in. “If he would go as far as to exile you, I’m pretty sure he’s not going to suddenly come around and listen to what we have to say.”

“So then, what?” I demanded, cocking my hands on my hips. “Do you really think we can break into the MacLaren place and get Rafe out by ourselves?” I pointed out. I was the only one who had really seen the inside of that place – they didn’t know what they were dealing with. I did. And I knew that the four of us wasn’t going to be enough to get us inside that place and make it out alive, no matter how badly we wanted to.

“I think we can give it a good shot,” Luke remarked, touching the small of my back in this secret little gesture that I knew was meant to calm me down but that had the complete opposite effect. I bristled at his touch. I didn’t want them talking to me like this – I needed them to listen, to trust me, to accept that we didn’t have much choice in the matter.

“Well, we can’t,” I shot back bluntly. “The only chance we have is if we go to my father. He’s not going to do it out of the kindness of his heart but maybe because he has something to gain by working with us.”

“Right. The girl…who is she to you, again?” Anton lifted his chin at me, speaking through a mouthful of food. “Why are you so sure that your father will give a damn about her and not you?”

“Cora.” I looked down at my hands. I wasn’t sure why, but something about saying her name out loud again made my heart hurt. No matter. They needed to know about her, about the bond we’d shared.

“She was my best friend when the two of us were growing up,” I explained, my voice soft, as though speaking too loudly would make it too hard to go on. “We were so close, right up until the day I was forced out.”

“Did she try to help you?” Ethan asked, and I shook my head again.

My heart gave a squeeze. “No. Short of leaving herself, she really couldn’t. She was always loyal to my father and the pack.” Maybe to a fault, but I’d always known it and I refused to blame her for my choices. I forced a smile and shrugged. “She was…she was the kind of pack member who worked for the good of everyone. Maybe that’s why she was taken, because she was so valued. She would leave a hole behind when she was gone. Like Rafe.”

There was a silence in the room and I knew that I’d managed to make something stick with them, at least for a moment. I held my breath as I waited for a response, praying that I’d done enough to let them know that this was what we needed to do.

“And you think your father would fight to get her back?” Anton asked, his voice making me jump even though he was right in front of me. I nodded slowly.

“I’m sure of it,” I promised him. “I know he doesn’t care about me-”

I had to catch my breath after that, the shock of the words coming out of my mouth so matter-of-factly unsettling me. Had I really accepted it that completely, after such little time? That the man who had raised me, who had defined the person I was, wanted nothing to do with me? I bit my lip. There was no time to think of that now. I had to focus on what mattered, and that was getting Rafe and Cora out of there alive.

“But I know he doesn’t want people to see him as the kind of leader who abandons his loyal pack members when they need him the most,” I finished up firmly. “He’ll help us. And I’ve seen inside that place – we’re going to need an army, or as close to one as we can get.”

Anton fell silent, and then glanced around the room, at Luke and Ethan. I shifted uncomfortably, waiting for an answer. I hoped that I had done enough to convince them that this was the only way forward, because I truly believed it was. So much so, that I was willing to do the unthinkable. I had to hope they would, too. For Rafe.

Finally, Anton let out a long sigh and shook his head. My heart dropped – but then he spoke.

“All right,” he conceded. “We go to your compound, we try to get your father on our side. If that doesn’t work, we come back, load up with the weapons we’ve got, and we prepare to head in alone.”

“Thank you for listening to me.” I felt a wave of relief that coalesced with an icy wash of fear. “At this point, I truly think it’s the only way. I think I can get him to listen to reason.”

“I hope so.” Anton grimaced, and he turned back to his food. The rest of us finished our food in silence, but my mind was racing.

I’d just poured every ounce of my heart and soul into begging for a chance to go back to my father and plead for his help. And truth be told?

I was almost just as terrified of what this would do to me than I’d been in the MacLaren’s cell.